Opposition

Today has been a less than perfect day. In fact, I've had a hard time trying to be grateful today ... makes me feel so, well, ungrateful. Not a good feeling.

After a great workout at bootcamp I sat down with my bowl of oatmeal and discovered what looked like dirt on the outside of my kitchen cabinet - figured one of the kids had spilled something and failed to wipe it up {as usual}. Upon closer examination I found a 6 inch high band of very apparent water damage. Ugh. After emptying out all of the lower cabinets we discovered extensive water damage throughout all of the lower cabinets along one wall. The damage even went into the laundry room and turned the drywall into mush. Double ugh.

I immediately felt overwhelmed with the mere idea of where to start with what was apparently a large problem. We had never seen any water under our sink or in our cabinets so had no idea where this mess could be coming from. I called a friend who works with home warranties (which we didn't renew - yup, we're good like that!). He recommended a general contractor who is in our stake to come and check things out so we would know what our plan should be for repair. He generously offered to come by tonight to take a look.

I spent the day feeling sidelined; derailed. I went through so many damage/repair scenarios in my head imagining how much it was going to cost, whether we would have to file a claim with our homeowners insurance, and how long my kitchen would be torn apart. Rather than recognize the many things that ARE fabulous in our life I was consumed by this huge road block that had been placed in my way. I ate too much cookie dough and pizza. I felt awful.

And yet here I am realizing how grateful I am for challenges like this. They have a tendency to make me stronger, allow me to learn new things, and prove I have more to be grateful for than I recognize at times. The contractor came tonight and, while it won't be an overnight fix, we have a game plan and will take it one day at a time. We HAVE homeowners insurance and are grateful for that. I'm sure I'll learn more patience through this process. I don't have to worry about cleaning my kitchen floor for a few weeks. This may be just the excuse I need to finally paint my laundry room orange.

I find that the bad days make the good days that much better and while I know that life can't be made up of all good days {darn it}, I can try to find the silver lining in whatever gray cloud may come my way. I'm grateful for the opportunity to learn from the opposition that I am blessed with.

P.S. We'll know more tomorrow about the total extent of the damage and what the repair process will be. For now we know our dishwasher has been leaking - for how long we don't know. It will need to be replaced and won't be covered by insurance. They will remove the cabinets and countertops along our outer wall tomorrow and assess any damage to the wall {which we are expecting based on the wall in the laundry room}. Then we wait for an insurance adjuster and start taking baby steps to put things back together. I'm really hoping we can get it finished up before we head to Disneyland in a few weeks!! What a relief that we don't have company for Thanksgiving this year - we normally wouldn't be glad for that but this year it is a blessing ... see? Silver lining ;)