September 11

What a day!! Get ready for a long post, because I have a lot to talk about tonight!

The biggest event of the day: the tree in our backyard falling down. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration…the whole tree didn’t fall down, but a tree sized portion of it did. It is a gigantic tree, really about the size of three trees, and about 1/3 of it just split and fell down tonight. For no reason. No storms. No wind. It just fell down.

Fortunately, it fell in the best possible place. It did not hit us or our house or our cars or garage. It did hit the shed behind the garage and the power lines and transformers in the alley (taking out the power to our whole side of the block; I’m sure our neighbors love us right now).

Besides worrying about cleaning up the massive tree in our backyard, we now have to worry about what to do with the rest of the tree that is still in the ground. Obviously, it is not too healthy. You can see the rot on the part of the tree that split. I’m assuming the rest of the tree is rotten as well. My biggest concern: what if the rest of the tree decides to fall down? Like tonight, while we are sleeping in our upstairs bedroom??? And then the next biggest concern: how much is it going to cost to get rid of this tree? Seriously, it is HUGE!!! The electric company man estimated at least $2000. Just to get rid of a rotten tree…ugh.

Before the tree fell down, the biggest event of the day was Audrey’s double ear infection. She’s been quite a grump for the past couple of days, and I wondered if she wasn’t feeling well. And then today she kept crying and saying, “Ears! Ow!” So we took her to prompt care, and she was right—her ears were hurting her! It’s kind of nice that she was able to tell us what hurt. Makes diagnosing the problem much easier! The cutest thing about the trip was she kept calling the doctor’s office the “doctor’s house”, clearly enunciating each syllable. It was really adorable and made up for all the screaming she did while we were waiting to see the doctor.

And before the tree fell down and before we took Audrey to the doctor, the other biggest event of the day was us buying a new refrigerator. This would have been the good news of the day, because we really need a new refrigerator. Our current fridge is not staying cold enough and our milk keeps spoiling. However, with the pending costs of removing the tree looming ahead of us, the fact that we just spent a good chunk of money on the refrigerator is not making us feel very good financially right now.

Here’s hoping for a less eventful day tomorrow!!!