All’s Well that Ends Well

So my birthday yesterday started out pretty lame. By lame I mean that we discovered that the basement, which had finally dried out Monday night, had flooded again. AND that it was worse than ever. Um, so there was that. N. used the wetvac to suck up 45 or so gallons of water, but then he had to go to work. So I had to flit between sucking up the water in the basement and pumping it down the drain, playing with E. who was freaked out by the loud wetvac noise and would cry heart brokenly every time I would leave the room, and trying to get some work down on my slides for work which were due last night.

So when Amy called me yesterday morning and asked how I was doing…well, I told her. Amy’s the president of the Relief Society (the women’s auxiliary) at church. Anyway, when she heard about the basement and my deadline for work, she offered to watch E. for a while so I could focus on those things. I usually don’t ask for help with things; I pride myself on being pretty self-sufficient. But things were so crazy and I could tell her offer was sincere, so I accepted. So I packed E. off to her house where he crawled around and was fascinated by her 2 year-old and preschooler. And then I dashed home and worked on the basement and my slides. It was only for an hour and a half, but I felt like I had made some real progress by the time I picked up E.

A couple hours after I picked up E. from Amy’s house the doorbell rang. It was Amy and her preschooler holding a tasty-looking, still warm vegan chocolate cake! I could not get over how thoughtful it was of her. And there was also a package of cookies from another friend on the porch. AND another neighbor swung by with a little present. I felt very lucky to know such thoughtful people.

So after that things kept getting better. E. took a nap which allowed me to tend to the basement and work some more on my slides. N. came home early from work bearing gorgeous flowers and we went out to dinner at a steakhouse (I ‘heart’ prime rib!) where E. proceeded to charm everyone within a ten foot radius. After dinner we put E. to bed and N. took over pumping out the basement so I could finish up my slides. Then we had slices of Amy’s delicious cake with scoops of coconut-milk-based ice cream (actually pretty good) on the side and I opened presents from N.

N. totally blew me away with his thoughtfulness. He got me a few cds and books I had wanted and one that I didn’t know I wanted but actually did. And he got me this print, Ninjas All Over the Place, by one of my favorite artists, Scott Campbell.

I am so, SO excited about it. I’m going to get it framed and it’s going to hang in my sewing room/office and it is going to be AWESOME. Here’s a detail of it.

So yeah, pretty much everything was lovely thanks to the kindness of others and the thoughtfulness of N. Now I’ve got to hustle and pack up E. and drop him off at my sister Jan’s house (speaking of kindness) so I can attend a two-hour meeting in the office to go over my slides.