Christmas Light Story

We had a great night last night... those of us with strep and all... it was still a great night.

I started dinner late, but had planned on making Shepherd's Pie. The kids like this meal pretty well. We sat down to dinner about 8pm. Picture this... 3 lbs of Ground Beef, 1 entire bag of frozen corn, 1 cup gravy, 4 cups of cheese and 16 cups of mashed potatoes. Yes... I like cooking big for the purpose of leftovers. Well... there were NO leftovers last night. Those kids ate and ate and ate and ate. Over and over again I heard how wonderful it was.

This morning I called the new DCF guy, Jay. I had to leave him a message. Poor guy.... brand new to the system and already I have to give him a hard time. My plan is to tell him that he MUST follow up with DCF and make SURE they straighten out the kids insurance mess... or else I am going to be forced to take a stand, gather all bank records of co-payments and such and demand reimbursement for their serious delays and mis-managed records. So far... he's not called me back. (No big surprise there, huh?)

I was talking to my boss this morning who was talking about the 3-story home he just built and the problems he was having with the elevator in the home. I immediately started thinking about medical expenses... how I didn't want to go spend $35 for an office visit to find out if I had Strep Throat or not. No... "didn't want to go" is not the right phrase, "couldn't go" is more accurate. It's that whole paycheck-to-paycheck thing. I realized at that time that, since I get paid only once a month and scheduled all my bills to be paid online the day after that.... how many MORE days there were to the month when I had next-to-nothing in the bank than days when there is an extra $35 in there. It's frightening really. It occurred to me how there are SO MANY people in this country who can not possibly imagine what that is like. So many people who couldn't fathom having to wait 3 days till payday to buy milk and bread, or not going to the doctor because there is nothing extra for the month. I'm not resentful to those people by any means... instead I envy them.

After saying that - I went online looking for a suitable envy quote... and instead found this:
"Envy is a symptom of lack of appreciation of our own uniqueness and self worth.
Each of us has something to give that no one else has."
My goodness, is that true or what? I mean... I might envy that person who doesn't have to worry about stretching the dollar, but... there is a unique and... dare I say glorious awareness about being where we are financially. Not poor. Not wealthy. We are somewhere in between.

I think about our lives years ago when we had better jobs and more money. Did we do better things... give money to the Church, donations to worthy causes? No. By the same token we didn't live high-on-the-hog, so to speak. We did eat out anytime we wanted to. If Jonathan or Amanda needed a shirt for school, I'd just go out and buy it. We went an saw movies when they first came out. Certainly I was less stressed about money. But we spent very little time as a family. Virtually NO time around the dinner table, little to no time with homework. All the neighborhood kids didn't flock to our house to hang out because things were so 'family-oriented fun'... our kids went to other kids houses. We didn't attend church. And... looking back now.... I would have to have called all of us self-centered.

And now... we have just enough to cover bills and expenses. We have dinner together as a family almost every night. Spend time with the kids talking about homework and their day at school. Our house IS the house where everyone else comes to hang out and play. We attend Church on a regular basis and although can't donate money to it often, we do give lots of time and use our talent to glorify the Lord. And as for Chris and I... for the past year now our lives have nothing to do with "us" - there is absolutely no self-centeredness to us at all. And - God was gracious enough to allow us to do all of this while not being totally 'poor'... but instead, just giving us enough money to do what NEEDS to be done. More stress?? Yes indeed. But -- do the benefits outweigh the stress?? Most of the time I think yes!

So... I've been seriously thinking about it... and after the kids are grown and out of the house, I might seriously think about writing a book. Not just about the kinds of things I talk about here in my blog... but there are many more things that I do not blog about. I don't know who would agree to publish it... but I have lots to say.

Speaking of lots to say.... let's share the Christmas Light Story.. shall we?

Everyone has their own Christmas Light Story... I know. We all have that love - hate relationships as it pertains to those ding-dang lights. Remember the days when one broken light could ruin a whole strand? Yeah... those were the days.

My story begins at a house on Westshore Circle in South Tampa. Chris has always been a "Gotta be better than the next door neighbor's Christmas lights" kind of guy. Every year adding more lights and more lights to the collection.

Chris worked tirelessly in the yard putting lights on every nook and cranny of the house. Along the gutters. In and around the trees. Along the driveway. And in the bushes. Each bush had it's own color, with the chaser lights outlining the frame of the house. Chris worked all day getting them 'just right'. There were extension cords linked to extension cords which plugged into outlets inside and outside the house. They now made the strands the didn't go out when one light was out, but he worked hard to make sure every light in every strand had all working lights so it would look marvelous.

The day faded into night, and finally... he was done! He called Amanda, Jonathan and I out to view the glorious site from the street. I guess you are better able to 'soak in all the beauty' when the distance is from the middle of the street. He's standing there... hands on his hips, head held high, with that "Yep, I did this!" look on his face. And then......... it happened. One strand went out.

It was a red strand on the bush next to the driveway. "Ah crap" or something more vulgar Chris mutters and he walks up to fix the lights. He walks up to the bush... shakes the strand, and nothing happens. He begins to check each bulb, moving around the bush as he's doing so, and - wallah - the lights come back on. He re-joins us in the street - hands back on his hips. "Yes," his looks says "I fixed that". As we are walking back to the front door the same strand of lights go off. We head inside and Chris works on them some more.

Over the next few days Chris realizes that it must be a loose connection in the wiring of the strand because... seemingly for no reason they would just go off and on. We'd walk outside the front door, look to the right, and they were off. He'd go over there, walk around trying to find the loose bulb and - boom - back on again.

Other times we'd be out, come home and night, and the strand would go off, then on. Chris figured perhaps the wind was blowing just right to make the loose electrical connection turn the lights back on. It was frustrating to say the least.

Day after day night after night this continued. Chris was quickly becoming frazzled I could tell. The lights, I'm sad to say, had nearly beaten his love on the Christmas lights. He now resented going outside to see them... as half the time the one strand would be off.

The one day it happened. I was driving later at night, and while still in the street, I can see the strand is out again. I pull into the driveway, and -- the lights come on. I think I was sitting in my car listening to a barbershop learning tape because I didn't get out right away. I remember sitting in the car for a while and I watched as the red lights went out again. By this time I wasn't thinking it was odd... instead I was cursing under my breath as Chris had worked on this so long. I honestly believe that it would have been easier to go to CVS and just buy another red strand and replace them!

I get out of the car and the red strand comes ON again. Hmmm... I think.... that was odd. Chris is inside the house watching TV, and I take a moment to observe the strand. I know Chris has individually replaced by now every single bulb in the strand, checked the connection... so I just survey the surroundings. I see the extension cord.... follow it with my eyes... and where is it connected? What is it's power source???????????

The motion sensor light in the driveway.

The lights are out of it, but there was an outlet there, and he plugged the lights into that.

I go inside the house, get Chris, take him outside, and ask him to follow the strand and see if he saw anything wrong.

You could have blown him over with a feather when he realized what had happened. All the time spent replacing each bulb. The care he gave it. The time he gave it. The curse words said around that bush as he was doing this day after day. We then put the pieces together and realize that every time the lights went on was when he had walked on the side of the bush closest to the driveway, which would make the motion sensor turn on. If you approached the bush from the house you were nowhere near the motion sensor so it stayed off. Until you walked around to the other side of the bush.

Needless to say... we are much more careful about where we plug in our Christmas lights now!