When it rains, it pours

It's raining today. In more ways than one.

It already had been a tough weekend. Phoebe and Kates fell ill, and I was racing back and forth from the duplex to our new house with car loads of belongings. ... The good news is the old place and the new place are only a few blocks apart. But we have little time to waste because there's a new family set to move into the duplex, and we agreed to vacate the premises a week from today.

I took the today off from work so I could continue moving our belongings to the new house, take care of a laundry list of errands and begin work on some of the wallpaper tear down and painting we're hoping to finish before we make the move to full occupancy next weekend.

Everything was going fine. For once I had enough time to eat breakfast. I watched part of Enchanted with Phoebe. I got her ready for school. We were leaving for school ...

And then my car wouldn't start. Perfect.

After turning the ignition switch again and again - and again - I sent a text to Kates with the unfortunate news.

Luckily she was in a planning period and could break away from her school day to rescue Phoebe and I. Once she arrived, I took her back to school, finally got Phoebe to the daycare and then called for a tow to take the Little Green Machine to the service station.

As I suspected, it needed a new battery. The mechanic said he could do the job in a half hour. Great.

So at about 11 a.m., I could finally begin working on the things I'd planned to start doing around 7:30.

Eventually I landed at Walmart and waited for what seemed like another three and a half hours for someone to mix the paint I needed. At the checkout counter, I came upon an older woman who was commiserating with the clerk about the trials of her day. The woman said she was on her way to spend time with her sister who was battling cancer; the woman added that she was undergoing cancer treatment herself -- and her cow gave birth to a calf this morning.

"When it rains it pours," the clerk said.

Suddenly the troubles of my day and my rinky dink car battery didn't seem so bad.

I made a couple more rounds of transporting boxes to our duplex, the house and back, and finally settled into work at the house around 2.

I so wasn't looking forward to an afternoon of tearing down wallpaper. But as luck had it, some friends loaned us their steamer and once I got it going -- I went to town. I had the whole room finished in a couple hours.

At 5, Kates was finished with her school day, I picked her up and we retrieved the Little Green Machine. Kates took it to pick up Phoebe at the daycare, while I returned to the house to resume my work.

When Kates and Phoebe arrived at the house with another picnic supper, Phoebe bounded through the door, shouting, "Daddy your car works!"