What a Long, Strange Week It’s Been

Ever have one of those weeks where things seem, well, a little ‘off’?

That’s what it’s been like around here. Oh, not writing-wise. I’ve been able to get 14 pages written every day this week-a nice accomplishment for me.

But everything else? It’s simply been strange.

First of all, we now have a rooster living next door. Well, he’s not actually next door, but he’s somewhere close. He crows in the morning and at sunset, too.  I think he also crows when he’s bored, hungry, or especially enthusiastic about something. Yep, he crows a lot. About once a day our dachshunds decide that this is something new and different and decide to bark at the mysterious rooster. This annoys my husband to no end!

Something else that has become strange is my oven. It’s one of those double ovens embedded in our wall. Unfortunately, it’s broken several times over its three-year life, and the latest occurrence was Monday morning. Luckily, it’s under warranty, and this time the technician from the appliance manufacturer arrived to actually fix it once and for all.

That hasn’t been remarkable.

What has been is that nothing about the repair job has been easy, and the poor guy has had to hang out in our kitchen three days in a row. For hours at a time. Matt, the repairman is a little grumpy, but I suppose I would be too if I had to spend my day fixing large appliances.

Anyway, yesterday he was in our kitchen for two hours. When another fuse blew at 5:30 last night and he had break the news to me that we’d be seeing each other again today, I decided to pull up a kitchen bar stool and keep him company.

We talked about kids and dogs and the state of appliances in America. I heard about his upcoming vacation (Gulf Shores, AL), he listen to me worry about my 22 year-old son’s upcoming wisdom teeth extraction.

And then he told me a story about three men who trained him, old-school, overweight men who wore suspenders~who just happened to have Biblical names. And how he thought that was fitting, since he valued their opinions so much….and that’s when I figured that was time well spent. And that comment led to a whole other conversation about mentors and the Bible and how various people become influencers in our lives in ways we could never have imagined.

That is when I figured my long, strange week hasn’t been all that bad.  I mean, when else could I have had a whole discussion with a repairman about the meaning of men named Michael, Mathew, and Luke?

The broken oven and the rooster continually crowing haven’t been the only odd things to happen this week. We’ve had other mini-worries, the least of which is a small animal who up and died in my husband’s office air vent. (the smell is unpleasant!) However, I think I’ll save that story for another day…as well as the one about how I burned myself not once but two times this week.

All this being said, I, for one, am looking forward to the weekend!

I imagine I’ll be rising early-we’ve got a rooster nearby now, you know. But while I sip my coffee and bake some biscuits (the oven now works like a charm) I’ll be thinking about a visit I had with a man who firmly believed in the blessings of three wise men with Biblical names~and how he felt the need to tell me about them in the middle of a very strange week.

And, well, how I felt the need to share that story with you, too.

With blessings to you,

Shelley 

 

our oven on Thursday, its insides neatly arranged on the island