In the past four days, in preparation for my 30th anniversary getaway with my husband, I’ve had my hair cut and highlighted, I’ve had a mani-pedi done, and I’ve bought the first new suit I’ve owned since before I got pregnant with our twins almost 27 years ago.
Yesterday morning, I wrote a blog post about how excited I was about leaving on said anniversary getaway (our first vacation in exactly one year) on Saturday morning.
As in today.
So why am I writing a blog post from my back terrace table this morning instead of heading out on the highway for my big celebration?
Because in an ironic but direct reflection of the ups and downs involved in 30 years of marriage, life had other ideas. Yesterday afternoon (not two days ago…not last week…but yesterday afternoon when it was too late to do anything about it), our vehicle (which has never given us the slightest bit of grief in the seven years we’ve owned it) decided it had issues.
Multiple issues.
All made evident in multiple warnings that lit up our dashboard: a green flashing ‘cruise’ light for the cruise control that stopped working; a steady orange light for the traction control that will no longer engage; a ‘check engine’ light that stubbornly refuses to go away; and a bright red ‘rear differential’ light that just looks plain ominous. And expensive.
All in all, we’re expecting repairs to be roughly the cost of the getaway we had planned. We can do one or the other, but not both. And so we’re staying home, and the vehicle is going into the garage on Monday.
Argh.
All is not lost, however.
After 30 years, we’ve learned a thing or two about rolling with the punches. Sure, we’re disappointed, but in the grand scheme of things? Meh. We still have one another. We still have glorious weather. We still have tons of things to do in our immediate area (tourist-at-home, anyone?). And we still have a lot to celebrate.
A lot.
Plus, I still have new hair and pretty toenails. 🙂
And so in a little while, we’re going to go out for breakfast (slowly, and not on any highways), and then for that walk along the canal we keep saying we should do. We might have lunch out, too. And maybe dinner. We’ll probably clean the house on Sunday (because two cats, a rabbit and a very large dog = much hair, and we didn’t get it done today), but we’ll also make time to sit on the terrace and read. And we’ve already made a reservation for dinner on our anniversary itself…at the same restaurant we went to the night we got engaged.
Because 30 years has taught us that stuff happens…and what we do with it is up to us. 😉
Much love,
Linda
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