A Great Big Humongous Blessing

Some of you may know that we've had a particular financial sword hanging over our heads for about a year now, caused by the antics of our youngest son and his friend next door. Last summer they were throwing rocks, and of course I stopped them when I saw them. But a couple of days later our new neighbor on the other side called me over and showed me some minuscule dents on his hood, and one of the distinctively-shaped rocks on his driveway. Honestly, I could barely see the dents, but they looked huge to him. I knew Andrew had been throwing the rocks, and so we agreed to cover part of the cost of fixing the dents. Our neighbor to the South, whose son was also throwing rocks, agreed to do the same.

The lowest estimate that he got was something like $800.00

We were in shock. Felt absolutely sick about it. The neighbor was polite, but insistent that this had to be taken care of, because it was important to him. What could we say? He showed us the estimates.

Well, thank the Lord our neighbor wasn't very hurried about getting the work done. I think he felt worse about the cost than he let on. So it didn't get done and it didn't get done, but of course we were always waiting for that axe to drop on us.

Well, tonight he came over and seemed much more relaxed than usual. He told John that Honda had admitted that the paint on his car was defective. (Lots more little marks had been showing up in the interim.) They're now going to repaint the car for free, and the dent removal will cost less than $100. We are very, very grateful!

Andrew got to ride the school bus for the first time today. He was totally psyched up about it, but I suspect from his lackadaisical response this afternoon that it wasn't as thrilling as he'd hoped it would be.

Phillip is trying to get away with murder over homework already. John and I presented a united front tonight, and it had an effect that we hope will last for a while.

My computer was dead for a while today. When John came home he quickly diagnosed the problem by turning it over (it's a laptop). He found that the fan was completely clogged with dust, so the unit was overheating. Quickly fixed.