While Daddy's Away, Part 2

I realized that I didn't have the energy to post anything last night, so I'll post about yesterday some time later today because a "funny" thing happened that is just so odd, I don't know what to do but blog about it.

Anyway, this morning, started off kind of rough so it takes precedence since I really need your prayers to make it through these next couple days before C returns!  I feel very overwhelmed.

I got up to go to the chiropractor's for my scheduled adjustment and when I went out to my truck, I noticed the driver side door was ajar.  Odd.

Then I instinctively opened the door and quickly realized the inside had been ransacked!

My glove box was open and obviously had been dug through, the center console was open and had been rifled through, and the "ashtray" had been pulled out from the dash and was sitting on the front seat.

Yes, we had a break in.

Thanks to God that nothing was broken and as far as I can tell, nothing was missing (there was nothing valuable in there that I can recall) and best of all, none of us were hurt.  But still, it's creepy having strangers go through our stuff and even more so when the head of the family is a great distance away.

We live in a good neighborhood with very little crime.  Our vehicles are all too big for our garage, so they do live on the driveway, but we are careful to lock our doors every night.  Except, last night, my hands were full when I walked in and so I think maybe I forgot.  But I'm not sure.  The van was definitely locked and they didn't get in there, so I'm thinking my truck must have been unlocked.

Hmm.

Anyway, after I called the police who came out to the house to make a report and fingerprint the truck and stuff (they said they didn't find any fingerprints, but I'm thinking they probably found way too many fingerprints and couldn't tell them apart, ha) and I gave them a hard time about making my truck dirty with their fingerprint dust (as if it was clean beforehand), the kids were all rattled and so I decided to make a fresh start by taking them to breakfast.

At breakfast, O was literally screaming out loud at people who were frustrating him (mostly siblings), Z was crying, tears and all, about missing Daddy and E was screaming every time she would drop her crayon on purpose and we weren't immediately picking it up.  But we did manage to eat.

I'm sorry to the guests of Denny's for ruining your breakfast with our chaos this morning.  I hope the rest of the day goes better for you.

On the way home, we wanted to stop at a car wash so that every time I open my car door, I didn't get black dust all over me.  I usually like our local Octopus chain for car washes, however, E fell asleep promptly as we got in the car, so we decided to go to a gas station car wash where we could all sit in the car as it was being washed.

Midway through the soap phase, the car wash suddenly died.

Can you believe it?!

It eventually restarted.  And stopped.  Restarted.  And stopped.  It sputtered it's way through the final phases, thankfully getting to the rinse cycle but I wasn't sure we'd make it at all.  Phew.

The fingerprint dust is still all over my car door. And I still didn't make it down to the chiropractor's office.  And siblings continue to have significant unrest between them today.

Sigh.

May the good Lord see fit to keep allowing these challenges to test our faith and help us through every one of them in effort to strengthen us or may He graciously protect us from further trials until at least C is home again so we can face them together. His will be done.  It's all in His hands because I cannot bear this alone -- or sometimes it seems, at all.

This week seems to be moving along so slowly!