Life is good...for now

Alright, I'm renewing my efforts as a blogger. Initially, this blog was meant to keep Anders up to date on what was going on with our little family; this was during our extended visit to Idaho last summer - Anders stayed in Virginia to work while I had the kids at Mom and Dad's house for a couple of months. But now that has passed, and while I always swore I'd never have a blog, I find myself thinking that maybe it isn't such a bad idea. We'll see. This may be the last entry I make for a couple months :)

Anyway, life is good right now. We're all healthy; Anders' job is going well (meaning his commute is 15 minutes and he's only putting in 8 hours a day); Anders has a job; we have a comfortable house; we have good friends; we love our family; we're somehow able to manage our 3 kids with some success; and I was able to get the laundry mostly done today. Also, the fridge is clean. Life is good.

But I do realize how quickly that can all change. The economy isn't doing well right now. So far we've been immune to unemployment and some of the other problems, but we also know that can quickly change. Our house has dropped almost 25% in value in the 2 years that we've owned it. The fridge could get dirty again at any time. Ethan could get pink eye. Again. Anders' car is...struggling, to say the least. We just spent a lot - and I mean A LOT - of money fixing it, only to have it continue to struggle. After replacing the transmission (that had fallen off it's support blocks and cracked the radiator), the car decided that it wouldn't start when the temperature got below about 40 degrees. And so we returned it to the auto shop, where it took the mechanic one month to learn that if you turn the key in a very specific way, it will start, regardless of the temperature. Except that yesterday, when the temperature was 3 (yes, 3), it didn't. So now our question is, do we go into debt to buy a new car? Do we dip into savings to keep our debt down to buy a new car? Or do we hope that this car will last us, and that the leaking green and red fluids we see every morning from the car aren't that important? It's things like this that make me realize how fragile the balance is between a life that is going well, and a life that is going not so well.

On a different note, Anders and I went out tonight with some friends for some sushi. Actually, it was just the guys that ate the sushi. We women ate mostly chicken. Why anyone would want to eat raw fish and baby octopus is beyond me. But we had a very nice time. We ended up talking about our children, and I just have to say it is so encouraging to know that there are people out there who have the same struggles that we have. It gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, we are doing okay in raising our kids.

Right now Anders is at a friend's house playing Guitar Hero; it's almost 10:00 pm, and Ethan and Andrea are fast asleep. Natalie, on the other hand, comes in to my room every 10 minutes or so to tell me that she's scared, or to ask me a question, or to tell me something, or to get something. I can tell that she is exhausted, but she just doesn't want to go to sleep tonight. She's so funny because she always has her own little agenda, and if you try to distract her from it, she completely ignores you. If she is trying to tell you something, and you change the subject by telling her to go to bed, for example, she has this amazing ability to completely disregard anything that you were saying, and will proceed with her original story/statement/whatever, as if you'd never even spoken. She doesn't even acknowledge that you've said anything. Andrea will argue with you, and I have to hand it to her - she's a pretty good little negotiator. But Natalie is smarter - she just doesn't even engage with you in a conversation that she doesn't want to have. How clever!