The Storm of Life

For those of you that don't know, this week for work I was face painting at the fair. We have a cute little set-up with two tents: one giant white one for story-telling and one flimsy grey one for face-painting. I wasn't supposed to work after Monday, but on Thursday my boss asked me to go in today. I thought I was just going in for work, little did I know the adventure that awaited me.

As I listened to the radio on the way, I heard the severe weather warning, which obviously isn't the greatest for the fair. It's especially bad when you have to sit in a metal and plastic tent. I got to the fair about half an hour early, and pulled in right behind Hannah (the poor soul working with me all summer). We laughed at our perfect timing, and trudged over to our tents.  We barely had enough time to put down our stuff, when the skies opened and the wind began ripping through our tent.

As we opened the large tent, we noticed that it was leaking, like a lot. I reached up to try to pull it closed, but I realized that I had bitten off more than I could chew, because just then the large metal stakes began ripping out of the ground, the plastic guards began cracking, and the metal poles started bending. At this point, I was still holding on to the pole for dear life because I knew that if I let go the tent would fly. Hannah rushed over and we attempted to hold down our flying death trap.

As we held on, the wind picked up AGAIN and suddenly we started moving. Hannah shouted above the rain, "Either we let go, or we end up in the hospital." She was right, the tent wasn't worth more than our lives, so we let go and the tent started to roll down the medway. When it flipped over we thought it may be easier to control, so I tried to grab onto it again. At about this time a man saw us struggling (it was pretty obvious) and sent 3 boys over to help us hold down the tent. Hannah (clearly being the smarter out of the two of us) started grabbing all of the valuable stuff and moving it under cover. We somehow managed to wrangle the white tent over to a little shelter, and began to take it apart piece by piece. Talk about a rush. I was just getting my breath back, when I heard my phone quacking (yes, I have a duck ring tone). I tried to answer, but heard nothing. It happened 4 times. That's when I realized that somehow during our tent rescue mission my phone took on some water (It's currently chilling in a bag of rice).

The rain began pounding again, and the grey tent began to flail around. I didn't think much of it and let it be. But when an unsuspecting kid walked by, and almost got a tent leg to the face, I figured we should probably fix it. We rushed over and threw as much stuff as possible onto it to hold it down. When I say threw I mean THREW chairs, totes, tables, anything in arm's reach was holding down that grey tent. At this point, we were wet and we were cold. I really wanted, needed to fix that, so after the rain calmed down, we decided we to go to Wal-mart to get dry clothes and pick up a bag of rice. Before we made it there though, we got a little stuck in the mud, and well Daphné isn't a 4x4 so we got covered in mud as I spun out.

Eventually we made it to Wal-mart. I grabbed a basket and we basically sprinted to the rice aisle, talking about how we couldn't wait to buy dry clothes and flip-flops. I rounded the corner to the rice aisle, and stared blankly at the many option. I eventually settled on the cheapest one, and just as I dropped a bag of rice into my basket... it went black. Yup, Wal-mart (as well as 99% of Presque Isle) lost power. At this point I just dropped to the floor, half laughing and half-crying. We sat there for a while wondering how we got ourselves into this mess. We were kindly told to go up front by a Wal-mart worker, and we eventually made it out of Wal-mart empty handed and began our soaking wet trek back to the car. We even spotted a friend to take this picture. Clearly one of us was enjoying it a little more than the other.

So yeah, it was a bad day.

Actually if I am honest, it's been a bad week.

Scratch that, it was a bad month of July, and clearly this one wasn't off to a better start.

But, today I barely made it out of Presque Isle before the clouds broke and a beautiful blue sky brightened my day (literally). The gray sky rolled away, and the baby blue sky rolled in. My mood changed and I started to think about how funny the whole situation was. Today was a bad day, but it was also a great day filled with tons of laughter.

First off, what was I thinking trying to hold down the tent. Here I was, all 135 pounds of me, hanging on to the tent, which in the 60 mph winds was basically just a giant parachute. I think we all know how that would have ended. Second off, the grey tent looked like a dead spider all bent and flipped on its back. Third off, what are the chances of Wal-mart losing power. Seriously? That's just hilarious. Fourth off, did you see that hair? Apparently the dead rat look isn't my most becoming hair style.

It really got me thinking, maybe this week wasn't so terrible. I went night swimming with my friends, and starred up at the stars with my family. You know, my month hasn't been that bad. It's actually been pretty incredible. I've been tackled by 75 kids, I've gotten "lost" in the woods, and I've laughed until I've cried... several times. I've danced until I was exhausted, sang until I've lost my voice, and chased kids until I was sore. Yes, it's been a difficult month filled with funerals, wakes, sickness and sorrow. But it's also been an incredible month filled with joy, laughter, kid's hugs and ice cream.

As tough as it may be, today I'm choosing to see the roses hidden among the tangle of thorns. Today I'm choosing joy over disappointment, happiness over frustration, elation over pain. Today I'm telling life, "Yeah, you tried to knock me down, but I'm still breathing so you better bet I'm getting back up."