adversity

I wasn't sure that was the word I was looking for. So I went to my handy-dandy Random House Dictionary to look it up, and their definition of adversity is "adverse fortune or fate; a condition marked by misfortune, calamity".

Yup, that's the word I want!

Our lives this week were defintely marked by calamity. And since I have neither the desire nor the energy to move from this seat any time soon, I will write about it in detail, so that you too can share in the calamity. With illustrations, because somehow that makes it feel like the content is more blog-worthy. Even though, let's face it, I'll be lucky if anyone is still reading by the end....

The first photo is just my kids playing. Cute, eh? They were the cute part of the week, pretty much the ONLY cute part of the week. The non-adversity. Or would it be unadversity? How about cuteversity?

But anyway, about that adversity:

First, The Map Man (shown here during less traumatic times) got sick. With Pneumonia, of course, because if it was just a cold or the flu, it would totally suck, but it wouldn't be adversity. The stressful thing about Pneumonia is that it can kill you. So even though The Map Man wasn't anywhere near the verge of death (tho he probably felt like he was for a couple days there...), the POSSIBILITY of it turning into something much, much more dire loomed constantly, and made me order him to his sick bed for the week while I took care of all of the animal feeding and poop scooping and water hauling and stall mucking and chicken-coop cleaning and other big-burly-man-type jobs. (Mind you, in general I handle at least half of that stuff anyway, despite not being a big burly man, or even a big burly woman....)

Which would have been just fine, except then:

I threw my back out. Oh, I've got a history of back trouble in my lower back. But this wasn't in my lower back, it was in my mid-back. You know, just the place that carrying a bucket full of water puts a strain on. A brand new area to experience the sort of pain that only comes with messing with the spinal column.

Of course, I did this on the FIRST DAY that The Map Man took to his sick bed. Because if I'd waited until he was better, that would have been far less inconvenient and adverse and, what was that word? Oh yes. That would have contributed far less to the CALAMITY of the situation.

Things like this bring you to a quick tally of your friends. And then the sad discovery that, while I have many good friends, the ones that are the sorts of friends that would come over and haul 18 buckets of water out to my barn all live over an hour away (many of them STATES away) or have equally bad backs.

The second sad discovery was that, although the last time I hurt my back we talked PASSIONATELY and FREQUENTLY about replacing our old, worn-out sliding glass door that leads to the dog yard with something that works with a nob and a fraction of the effort to open and close, we never actually DID replace it.

Needless to say, I'm not really in any better shape today than I was 6 days ago when I first hurt my back, because I've been opening and closing that door dozens of times and hauling 18 buckets of water out to the barn daily.

Meanwhile, I still had those two cute kids from the first photo to look after and keep out of their father's hair, plus all of the household crap that generally has to be dealt with on a weekly basis (and which I normally can count on The Map Man to carry his share of). Oh yeah, and that pesky job thing, you know, the one where I take time away from my family for meager wages. Though it was fortunately a "lite" week on the work front for me. It still sucked.

Plus, to add a cherry to the top of this sundae-of-misery, we got bloodwork results back on our little Shetland Pony, which confirmed that he's as sick as we think he is. Which meant more visits from vets and other associated equine professionals, more bills (ugh), and more stress.

Needless to say, those cute kids didn't get much in the way of organized homeschooling this week. We were purely on survival mode around here. I think I actually let them eat potato chips and pretzels for lunch one day....

So maybe adversity wasn't really the word I was looking for. Maybe it was great-big-whine-fest. Or Pity Party. Or oh-woe-is-me-has-there-ever-been-a-more-pitiful-family.

Good news, I suppose, is that this week is bound to be better. Right? Right? RIGHT??!! Hello, is this thing on???