On Monday night Julia kicked off her swim team season with her first meet. Storm delays sent us packing to our vehicles to wait out the weather. It is well-known that this is par for the course every year for our meet against this particular team. In fact, we gave our head coach a hard time because in the pre-team cheers, he said, "we are here, and it's not raining." Um, did he really say that? Yes, he really did, and he admitted to jinxing us as we were ordered off the pool deck.
Andy's boss was in town, so that means his company owns him 24/7 - as if that is not usual. He left for work that morning, and we had to add a hot spot to his cell phone in order for him to attend the meet so that he could be at work on his computer. There were two problems with this. 1. Swim team takes a village to run. Every parent has a required volunteer commitment. For us that means we have to work half a meet three times over the season. Andy's first turn was Monday night. He was to time the second half. Andy always signs up to time the meets and always second half because he can't get there in time for first half. I am not as comfortable with the timing position - so official and fast paced, but what could I do? I had to fill in for him. Our coordinator said he would be trying to keep the meet running and that if it went too fast to raise our hands and he would slow down. To time, you have two people on each lane - a parent from each team. You have either dolphin timers that start themselves and you have to stop them or you have stopwatches that you start and stop yourself. For this meet we had dolphin timers - until we didn't. The system went down, and they had to bring us stopwatches. We had a particularly slow swimmer in our lane one time, and they started the next race while I was still recording the times. That stinks, but it is fixable. We raise our hands and someone brings us spare timers that were started at the beginning of the race and replaces our timers. We raised our hands, and nobody came. Poor kid did not get a time for that race, and I was overly stressed about this timing gig because it was dark, and I was having a hard time working the stopwatch. UGH.
Julia was scheduled for three events - 1 relay, 50 free and an IM. Because of the delay, all relays and freestyle races for the older kids were cancelled, so we were there to see literally one race. I was timing during her event, so I could not watch her finish. It was not her best effort. She's rusty after a winter of not swimming and reaching a place were competing against USA swimmers gets harder and harder every year. I wish we could afford to put her on a USA team for the winter, but it's just not an option. I did not know until the end of the meet that Andy's computer battery had died, so he could not stay to see her event. He left and though she had intended to leave with him to clean her room for houseguests who were coming the next day (more on that later), she was stuck with me for the remainder of the meet.
It was close to 11p.m. before Julia and I made our way to the van to head home. I started her (the van) up and started to leave my parking space when I realized something was wrong. I had no steering. What?! I backed her up and tried again hoping that I was just tired and delirious, but no - I could not steer the van. I called Andy. He told me to call AAA, but since he was less than 10 minutes away, I waited for him to verify that I was not crazy and had not overlooked something simple like being out of gear. He came, and he saw for himself that something was not right. I called AAA. He took Julia home. This is where I love my husband so much. After a long work day, he returned to wait with me. It was well after midnight when the tow truck arrived.
The tow truck driver also looked for a simple fix. He found that the serpentine belt had slipped off. I know that's a pricey repair, and I also suspected there was a reason for that that might be pricier still, but I hoped that it was as simple as replacing that belt. Our mechanic called us the next day with the bad news. A bolt had broken loose and flown into the engine. His shop does not have the lift to get the van up to get to that, but his brother has a shop that does - across the state line. So, another tow with a $120 price tag and a minimum repair price added of $500 which could go up to $1500 if they have to drop the engine became our reality. We had our diagnosis, and the mechanic can not get to the van until the end of next week- almost two weeks after our incident. That's when panic set in.
I could not help but be amused by this lettering on the tow truck. I jokingly said that we are just doing our part to make towing great again. However, not needing a tow - that would be great. Driving a 10 year old vehicle with 196,000 miles on it does get scary at times.
Our calendar for the past week and next week makes me hyperventilate. There is no more room to write another thing on it. Last week my best friend from high school had surgery. She's a widow with two small kids. I was keeping her kids for two days and adding their practices, equipment pick ups etc. to the schedule. Andy's boss was in town meaning he was working in a different location part of the time and had to be available for team dinners, and suddenly we had one vehicle between us. I got up and dropped him off at work, and he bummed rides daily. This is one of those situations where we miss Dad- of course, we miss him lots for lots of reasons. He always had a vehicle to spare for his kids when theirs were being serviced. He bought extra vehicles in part for that reason. As part of settling his estate, we have already parted with his vehicles.
My friend is not out of the woods, her recovery is ongoing, and her kids are needy. She's a widow, and they came to us very scared about her surgery and in need of entertainment and attention, totally normal for their ages. I want to help more, but as Murphy's Law would have it, we hit another low...
Yesterday my husband informed me that our home air conditioner was not working. Yesterday was Saturday, and after a week of 60 degree swim practices, it was hitting 90 degrees yesterday. I don't know if I have mentioned this, but I am on a different pay rotation for this year which lowered my checks by $160 per month. In addition, the first tuition bill came out for next school year, and tuition increased by $160 a month, so I am down $320 a month for a few more months until the rotation of my checks returns to normal. My constant prayer this year has been that we would thrive rather than survive this year. There is no money in the bank for a pricey van repair followed by an A/C repair. I started thinking - okay, that's an old unit, and if we are told it needs to be replaced, we will have to buy fans and space heaters because replacing it is not happening. It does seem, however, that a part needs to be replaced rather than the whole unit. We will see today as Andy is calling someone a friend recommended. Said friend has already given the AC guy a heads up. Said friend is the same one who had surgery last week, and that's just like her -- taking care of someone else during her own time of need. She's pretty special and very dear to us, so you can imagine why we want to help her and take care of those kids whom we also love. They both have hearts as big as their mama's.
So those were the lows. We are still down a vehicle, and I have lots of professional development this week. In addition, Wyatt and Julia have overlapping camps, so it's crazy - another week where the calendar makes me want to hyperventilate.
However, there were some highs.
Kim's kids joined the swim team this year, so when I took them to practice on those cold mornings, those little water bugs stayed to swim after practice. They are non-swimmers. I advise every parent I know to put their children on a swim team as I find it to be the very best way to help kids become strong swimmers, and it's such a great way for life-long exercise and enjoyment. I shared with them that Wyatt wanted to go off the diving board, and Andy told him he had to swim across the shallow end of the pool without touching before he could do that. Every time I took Wyatt to the pool, he practiced swimming across the shallow end until he could do it. They started doing this and both of them could do it before the end of the week. It was sloppy for sure, but it's a solid start. They just have to get down the lane alone to swim in a meet, so while they did not make the cut for tomorrow, I am hoping for next week. Woohoo!!
On Tuesday Julia had her first dive meet of the season, and she took first place. Her dives were solid but not spectacular, and some of the better divers had a rough night, but she's in the mix and capable of doing this well going forward. Bonus - we did not get out to the parking lot and find we needed a tow ;)
On Friday I dropped Julia off with her friends for a few days of church camp. It's our last one as they stop with the incoming 8th graders, and she is the baby of our family. We have so many great memories and friendships from camp, so I am sure she's having an amazing time.
P.S. We have air again. $300 for a new fan motor, but it's working. Now the house is cold in my opinion. I was comfortable with 77 degrees - Andy- not so much. However, I know that it would have gotten well above 77 if we did without.
The van repair was also much cheaper than expected at $440.
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