Not last night but the night before...

somebody broke into my car and ripped out my stereo and ipod. The car was left in shambles too. I had left cup with some left over chai latte in the cup holder which threw on the seat and it leaked. The dash was pulled apart, and pieces are bent, twisted, even broken off. Instead of trying the handle to the glove box, it was pried open with a screw driver, leaving a gouge. My brother's boutonniere from my wedding which was dried and adorning my dashboard is in pieces on the floorboard.

It wasn't just my car either. Multiple cars on the street, and multiple burglaries in town. One of my coworkers had his bike stolen. While Jake and I were talking to the cop about my car his radio kept going off about other streets that had had multiple burglaries. Stereos, ipods, jackets, a bottle of juice? The creepiest thing is...I think they were planning this.

A couple nights ago my sister-in-law said that her car alarm went off in the middle of the night. She's staying with her parents right now. That's where I left my car last night. I've left it there all week and Jake and I car-pool in and out of town. Her truck was also left unlocked last night. She has a nice stereo and ipod, her expensive sunglasses and purse were sitting right on the seat. But nothing was taken out of her car. Our theory is that the culprit(s) checked out the city. Hung around a couple of days, found alarms and such, and last night made a sweep. A little dramatic? Perhaps.

One of the most frustrating things is that I thought about locking my car. I went to get my sunglasses before we left, but was too lazy to fish them out of my purse, so I grabbed the whole thing (thankfully). I thought to myself "I should lock my car." But I was already halfway up the driveway, and looking forward to getting into bed. "If only" has been running through my head all day. If only I'd left my car at my parents' house. If only I'd taken my ipod home last night to charge it like I was thinking about. If only I'd taken the face plate off the stereo.

If only I'd locked my car.

According to the cop we were speaking with this morning, only unlocked cars has been targeted. No broken windows or locks. If only I'd turned around and locked the car. I rolled the windows up all the way. Why didn't I lock the doors? If only.

I've been thinking about "if only." There are a lot of "if onlys" in life. If only things had worked out between us. If only I'd left the house just a few minutes earlier. If only I'd asked for two sugars for my coffee at the drive thru. If only the Republican had been voted president. If only we'd bought a (smaller/larger) (house/car). If only. How drastically different life might be.

The fact is, you only really get one chance at life here on Earth. The words you say, the actions you do, the people you associate with. One chance. How would things change if you had done something different. We'll never know. It's hard (for me) not to get caught up in "if onlys," but it only gets me down. I don't have a stereo...so I'll just borrow Jake's truck to run errands. :)

Anger Management

I keep starting posts and then get distracted, busy, or give up. I feel like all my posts should have a purpose. They should have some moral. Something spiritual and righteous at the end. It's been more than a month since my last published post and I'm coming to realize, they don't always end that way. But this one might...

Have you ever noticed that some people are just angry? No matter what the issue is, or what you can do for them, they are angry. Even if it isn't your fault, they're angry. Like the person behind me in line at the pharmacy who is grunting because the person in front of me is taking a long time. I offer to let them go in front of me because they are obviously in a hurry, and I'm not in any rush, and they don't say thank you, and they still give an attitude to the cashier. Or the customer who's DSL is down because the phone lines aren't working properly who yells at me because AT&T can't get to the location until Friday

Life happens. Take a chill pill. Street lights turn red. The line you're in is always the slowest. The cashier just ran out of quarters. Is it really worth becoming utterly enraged when something doesn't go your way? Life just can't be that bad; can it?

My live surely isn't. I work the early shift at a cafe (at work by 6:30 am) and I start seeing customers between 7-7:30. Many mornings people tell me I'm "too perky" or "too happy this early." My response? I get paid to be there and get off at 3:30 in the afternoon. Sure it isn't ideal, but it could be worse. I used to work until 6 or 7 at night and that was no fun.

Anyways, the moral of the story is: don't be a downer and angry all the time because people around will be bummed out.

R U kidding me?

Why does texting while driving need to be outlawed? I don't disagree, because it's DUMB TO DO, but that is just my point: it's a stupid thing to do. Why do there have to be laws against stupid things? Making texting illegal isn't going to stop it from happening. And it's just DUMB!!

Don't text and drive. Not because there may be laws against it in your area, but because you'd be dumb to do it. End of story.

Here we go again

So we got all moved in. We're finally getting adjusted to living 20 miles away from town. Once we're in town, we're in for the day. We bring the dogs in, a change of clothes, and sometimes laundry (because we haven't got our washer hooked up yet.) But things are up in the air again. Two days after we got totally moved in and the new renters moved in to the house we were in, we get a call. "Something is going on, we may be coming home." I can't say much about the situation (it is the internet after all) but we may be moving again. We've been looking at places too rent, and even to buy. There are not many rentals around that cost any less than a house payment, and they wont even let us have dogs. So basically we've decided that if we are going to be paying X amount in rent, why not be putting that into a house payment? Nothing is for sure yet, but it makes us feel more prepared to be looking. Likely we'll move into his parent's basement for a little while, especially if we have to be out by the weekend.

Anyways, this whole moving thing has really been a hassle. It took us a week to move into the house (mainly because we didn't have time to pack everything up before we started the process) and let me tell you, that week was pretty pitiful in the "investing in our marriage" realm. Both of us were tired, cranky, and just annoyed. We've finally got into the swing of things, enjoying the commute together (leaving one of our vehicles in town), remembering to get the dogs before heading back home, and even not being home in time to make dinner. Who knows what will happen this time around.

More than half of our stuff is still packed though. So that's cool...