Richard and Beth and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Do you remember Alexander and his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day? ("I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.") I've kind of felt like Alexander of late.

It all started on Richard's birthday, which was Friday, the 27th, when we discovered that the air conditioning in our house was not working. Since the furnace went out on my birthday, this seemed entirely appropriate. It seems that the unit is completely busted and needs to be replaced. Our landlord was convinced that the mobile units he brought on Sunday would be sufficient to cool our house, but that was wishful thinking. And now it's Wednesday, with no promise of repaired AC in sight on what has been one of the warmest weeks yet.

We had a fun evening celebrating Richard's birthday and headed to Baltimore for our friends' wedding. We finally made it after several delays (a forgotten suit, keys and phone delayed the process) and enjoyed Matt and Gus' gorgeous wedding and reception on the water. Richard started to feel bad at the reception and was the sickest I have seen him in our short marriage on Saturday night and all day Sunday, leading us to cancel fun cookout plans.

Richard began to feel better on Monday, but we noticed a strong smell of gas on the main floor of our house. Just as we were walking out the door to take advantage of a rare week day off, our carbon monoxide alarm started going off. Apparently, our chimney has been clogged, leading carbon monoxide from the water heater that would generally exit out the chimney to be blocked. Today we learned that the lining of the chimney is rotted, which means the need for a major repair...and no hot water in our house.

To top it all off, Richard lost his wedding ring in our front yard last night. I'm sure our neighbors thought we were crazy as we looked through our bushes with flashlights and spot lights! We spent a worry-filled evening researching metal detectors and praying that the ring would be found.

So the past several days have been incredibly frustrating, but thankfully, at least the wedding ring was found this morning! And the DC heat wave is supposed to be ending soon, so hopefully the house will cool off some. Though our circumstances have not been ideal, they certainly do not compare at all to the devastation the tornado victims in Missouri and Alabama have seen. We just have to remember to keep counting our many blessings!