friday the 13th

Friday the 13th turned out to be a very interesting day for us.

Last year, Friday the 13th was an amazing day.  It was in May, and it was the day that I graduated!  Plus, my best friend had her baby that day, so I felt like I was walking on sunshine.

This year, however, was a different story.

But let me rewind a bit.

On Thursday, I walked up the stairs to our apartment after work and noticed two very strange marks on our door.  Upon closer inspection, they looked like puncture marks that might have come from a pocket knife.  I opened the door, mentioned it to Tim, and completely forgot about it.

Then at around 1:00am, right as we were about to fall asleep, we heard a knock at the door.  We looked at each other, completely confused.  Who could that be?  Tim slowly got out of bed and started to walk down the hall.  Suddenly, our doorknob started shaking violently.

Someone was trying to get in our house.  At 1:00 in the morning.

Tim started yelling in his loudest voice.  Then he called to me to dial 911.

I just sat there, confused.  "Right now?" I asked, panicked.

"Yes, right now!"

I dialed the familiar number with tremling fingers.  I'd never called 911 before.  And I'd certainly never had someone try to break into my house.

The dispatcher asked me all kinds of questions until the policeman finally came to our door.  It felt like it took forever, but really, it was only about three or four minutes.

As soon as we opened the door to our uniformed friend, we noticed a third puncture mark.  One that definitely hadn't been there earlier in the evening.  After talking to the policeman for a few minutes, I fully expected him to say something comforting.  Maybe, Don't worry, it probably won't happen again.  Or, I doubt he'll be coming back tonight.

Instead, he said a few things that made us feel worse.  "These marks in your door could be a warning of some kind.  It could be that someone just got out of prison and thinks someone else that they know still lives here and is trying to scare them."  He continued, "I would put up some sort of surveillance system, even if it costs you some money.  And you need to arm yourselves, and then do whatever it takes to protect your family.  Do you understand what I mean?"  We both nodded, momentarily stunned speechless.

Needless to say, we didn't sleep at all that night.

It absolutely petrified me to think that Tim might have to go to work on Friday - my day off.  There was no way I was staying home by myself that day.  Gratefully, his work gave him most of the day off.

And then the next morning, we promptly made the trek over to Harbor Freight to buy a surveillance camera.

Thankfully, we haven't had any more attempts.  But it's incredible how positively violated a break-in attempt makes you feel.  Makes me feel.  Even if they never come back, I'm not sure if I'll ever feel totally safe in my own home again.  And that's a terrible feeling.

But regardless, I already feel like we've been incredibly blessed.  It could have been a lot worse - in so many ways.  And I'm absolutely positive that prayer had something to do with that.

So, my friends, here's to hoping that our lives go back to being completely uneventful in that respect and that next Friday the 13th is more like the last.

the nursery victory

Every Sunday, Tim and I spend two hours in the nursery at church.  And if you're not familiar with that term, let me enlighten you: basically, we take care of approximately eight 2-3 year-olds.  And by "take care of," I mean we run around with, play games with, and eat with them.

It's actually pretty awesome.  I'm not sure why it isn't considered more desirable.

Though perhaps unusual, Tim is especially good with the little goobers.  Like, puts me to shame more often than I care to admit.  Our regulars have become quite attached to Tim.  But mostly, they've become attached to his teasing antics.

For example, during snack time, Tim has established a routine of pretending to take each of the kids' food.  He walks around to each of their plates saying things like, "Hmm...maybe I should take some of Brooklyn's food today!"  And then they all yell out in unison, "Nooo!" and start giggling simultaneously.

This last week, however, we had an especially sensitive little girl who was visiting from another ward.  She watched him uncertainly as he made the rounds at the table, pretending to take each child's food.  As soon as he reached her and said the usually-magic words, "Maybe I'll take some of Rylee's food today!" she burst spontaneously into tears.

Everything - and I do mean everything - Tim said to her made her burst into tears.  Even if he said something like, "Do you want some more cheetos?" she would look at him like he'd just killed her puppy or popped her favorite balloon.

The somewhat redeeming part about all of this is that she actually liked me.  It took some time, of course, but after the first hour, I'd somehow won her over.

I knew I liked nursery.