Every thorn has its rose - Just like every dawn has its night.

My sweet grandmother gave me a gift subscription to Better Homes and Gardens which I'm LOVING with every perfectionist fiber of my being. I'm mature enough at this point to not go crazy over the perfect homes and remodels that cost more that we used to make in an entire year, or sofas that cost 6 months worth of groceries. What I'm focusing on is enjoying the beauty of the photos, my own takes on their very hip recipes, and all of the genius, GENIUS I say, organization solutions. I feel like I did the first time I went inside The Container Store. The only thing that would have completed the experience was maybe an angelic choir or bronzed man servants straightening shelves instead of the local work-to-learn college population.

Anyway, I bundled the girls up and headed out to my local thrift store to see about finding some solutions related to suggestions I particularly loved. It was bitterly cold, especially since we havn't been in cold country in a very long time, and I was told that yesterday is likely to be the coldest day of the year. After scoring a couple of finds, I headed home and made some delicious chicken soup (roasted the veggies before adding to soup -- oh my. yummy stuff) and from-scratch drop biscuits. After dinner we found that while we were happily enjoying our meal that the toilet had been running that whole time. There were about two inches of standing water in the bathroom and the water had already made it into two bedrooms. I started bailing water into the bathtub while Man made dams out of towels to bar the water's progress through the house.

Things I'm thankful for:

1. We were home when it happened. It could have been much worse.
2. We didn't lose any possessions.
3. Our kind neighbors were blessed to own a wet-dry vac, as well as the kindness to lend it to us. (I showed up on the door step, wet and shod in flip-flops. I'm sure it looked pathetic. We ended up vacuuming at least 8 gallons of water out of the carpet alone.)
4. Replacing the padding won't be nearly as expensive as we thought it might be.
5. There is concrete beneath the carpet, rather than floor boards. I'm sure that this caused the water to spread further, but padding is cheap compared to floor boards.
6. The landlord was very reasonable and sympathetic, even apologizing for my inconvenience despite the fact that it was my kid who used too much toilet paper, resulting in the incident in question.
7. This didn't happen the day before Christmas, or some other mightily inconvenient day.
8. That we don't have a basement!! Oh, what a nightmare that would have been.

I ranted and raged about how every time I try to get this house together and try to make sense out of our stuff, something dumb like this happens that puts me behind a whole week. And it's true. I've sprained my back, gotten sick, gotten pregnant, Tag gets an asthma attack, last week Pebbles had a fever of 104.6° and just laid on the floor for a couple of days, the kids get sick in the messy sort of way, or............. the list goes on. (no, I'm not pregnant now. this is a 7 year list)

So, I got the above mentioned blessing last night, after hours of back-killing water sucking on the very day I set out with hope and determination to make a house of order. I felt like I was being punished for my hope. Man sighed, shook his head, and said "God doesn't punish people for buying cannisters. This stuff just happens."

Me: " But if we had chicken nuggets for dinner like I had planned, none of this would have been nearly so much of an issue."

Man: "Thank you for dinner. It was delicious."

Me: [hugging my poor, patient Man]

Universe - 158 Me - 0

Except, now I have cannisters.