(Warning: lots o’ words in this one.)
Let’s talk about the perspective of a little time gone by, and this 2021 year for my crew.
I had a moment (about a week ago, when our oven/microwave finally arrived after seven months on backorder, thereby completing our winter storm disaster home restoration), when I had to stop and think about all that occurred within our casa during the first half of the year.
OYE.
You can read about some of that “fun” in the posts below:
Maaaaaan, is it tough going through some of those pictures and reliving yucky events.
It was a really trying time for us (and produced my second-worst emotional breakdown ever, UGH)—made worse by some HOA difficulty, a really temperamental general contractor, and just the general sense that we’d TOTALLY been there and done that, with our initial move and renovation disasters still somewhat fresh in our minds.
I suppose it’s a blessing that we’ve sustained a really wild few years since moving to SA, because many things just don’t pop on our radar anymore, and we’ve become fairly adept at rolling with life’s punches—even when it feels like the hits just keep on coming.
Throughout the entirety of our insane, burst pipe restoration, we were able to draw on prior experiences and chaos and pain and know that there was an end in sight—AND to remember that the kiddos were healthy and happy. And amidst Covid life, that was no small feat!
For funsies, here are some of the posts from our difficult move and the nutty life challenges that occurred within the few months, thereafter:
Okay…SERIOUSLY. I need to stop linking these posts! Old wounds, for sure!
But.
I suppose that, despite those old wounds, I feel perversely grateful for a lot of the UGH of the past couple of years.
Because we’ve built up a glorious resistance to fretting over the small stuff. And I feel like that’s a major silver lining of some of our yucky life experiences.
That said (and despite our quasi-Teflon emotional state), every now and then, something hits me like a punch to the gut, and it takes me a bit of time to mourn and move on.
And there was one final bit of pain associated with our restoration that I never posted about, and it was a really disheartening thing that made me quite blue.
So today, I’ll share a bit about it, and how we’re trying to turn it into something positive.
The long and short is this: about a week after the majority of our restoration was complete, and we had a chance to move back in to the master bedroom, we discovered that a handful of my fine jewelry items had been stolen. :(
At first, it was so hard to wrap our brains around this possibility that we assumed something had just been misplaced, even if that was highly unlikely.
But over the course of a handful of days, after discovering the initial stolen item, we discovered more that had been taken. And eventually, for a variety of reasons, we absolutely knew it was theft.
It was a really, really saddening discovery.
Especially once we spent more time thinking it over.
Because it’s highly likely that the guilty individual was someone who spent many weeks in our house doing expansive work (like painting or flooring or drywall; something that wasn’t just a quick, one-off step of the process).
Someone who was around enough to somewhat gain familiarly and learn the patterns of my schedule and the short blips of time (like school pickups) where I simply couldn’t be at the house to supervise.
Worse still…the discovery of the theft wasn’t a one and done event, because it took a few days to really take stock of all my jewelry and think through items that weren’t present and accounted for. So just when I thought there wouldn’t be another item missing…there was.
In the end, one very precious ring was stolen. One that the hubby had custom-made for me as a beautiful, surprise birthday present several years ago.
A lovely pair of earrings were stolen that were gifted to me on one of my earlier Mother’s Days.
And the final item was the one that really had me shedding the tears. It was the pair of earrings the hubby gifted me as a present for Chicklet’s birth.
And not only were they extremely sentimental and precious to me (hello—birth present!), they had quite an impressive and memorable history that you can read about here:
I’m not ashamed to admit that I spent a handful of days just really sad over this theft. Never angry, really. Just pitifully sad.
Crying a lot, anytime I thought about it—especially when I thought about those irreplaceable birth present earrings.
And then, eventually, we had the yucky task of dealing with insurance on the matter—something you’d think we’d be accustomed to by now, after our many claims for many reasons! But…nope. It’s always an UNfun process.
We only have a handful of items (like my wedding rings) that are covered with their own, specific policy. And everything else is covered under an umbrella, floater policy.
Which meant that, in this particular instance, we were only reimbursed about half of what the items were worth, in total, because there is a cap to claims that are stolen under the floater policy.
So.
Adding insult to injury, we weren’t even able to recover full compensation.
Note to self: in the VERY near future, I’ll be over-hauling our policy backup and coverage and taking very clear and descriptive pictures regarding each and every item. Something I highly recommend for anyone and everyone who might face any loss or theft like this. It would make the process SO much easier.
But something that I’m also hoping will make these events a bit easier, retrospectively, is turning something bad into something good.
Namely, what to do with the money we were able to recover.
Basically, I told the hubby that it would just be the most depressing thing in the world if we just absorbed the money into savings or utilized it to pay boring expenses. Talk about a BUMMER. And obviously, the times couldn’t exactly be replaced, so we didn’t even discuss re-purchasing any jewelry.
Instead, our small reimbursement encouraged us to schedule a fun Fall Break getaway for our crew, and to create a fun and happy memory to help ease the sting of the pain.
So that’s exactly what we’re doing!
We’ll be headed on an affordable, little vacay for the long weekend, and the kiddos are PUMPED.
Obviously, I’ll share more as we’re away, but for now, I’ll just finish this heavy, wordy post by saying that it’s been a riot to prepare and pack for slightly cooler weather—woohoo!
We had a hysterically little family outing to Old Navy and Target last Friday that was a hot mess express, but also, weirdly enjoyable, ha.
And since Chica is the only kiddo who’s agreeable enough to pose for fashion pics (and said they would be fun to post)…heeeere you go!
(I could not love her joyful vibe more than I do!)
Note: some of these tops and bottoms don’t go together, but we were in a groove with our pictures, ha.
In case it’s not obvious, Chica is aging and growing LIKE A WEED. And so are Chicklet and Little Man! Which hurts this Mama’s heart, but also makes me smile like a fool.
So watch for some of these clothes in action in upcoming pics. And wish us fun on our little family adventure.
I’m SO looking forward to the time away together with all of our to-dos and responsibilities on the back burner.
Happy Almost Friday, peeps!
Over and out.
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