Practicing.

I am so mad right now.  I have had several moments like this lately and they are directly related to the sodden dealings with the sodden insurance company handling my auto claim, Horace Mann.  Makes me want to say bullocks a lot.  Now that I'm reading the BoM and trying to get to know HF a little better, I am trying to refrain from cursing so much.  I know using curse words I heard someone from London or Dublin use is not really eliminating curse words from my vocabulary but it is part of my step-down plan.  So BULLOCKS.  bullocksbullocksbullocks.
Once when I was 10 years old, I cried myself to sleep because I was dwelling on how wicked the people in the world could be...I thought of small children that go to bed hungry and get slapped around by their parents because their parents are frustrated and desperate that they have no money and can find no work because they have baggage and search for jobs at places where the higher-ups are crooked and only hire family members or people they owe favors to because once upon a time they were angry and frustrated and tried to do the right thing but learned that they could only get what they wanted by being crooked...wicked...and that kid that cried himself to sleep?  He grew up to do bad, wicked things because he had anger and sadness in his heart and love was too far away as a child and now he gets his love from seeing the fear in the eyes of an old woman as he robs her and he gets his revenge by smacking around his girlfriend just like his Mommy smacked him around...all that because no one thought to talk to God and listen...because it is so much easier to determine as a solution to our woes than to actually execute...bullocks.
And now, because a certain young man at Horace Mann was probably trained to reel in every penny he possibly could, because a representative from the company 'worked' on the issue already by 'conferring' not with a human but with 'internet communications', we have $30 in the bank and Anthony can't go to his job interview in Durham and he may not be able to afford to drive to work Thursday through next Monday.  We have half a tank of gas in the wagon.  Thirty dollars in the bank.  Thank God this happened now and not on the 16th or something...because now we would only need to borrow $30 more before Anthony gets paid again.  And I know the BoM talks about saving up for that rainy day because the world is wicked.  I know that is exactly what we should have done instead of buying new big kid toys and buying me pants that don't say maternity on the tag and buying a new knife set for the kitchen...I know.  So I am glad that we are learning this lesson now and not when we have stubbornly ignored the HG and HF and the only way they can get us to take notice is by some greater gesture or collaboration with the forces of nature.
*ginormous sigh*
No one said it would be easy to try to be more like....my potential awesome self that knows HF.  So why am I still trippin'?  Because I'm human?  That's what my psychology profs would likely submit.  But I know why I am truly trippin'.  For the same reason I was trippin' as a ten year old.  I'm disappointed.  I know I chose to come and live here on this Earth but I am disappointed that there are so many daily examples of people being so much less than their potential.  We rape and pillage ourselves and others because we are so far from home and we have forgotten how to behave.  Even the best of us on a good day unwittingly harm our fellow man.  It seems unavoidable at times.  No matter how hard we try we fall short.  Yet I sit here on my high horse feeling sorry for the state of man because something inside of me knows we could be so much better.  And sometimes, it actually makes me cry because I miss how wonderful it once was...I cry (on the inside...can't let your kids see you cry most of the time) because I miss my HF and His State and wish we could all magically beam up there to visit when this down here gets too sodden sorry!!  It is tough down here, yet so worth it.

Whew.  Glad I got that off me chest!

But still.  There is the rain on my parade, Horace Mann.  I'm going to err on the side of HF on this one.  Perhaps this is a way to teach us that we need to reel in our spending and start saving for a rainy day.  ALSO, perhaps this is a way to show Anthony that he need not leave his current job situation just yet as there are still benefits to be reaped.  Perhaps our family will face some future situation in which we will be grateful for the shift schedule and the missed Sundays and the excessive costs of commuting because....because something I don't know about right now and I'm ok with that, I think.  And perhaps he needs to stay where he is for retirement purposes.  Perhaps I am supposed to throw away my childish impatience and foolish inclination to take control because I think I know better than HF...there.  That's better.  I turned your rain, Horace Mann, on my parade into colorful confetti.  It got in my eyes for a second but I ain't blind, yo.  I think I might be able to see for a minute.  Now where'd we park?