I won't lie to you

the last week has been ridiculous.
  A coworker came over to tune up the lawn mower a couple of weeks ago. They generously replaced the blade and the oil and then proceeded to cut my lawn, which takes about two hours. For their trouble I fed them lunch, they wouldn't accept anything more than that. Last week I mowed my lawn myself. At some point I hit...something...and bent both the brand new blade and the frame of the mower. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was that. Time to pull out a hammer and fix the mower, not a good feeling. Problem One: Solved

  The furnace in this delightfully old (and huge) rental house has been spastic at best since we moved in. Last week it finally gave up the ghost. I'm not really in a position to call the landlord about it since we're on a month to month lease and I'm about to tell him to remove the other person from the lease, which could very well prompt him to tell us to find a new place to live. It's very close to summer though, so I've been using the fireplace and some small space heaters wisely so we've been fine. Chilly Seattle days being what they are, sometimes it gets colder in here than you'd expect, but we manage. Problem Two: Handled

  But because the universe just can't handle a few weeks without some sort of chaos smacking me in the face... It was only after the 30 minute drive to the zoo and the finagling of a parking spot on Saturday that my power steering crapped out. And by crapped out I mean exploded. The kids and I walked through the zoo anyway, we were meeting a friend and I'm not letting a stupid car ruin our fun when I have a membership for goodness sake, and then we tackled the conundrum of how I was supposed to handle my huge ass SUV without any power steering. Now, I recently heard power steering referred to as a "nicety", but let me tell you, when you have to navigate a parking garage twice a day just to go to work, you suddenly begin to appreciate the ability to actually TURN YOUR CAR before you HIT SOMETHING. So I skipped church to find one of the few auto repair shops in our town that is open on Sunday. Found a shop all right. Walked around and rode the bus with my kids for 8 HOURS. Finally settled back into the waiting area at the shop when the tool they were using to replace my power steering pump broke off IN THE PUMP. By this point it was too late for either a replacement part or a rental car, so I had to bum a ride home from a nearby coworker and figure it out from there. I would like to tell you that this sort of craziness is rare, but I'm pretty much hexed and this sort of thing happens around me all the time. Thankfully the part was successfully repaired today, with a free oil change and a hearty discount to sweeten the delay a bit. Problem Three: Handled, no wait scratch that, okay handled again.

  The kids flooded the bathroom. Nobody is really sure how, or if they know they aren't squealing, but I am sincerely impressed that they could get that amount of water out of a standard toilet. Laundry is my nemesis, and will continue to be since it took every towel in the house to sop up that mess. Problem Four: Gross, but handled.

  My (I don't know what to call him. Ex? Estranged spouse? What?) finally came by to see the kids just before he left town for a while, so that really improved their moods. My oldest son, who is an Autism Spectrum kid btw, has been doing rather well lately. I am finally happy with myself again, and that is a priceless feeling that I wouldn't trade for anything.

  In a few weeks I'll probably look back at this random series of events and laugh. But first I'll have to find out where that leak is coming from  in the washing machine...
  

Okay, a couple of points here

1) If you tell someone that you love them and respect then and appreciate having them in your life and want them back, following it up with "You don't deserve any of my retirement because you didn't work for it, I did" is not really the best way to make them believe you. Especially when they have worked their rear end off for 14 years to keep your home and bills and kids and responsibilities on order so you could go do whatever your job required of you. I'm an Army wife, you're lucky you didn't get knocked on your ass for that one.

2)If you do happen to find yourself in the position for your marriage to be ending, and your wifely person is doing their level best to keep things fair and not totally rake you over the coals, even though they could, and being nice enough to walk you through the paperwork and not take the lawyer route, even though they could, it's probably not the best idea to throw at them the aforementioned sentence. Such belittling comments don't do much to make them feel like any magnanimous gestures on their part are of any worth. I could be awarded far more than I believe is fair if we took this in front of a judge, I don't want that to happen. I am trying to preserve quality of life for everyone involved, and I don't have to do that. Don't be an ungrateful ass and make me regret trying to be decent.

And that, my friends, is the nice version...

Any day now

Been a busy couple of months. I went to OKC for work, then I came back, then I went to DC for work, then I came back. It's awfully hard to travel for work when you have 3 kids and no support network. Since dh and I are separated he has no desire to watch the kids so I can work morning shifts or take work trips. He feels that's something a spouse does and I don't want to be his spouse so why should he help? I'm not going to pick apart that logic, I know it's because he's hurt and, well, it is what it is. To his credit he did watch the kids for my DC trip and he stepped up when I had a last minute schedule change this week. Just asking him makes me feel awful though, since I know how much he hates it. The program I'm running goes national in June, and I'm supposed to fly to OKC again to start teaching the workforce. I'm hoping to find a way to take the kids with me, that would be a treat for everyone I think.
January was when dh moved out and that part was pretty rough. I never thought it would fail, I would fail. And just because it wasn't working doesn't mean it was an easy decision. I tore myself apart for years over this, and though I know this was the right thing, the realization that I'm about to be a single mom who crushed someone's world is a heavy burden. That's a lot of stuff coming from a lot of directions.
Right now it's just about slowly separating our finances and interests and trying to simply survive. My world is crumbling at the edges. I can't keep up with chores and errands, I have an outpatient procedure coming up, divorce paperwork is very confusing, my middle boy is taking his father's absence very hard, and oh so much more. Every day is work, from dawn to dusk. Get up, get things done, go to bed. Get up the next day and do it again. There have been some rays of light that feel like warm tender mercies, like the chance to go to the local Comicon and a coworker coming over to tune up the lawnmower and do some yard work. A family from church took the kids for a couple hours one day, and another friend has proposed a babysitting swap so I can get some down time now and then.
I'm still here though, still kicking and scrambling, still reaching for that joy God wants for us all. I have a strange sense of peace amid the chaos, moments of calm in the storm. I know I'm going to start figuring it out soon, pulling together all those loose ends and moving forward.
I'm counting on it, any day now...