Busy Being Born!

Stranded. Not good in any vocabulary, but in a travelers world, this word wreaks havoc. And that’s exactly where we are today. Stranded. In Texas. Thank God with family that loves us, who is seemingly so unfazed by our presence that they are willing to put up with 13 extra people in their household of 3! What started out as a week long visit has now extended to 16 days and counting!! Imagine that for a few seconds. An additional 13 people in your home for 16 days and really no end date! Probably more scary a concept than Stranded!

The horror story goes like this: One morning, 7 days after our arrival we went out to start the RV to begin the journey to CO where we are going to spend Christmas snowboarding before our trek back east in January. Nothing. Tried it again. Silence. Followed by 4 days of troubleshooting because Dan is an accomplished Jack of All Trades and he’s exceptionally intelligent, so of course he thought he could find the problem. Nope. He called for a Tow Monday. Tow company came 4 hours after the call … with the wrong type of truck. 3 hours later, it’s dark and the guy convinces Dan that his transmission place is much better than where it was originally being towed. Tuesday passes, we call, too busy to get to the RV that day. Wed, call around 11. The mechanic is at lunch, expect a call by 3:00. 3:05 I’m hounding Dan to let ME call, so he calls.

They are having problems figuring it out. Fast forward, the garage on Thursday still isn’t 100% sure of the problem. Dan takes matters into his own hands, has them remove the TCM (ECU XYZ – whatever it’s called) and send it to a dude in Flower Mound, TX who fixes these babies for ¼ of their new price tag!! His turnaround time — 24-48 hours “MAX”. Dudes name is John and he’s the owner of Transmission Instruments. He told Dan to just send it to him overnight, he’d test it and if it’s fine, no charge, if it’s busted he’d fix it and overnight it back! I despise incompetence, I love competence. I love John.

In the meantime, our kids have destroyed the Hot Tub, eaten every food item in the house, had 3 birthdays (by Sunday), tormented the 5 tiny adorable little Yorkies, been screamed at by the Girl Scout Leader at the Park, been up until 4:30 am (COBY!), hit absurdly new noise decibles, put their heat at 90… but the news is we haven’t been kicked out yet. I keep expressing how there is only one other person in the whole world who would let us live with them for any amount of time, let alone extended (DINA). That this is new territory, that I’m slightly on edge, that I really really need a cold stiff drink (or 5). They keep saying they love having us here! They must be on crack!

I’m one of those people who believe everything that happens, happens for a reason and I’m always trying to dissect God’s meaning, God’s message. Obviously God wants us to get a new RV … hello BENEFACTOR. Or perhaps He wants us to slow down and let someone love us. Let someone help us, be there for us. We are seriously stand-alone people. We help other people, we don’t ask for anything … ever. Perhaps humbleness is the message of the month? And patience. Always patience. In this coming year I”ve decided to forgo New Year’s Resolutions and this year we are going to follow Bob Dylan’s lead … That he not busy being born is busy dying. That’s our message for everyone for 2014. In the good and in the bad, in the exciting and the mediocre, what do you choose? What are you going to be doing next year? I don’t know about you, but we are going to be busy being born!!