Murphy Please Go Away!
By glblguy
(no, this is not my arm)
Matthew 16:23 – “Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me…”
Ever have one of days, weeks, months, or even years where things just seem to go wrong? In the Glblguy’s household it has been one of those months. It seems like for every one step forward, we take 10 steps back. Thank God though that he provided me with the knowledge to establish an emergency fund. Our emergency fund has been a true blessing this month. Let me explain…
Broken Arm
Yesterday was a record setting day for GLBL. I reached my goal of more than 1,000 visitors in a single day and received my first advertiser. Everything was going great, right up until I fell coming down our stairs last night (while carrying our 18 month old daughter). My instinct was to protect her and in doing so I landed straight down on my hand and broke both forearm bones right behind my wrist. Very painful to say least. Our daughter was fine though, just scared her.
Next stop, a 3 hour visit to the emergency room. For the time being, I am now the one armedblogger instead of the Glblguy ;-)
Cost: A $100 co-pay and $20.00 co-pay for pain medication.
Aquarium
If you haven’t read about my recent adventures with our new salt water aquarium, you can do so here. The saga continues as we continue to battle various diseases, anemones that are harmful to the tank, and black algae from outer space.
Two types of antibiotics and chemicals to kill the harmful anemones: $50.00.
TV Bulb Goes Out
One of the spending splurges I made about 3 years ago was on a 55″ rear projection HDTV. Turns out, the bulbs used in these TVs last about 3 years.
While my 4-year old was watching Scooby-Doo over the weekend,the bulb blew. My initial search for a replacement yielded bulbs costing around $400.00!! After a little digging though, I found a place that sells OEM replacement bulbs for $150.00+shipping.
Total Cost = $170.00
Sick Kids – Missed Two Birthday Parties
My two younger sons were invited to two different birthday parties over the weekend. Of course, a few days before they both came down with colds and weren’t able to go to either. They don’t get invited to many, and the one big weekend they had, they couldn’t go. Not to mention both of these were children of really good friends of ours.
Medical Flex Account Ran Out
When I did my benefits enrollment last year, my 7 year old son had not yet been diagnosed with diabetes. As a result, when I determined how much money we should have placed in out Medical Flexible Spending Account (FSA) I didn’t account for his insulin, test strips, etc. If you aren’t familiar with diabetes, these supplies are very very expensive. This week we ran out of FSA money. Of course we can still afford it, but it’s going to impact our budget and debt snowball for the rest of the year.
I knew this was going to happen, just didn’t think it would be so soon.
Rotten Wood on our House
While walking around our desert…er…yard this weekend, we realized that our house needs some fairly serious repairs. We have a large amount of trim and wood siding that is rotten and needs to be replaced. I am also pretty sure our entire wood chimney needs to be rebuilt, as we’ve had the trim replaced a few times, only for it to rot out again .
We also have a black mold on our roof that is common here in North Carolina on north facing homes that needs to be treated and cleaned off. The whole house also seems due for a new paint job as well.
All together, I am sure this will all total between $5,000 – $10,000 dollars!!!!
—–=====—–
Murphy, Satan or both, whomever you may be, we generally enjoy having visitors. You however are not welcome, and we would kindly appreciate you moving on or going back to wherever you normally hang out. I think you’ve stayed long enough.
I am going to do my very best to continue posting daily, but if i miss a day here or there over the next few days, please stay with me. My arm is hurting pretty bad, and typing with one hand is pretty inefficient. Please keep me in your prayers for a quick recovery.
Has Murphy ever moved into your house for a stay?
October 10th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Paying for healthcare sucks.
Random stuff happens all the time, hopefully your next lot will be more pleasant.
October 10th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Wow. That’s some serious murphyness.
October 10th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
@plonkee – Are u sure it’s random?
@Justin – Yep, He wasn’t kidding around this time.
October 10th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
I feel for you. And yes, Murphy visits us in cycles. We’ve been going through some serious murphyness this year. Actually it started last year on Thanksgiving when my husband broke his finger (needed surgery & 3 months of rehab) and his dad went into the hospital the same day. His dad passed away less than a month later, and we had to deal with that, the hand, and some family drama.
Follow that with a surgery for me, a few job changes for him, and well…..it’s just been one of those years.
In Bible study we’re studying Peter, trials, & suffering. Seems appropriate. At least we can be thankful for the intense spiritual growth that seems to accompany hard times, right?
October 10th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
So hurt. Do you have some medical insurance to cover you?
October 10th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
GLBL, sorry to hear about your bad luck.
October 10th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
@Lynnae – thanks, and I agree about spiritual growth.
@Yinac – I sure do. Can’t imagine how much this would cost without it.
@SGM – Thanks!
October 11th, 2007 at 1:16 am
So sorry to hear about your rotten month, GLBL! So fortunate your little girl wasn’t hurt. Hope everyone in your house is feeling better soon.
Murphy lives at my place. I’m sure of it. In almost 13 years of marriage: one flooded house (six months after we married, no flood insurance), one flooded sister’s house, day after she bought it. Two houses to rebuild on a shoestring. One very unmechanical husband who belongs to the “never use a screwdriver when a sledgehammer will do the trick” school of home maintenance.
While rebuilding: a) husband sets bathroom on fire while sweating pipes (upside, we get to meet the neighbors when the fire alarms go off and we find out we have an outside strobe light and not one but two air horns we weren’t aware of when we moved in…which require cutting the wires to turn off, since we also don’t have the code for it). Hmmm. b) add in husband’s rusty nail punctures and serious cut while rebuilding. Then four miscarriages, a job loss the day we found we were pregnant with the one that actually took, six operations (one for my daughter and five (eek) for me). Two blown engines, two car accidents (his). Then Hurricane Katrina–sis’s house floods again and a tree nails the roof. Our best friends move in for a year with us, while hubby works from home and daughter goes half-days to school for a year so we can share our school with the one that was wiped out. Oh, there were also five foreign exchange students and numerous friends who needed a place to land for a while, in between all these things.
It’s actually kind of funny. I swear, you can’t make this stuff up. The sig line on my email reads: ‘And on the eighth day, God said, “Okay, Murphy, you take over!”‘
Just keep telling yourself “this, too, shall pass.” I tell myself that a lot. Sometimes while knocking my head against the wall…..
I’ll keep you in my prayers! :)
October 11th, 2007 at 5:16 am
Oh, BLEAH! What a time… I did that “injure yourself, not the child” thing with my son. I tripped whilst carrying him over some rough ground and twisted myself to get between him and the jagged rocks on the ground. He had a small bump to the head – I had ripped all the ligaments in my right leg!
Hoping that you have a swift recovery :-) I’m an RSS subscriber, so I won’t be removing you from my reading if you miss a few weeks of posting due to excess of Murphy!
October 11th, 2007 at 8:13 am
@glblguy:
In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, that has to be my position. But you must have realised I’d think that anyway ;) .
October 11th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
First off, I was very happy to read that the picture wasn’t your arm. But then I read just exactly what you did break. I am SO sorry.
Booo to Murphy!
And YAHOO! on the advertiser and # of visitors. Way to go.
October 11th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
@plonkee – Maybe ;-)
@Erin – Thanks! Guessing my arm is pretty close to that one though, just closer to the wrist.
October 11th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
bummer, but check out Romans 8:28 – I don’t understand how He does this, but I believe it!!
October 12th, 2007 at 7:53 am
@Kat – wow, good reminder that no matter how bad you think you have it, somebody somewhere has it worse.
@Annie – thanks and glad to have you as a subscriber!
@ChristianPF – Thanks, I believe it too, I’ve seen it happen too many times to not believe it.