Overcoming a Horrible Week by Jen Turano

Author Jen Turano

My Horrible, Miserable, Very Bad Week

     When Carrie asked me if I’d like to submit a blog post to Overcoming With God, I must admit that I hesitated in giving her an answer because I was in the midst of one of those weeks – you know the ones I’m talking about – something goes amiss, and then something else, and before you know it, it seems like life will never turn rosy again.

     Because of all the disasters that were flinging my way- one right after another – I was fairly certain I wasn’t capable of penning anything of worth because I was, for lack of a better word…grouchy.

      You see, it all began on Memorial Day when I was paid a lovely visit by a raccoon – and one that just happened to gain access to my kitchen by using the dog door – a door that’s been around for over thirteen years and a door that can only be accessed if a critter scales a six-foot fence, scurries across a rather long expanse of lawn, tiptoes up a steep flight of steps, and then scoots around various pieces of outdoor furniture before being able to get near a rather small door that leads into my kitchen.  All I can figure is that it must have been one very determined raccoon, and one that ended up making a very large mess while I slept through its visit, completely oblivious to the fact my kitchen was being destroyed.  When I came downstairs the next morning, I wasn’t certain I was truly awake.  Food was scattered all about, mixed in with my dog’s joint medication that goes for over fifty dollars a bag – and while I did smile at the thought of a raccoon zipping back to his home feeling in fine form with joints that had been well medicated, it took me hours to clean up the mess.  Add in the pesky fact that I now have to close off the dog door every night with a special Plexiglas door because the raccoon has returned night after night, scratching to get in, and I’m dealing with an ancient Cattle Dog (Sasha) that’s incredibly displeased with the situation.  She’s never been unable to go out whenever she wants at night, and has taken to voicing her displeasure, howling very loudly at the strangest of times (as in midnight) to make certain I’m aware of her annoyance.

      One would think the raccoon incident was enough trouble to be getting along with for a while, but a day and a half after the raccoon event, my son was set to leave for Florida to fetch a car from his grandmother’s house (we live in Denver,) and a car that his grandmother would only stop driving if her grandson would come take it.  She’s eighty-six, and while my son doesn’t actually need a car, he thought this sounded like a grand adventure and would get her off the road, so we booked him and his friend tickets.  The problem was that the weather that week was treacherous throughout the country and his flight got canceled.  

At four in the morning, we fired up my computer, and while I did find him a new flight – I clicked on a fake link for that particular airline and got…a virus – and not a virus that can be fixed, but a virus that encrypted every file on my computer.  Now, if I wanted to hand over $690.00 to the cyper-criminals who were responsible for my virus, they’d kindly give me a special code to unlock my files – but I’m not really keen on extortion – so after spending hours talking to various people, including the FBI, I realized my computer was toast, so took it off to a computer company that would wipe my computer completely clean – losing all of my files in the process.  Thankfully, my manuscripts and important documents had been saved elsewhere, but I’d been working on research for an upcoming series and that research is now gone forever.

      One would think that would be the end of my woes, but…no.  My web guy contacted me the day after my computer debacle, asking me if I knew my website had disappeared.  Numerous calls and dollars later, my domain name was back in good standing and my web was back up, but honestly…I’d just about had enough and then…

      Dominic (son) arrived back from Florida with the car.  It’s a Lincoln Town car with only 30,000 miles on it, but it’s over fifteen years old and the roof is one of those ragtops – and…somewhere in Kansas Dom hit a bad storm and – that was the end of the ragtop.  The car looked a complete and utter mess, and when I forced myself to go look it over the next morning, apparently hoping that the horror I’d seen the day before would have vanished in the night, I was met by the sight of a flat tire.  Flat tires usually don’t have the power to send me over the edge, but when my insurance company sent a guy out to fix my tire, and he forgot his air-compressor, I knew events were probably not going to go smoothly.  He ended up putting on the spare, but when I pointed out that the spare looked a little low on air, he immediately took to arguing with me, said it was fine, spare tires were supposed to look that way, and bid me a good day.  As soon as I tried to drive the car, the tire popped, so I had to have it towed to a shop to get it fixed. 

     By this time, you’re probably wondering why I decided to write this blog since everything that could go wrong did, but there is a good ending to all of this.

     The rain stopped, at least in the mornings, a few days ago, and stuffing my feet into my neon-green running shoes, I hit the trail, not really feeling like getting any exercise, but knowing that the fifteen pounds I still need to lose wasn’t going to evaporate on its own.  As I rounded a corner, I saw a raccoon ambling along, carrying one of its babies in its mouth.  Stopping in my tracks, I watched what I’d only recently decided was my arch enemy disappear into the shrubbery, and you know…raccoons aren’t so bad, in fact, they’re quite adorable – when they’re not in my kitchen, that is.  

   

      Continuing forward, I ran into all sorts of wildlife – deer, rabbits, birds, and I also ran into many of my friends I hadn’t seen in a while, given the rainy season we’d been experiencing.  These friends were accompanied by many of their furry friends, and I’m sorry, but a person just can’t stay grouchy when greeted with a wag and a lick on the face. 

     With the sun shining down on me, I began to realize that life wasn’t really so miserable after all.  The raccoon, although making a mess, hadn’t done any real harm.  My computer, while now completely file-less, has now been scrubbed and is running better than ever.  My web-site is up and running again, and…I found a lovely gentleman who works on old cars and is even now putting a new roof on the Lincoln.  The flat tire did not happen out on the open road, but right outside my house, which means my son was not put in danger on some desolate road in Kansas. 

       God, it seems to me now, was watching over me the entire time, and quite frankly, I do believe He might have been teaching me a bit of a lesson.  We tend to take our mundane, ordinary days for granted, not taking the time to appreciate furry friends, computers that work, cars that don’t lose their roofs, and tires that retain their air.  But, when we experience troubles, ordinary days begin to seem downright extraordinary, and that, my friends, is exactly what I think God wanted to remind me of– which is why I’m now off to sit in the sun, enjoy the quiet of my day, and perhaps, just perhaps, begin to plot out my next story. 

     I wish all of you your very own ordinary, yet extraordinary, day!

~ Jen ~

Question: Have you ever had a horrible week where everything seemed to go wrong?

GIVEAWAY: We are giving away a paperback copy this week of Jen Turano's brand new release In Good Company, plus another copy, winner's choice of format, for any of Jen's books.