A Fresh Start (recovering from February)

Last week I personally declared that March 1 is a new start. It feels good just to think about it. Things were going smoothly and positive changes were made--then February came along. I usually go with the flow, at least most of the time, but these particular stresses accumulated. I became weary, melancholy, and uninspired. Yuck.

It began when our almost 14 year-old pet turtle died on January 28. True, this didn't happen in February, but close enough. A couple of us at our house have grieved for Donald, myself included. This was on the heels of our oldest Border Collie, Jack, getting injured which required surgery. He was kept inside and endured ten days of large antibiotic pills.

On Thursday, February 1, I received a frantic phone call from the home office of my former mortgage company. At 10:30 a.m. they said that I had to send via my dusty files to them via overnight courier that afternoon for an audit the following Monday. Sure. Take into consideration: 1. I hadn't closed a loan in over six months and had closed my business before Thanksgiving; 2. I brought the files home the night before after being told two days earlier to possibly expect an audit in the next month; and 3. FedEx picks up at 2:30 pm in Floyd. The day was a whirlwind of Stress with a capital S. When I came back home that night (with mush brain and zero energy), we discovered our client's bedroom door ajar and his parakeet cage opened upside down on the floor. Apparently, our outdoor cat snuck in when we left, there was nothing left of the keet but a couple of yellow feathers.

On Friday, February 2, I received a frantic email: Where's this? Where's that? This loan doesn't have X. I replied that I didn't have those items. They didn't give me time to review the files nor did they indicate any urgency when they first called on Monday. They asked for documents that were not needed in previous audits. It didn't sound good; I was mentally swirling around in the mortgage world and worrying about an audit for my now defunct business. I had a new job (since last June), but I found myself concerned about mortgage loans again.

That was how February began, it continued from there.

Last Thursday, February 22, my son's beloved blue parakeet, Birdy, died of natural causes. It was most likely from getting too cold during the ice storm on Tuesday, February 13th which left us without power until the evening on Friday, February 16th.

Between the 1st and the 22nd we lost more animals. Our comical duck trio 'disappeared' one by one when the pond froze solid in late January. There were two drakes and one hen, then a few days later just one drake and one hen, then soon thereafter only the lone black hen. She held her own for another week until, she, too, disappeared. We tried to pen them up at night in the old hen house to protect them, but it didn't work. The door flew open in the brisk winter wind and they escaped twice.

I've mentioned the power outage. When the electricity occasionally goes out all is calm and peaceful in the house, there is no appliance humming. This time there was constant production during daylight hours to generate heat and/or light. It was cold. It was so cold that the water in cat's dish in the mudroom was frozen Friday morning. It was warmer in the kitchen, when the kerosene heater came on Friday night the digital thermometer registered 43 degrees. That was the warmest room in the house.

It's a fact that we had the most memorable Valentine's Day in our family's history; the holiday fell during the outage. We ate an Indian dinner prepared by lamp light and afterwards huddled around the wood stove, reading together by the same lamp. We heard a loud crack--thinking it was another tree breaking from the weight of the ice--when the encased hearth mirror fell in large pieces to the floor. This caused the lamp to fall, it landed on the rug and my husband quickly picked it up. Miraculously, the lamp did not break and nothing caught on fire.

When the power came back on Friday evening February 16th we were jubilant and exhausted by having been so cold. We were grateful it was only for three days. When we had a brief storm of freezing rain last night, we filled up the bath tub and a couple pans just in case. We all said the same thing, "I hope the power stays on." No desire to repeat that experience any time soon.

I haven't called to ask about the audit. I'm not in the mortgage business any more; the mortgage broker life is behind me for good.

There were some highlights this month, we had friends over last Friday night and have enjoyed a couple of warmer days in the upper 50's since the outage. Jack has healed and our remaining pets appear to be fine. But overall, February has left me anticipating March in a big way and eager for a fresh, new start.

How is your year going? Any setbacks and/or progress made?