I'm sitting here at
38,000 feet somewhere over the Pacific Ocean going back over all that we've
gone through the last few weeks. It has
been an incredible adventure watching how God has provided for our family and brought
us through some crazy times. Here are a
few of our stories.
A Sale, A Rat, and Stuff
Thursday, January 5,
2012 was by far our craziest day in Florida.
It started out as a fairly normal day.
We had to drive to Orlando to get our typhoid vaccinations and our malaria
prescription. OK, so maybe not that
normal, but it wasn't to be anything spectacular. We were going to the Lego Store at Downtown
Disney for one last time while in Orlando.
Tim had arranged to
meet someone that was interested in purchasing our Jeep at 4pm back in Plant
City. We had posted it earlier that
week, and had gotten quite a bit of interest.
We made it back in plenty of time, so there would be no rush. This gentleman was actually flying in from
out of state, so we wanted to respect his time.
He got there around 4:30, and all craziness rained down on us!
Tim had someone else
that was going to make his way toward us to also look at the Jeep in case the
first guy didn't buy it. So, while the
first guy is looking at the Jeep, the second guy gets there. He is very patiently waiting for the first
guy to be done, so he can test drive it and take a look.
In the mean time Tim
gets a phone call. Apparently all of our
things we were shipping to Papua New Guinea had arrived at JAARS Shipping, but
they did not have any information. We
hadn't emailed our paperwork, yet. So,
Tim runs in to tell me to send them the paperwork ASAP. I try to get all of that information together
to email and my phone starts ringing and email is buzzing with the shipping
department calling us. I couldn't
remember the exact number of pallets, so I went outside to ask Tim. Of course Tim was gone on a test drive with
potential buyer #2. I had to guess. Fortunately, I was correct. We gave them the clearance to take our stuff
to ship and sent them all of our paperwork.
While all of this is
going on, my mom is trying to get dinner ready.
The plan was to grill chicken and pork chops. Dad goes out to the patio to get the grill
started. He says something about the
kids putting dog food in the grill.
Well, then they see something run.
It was a rat. The rat had chewed
through a rug they had on the ground, the grill cover, the plastic cover to the
grill tools, and used it to make a nest.
It had also gotten the dog's food, too.
Gee, those poor kids get blamed for everything! At least this time it wasn't their fault,
this time! So, on to Plan B for dinner
while my brother and dad clean out the grill and decide what to do with
it.
Mom puts the food in
the oven and Bekah mentions the fridge light is out. We thought it was the light until we started
noticing things weren't so cold. The ice
cream was soft. Panic started setting
in. No worry Super Mom & Tara to the
rescue! We figured out it was just a
tripped breaker. What a relief. We thought we would be spending the next day
shopping for a new fridge. Well, maybe
it was a relief. I don't think Mom would
have minded a new fridge.
So, all the above
happened with in one hour. It was
complete insanity around the house. We
sat down to dinner and just looked at each other. We were tired!
By the way, Tim did
sell the Jeep to the second buyer for our full asking price! PRAISE GOD!
A Cracked Screen
It was the Friday
evening before we were to leave for Papua New Guinea. It had been an exhausting week finishing up
last minute shopping, making sure we had all of our needed supplies, and
packing, packing, packing. We were
nearing the end and ready for bed. Tim
closes his laptop and hears something.
He remembers he needed to check on one more thing, so he opens it back
up. His screen has cracked. Anyone who knows Tim knows that he is one
that takes extreme care, especially with computers. He has seen several cracked screens in his
day. He was sick to his stomach. We had plenty to do on Saturday to finish
up. The last thing he wanted to do was
to deal with this.
This was a fairly
new laptop. We had purchased new laptops
back in November for us to have in PNG.
These were to be our laptops for the next four years, and now the
computer guy had a laptop with a cracked screen. What to do?
Since we had only
had the laptop 2 months, we tried to go back to Best Buy. There is a year warranty on the laptop, so we
prayed we would get mercy from the manager.
Our best case scenario was either to do an exchange or to get a credit
to purchase a new one. That wasn't to
be. They told us they wouldn't take it
back because of the screen, and the best they could do would be to ship it to
HP. Obviously we didn't have that kind
of time.
(Side note- I was so
proud of my husband. That man has the
patience and grace and mercy of a saint!
I was ready to pull out the rudeness when they were rude to us, but he
didn't. He explained the situation,
didn't loose his cool, then calmly took the laptop back and said goodbye. Wouldn't have been the same if it had been
just me.)
So, now we had to go
find a new laptop. Obviously Best Buy
was not on our list! We went to a couple
of places to look at ones that Tim would like.
They were more expensive than the one we had originally, but we did what
we could. We went to lunch to talk it
over and to compare what we had found.
We agreed on one at Compusa. It
ended up being a better computer, but it didn't have the 17" 'mega' screen
his old one did.
We remembered we had
purchased the laptop on Amex, and Amex offers an extended warranty on items
purchased. So, I went to do my
research. Better yet, Amex has a 90 full
replacement guarantee on any item purchased with Amex. Tim called Amex that night. They just needed a picture of the crack
screen, and a copy of the receipt. They are going to fully reimburse us for the
broken screen! PRAISE GOD!
We are keeping the
old laptop, so Tim can use the parts. He
can always hook it up to an external monitor.
Even when things are grim, our God is good. I'm waiting to see how God uses that 'broken'
laptop.
No comments:
Post a Comment