Admission, Acceptance.

Just before Christmas we told everyone we were getting them a present. That present was going to be a donation to Video Volunteers. Because we are human part of the reason for telling everyone was to get some credit for thinking of others, and of course for being nice charitable types. Well, we haven't donated any money to them.

Here is the sequence of events. We had a house warranty that expired in early December which cost $400 to renew. Our plan was that in order to make sure we could make the donation we wished to make we would wait on renewing this warranty for a month or so. The our furnace broke down in the only cold portion of the year down here. Then the galvanized steel pipes in our attic (yes, they put the hot water heater in the attic down here and they used galvanized steel pipes in new construction) started failing, one after the other. Right now a very nice young man is replacing our third separate leaking pipe of the last few weeks.

I still think that the plan was a sensible plan. The chances of this happening were really low, a furnace and three leaks in a month is just unlucky. We still intend on making the donation to the worthy cause, but we are just not intending on going into credit card debt in order to do so. That is the admission.

Acceptance is how I feel about this whole process. This is nothing but unfortunate. There is no silver lining. Things broke and we have spent a very large amount of money trying to make things as they were before. In the past I would have felt angry, upset, depressed, moody at a situation where bad things happened for which I am not responsible. In the past I would have been upset because this isn't fair.

Well, life isn't fair, as can be seen by the fact that I am rich, rich, rich compared with most people (and so are you). I have the money to fix these problems (just about), and I have managed through experience to understand that fixing problems is the main reason to have money, it isn't to get nice things, it's to get through. I'm not angry. I don't feel cursed. I have accepted some of the things that I cannot change.