Murphy lives here.

Have you ever had one of THOSE days?... Or weeks?... Or months? The last few weeks have just been one of THOSE times for our family. You know the kind. You just want to shake your fist at God and shout "Hey You up there! Didn't You promise that You wouldn't give me more than I could handle? I've about had it, here!"
It all started with the truck. I like to make sure we take good care of our truck. After all, it's the only means of transportation we have, and I am thankful for it every day. (Thanks, Dave and Donna!) We had just taken it in to do some regular maintenance on it, and no sooner did we get it back than the air compressor went out and busted one of the brand new belts we had just had put on! Not sure if you've priced air compressors lately, but it's not typically the kind of money I just have hanging around in my back pocket. The next week, the air conditioner in the house stopped working. Now I know what some of you may be thinking... You can live without an air conditioner. Um no, I beg to differ with you. One cannot live without an air conditioner in Texas. Really, people around here literally die from heat exhaustion when their air conditioners go out. While working on an art project Wednesday afternoon and "watching" a movie, I hear a loud "POP" from the television, and realised that the projector lamp in my DLP had burned out. Greaaaaat. Thursday evening, I came home to discover that in a span of about 45 minutes, someone had opened my front gate and two of our dogs were gone. I have spent 5 days now searching for them in every way I know how, and NO ONE has seen them. Today, my internet suddenly stopped working, and I called only to discover that I forgot to pay the bill last month. OOPS! Can't I get a freebie flake moment every now and then? No? OK, I'll pay the re-activation fee, and let's take care of this month's while we're at it. Maybe I won't forget that way.
Sometime in the midst of all this madness that directly affects my life, I learned that one of my friends from high school had passed away unexpectedly. From heart failure. At 32. Not the way you expect to lose a friend when you're in your 30's. He left behind a baby girl, a step-son, and a fiancee who is now a single mother of two.
Reflecting on Drew reminds me that God has not given me more than I can handle. We're really OK. Fixing everything that has broken wasn't cheap, but we had the money squirrelled away in savings. I miss our dogs terribly, and telling the children was awful, but whatever happens, life will go on. Certainly if we never find them, it won't be for lack of looking. We've done all that we can. I only hope that whoever has them (and I really think someone must, or the spoiled ones would have come home by now, looking for that air conditioning we just had fixed) will either contact us, or is caring for them, and loving them.
So, where does that leave us? Well, I can honestly say that I am done with Murphy's Law. Murphy needs to go stay with someone else for a while. But things could be so much worse. I could be in El's shoes - pregnant and separated from my husband. Or I could be in Quiana's shoes - having just lost my love and still needing to take care of my babies. Things have been worse. Jonathan and I have joked many times that we're getting the "worse" and "poorer" out of the way now, so we can enjoy "better" and "richer" later in life. Today, my blog friend Lauren reminded me that this life isn't supposed to be easy. On one hand, God promised that He wouldn't give me more than I could bear, but on the other hand, He tells me to put on armour. This life is supposed to be a battle. Day after day. I take comfort in the fact that He is watching over me. If you don't check out any of the other links in this post, promise me you'll check out that last one. I promise you'll be blessed by it.