This past weekend, as a whole complete picture, sucked. I really don’t have a better word for it than that. I mean, each individual thing that happened wasn’t an enormous end-of-the-world deal but, compiled together and mixed with the fact that we’re already stressed out about other things added up to one big weekend of suck.
Last Christmas, we had a little bit of extra money (gasp) so, on a whim, I booked us a cabin for Valentine’s weekend. I figured it’d be a nice surprise for Stephen, a nice getaway for us and good timing seeing is how I’d be about 6 1/2 months along by then. I found a really romantic cabin way up in the North Georgia mountains that boasted spectacular views and a big fireplace and all the snuggly amenities a couple would need to make it a nice little vacate from the stresses of life.
Needless to say, we were both really looking forward to this. We were supposed go go up this past Friday and stay through Sunday, Valentine’s Day.
Friday, it snows in Georgia. Curve ball number 1.
For those of you who don’t live in Georgia, snow is something that isn’t seen all that often. It may flurry once in a while but a good, solid snowfall isn’t something that’s terribly commonplace. Mostly it rains, is cold, and stays overcast all winter. It began snowing around 2pm and didn’t stop until well after midnight.
If we had left before 2pm, I’m sure that we would have been fine getting to the cabin and up the mountain. But, we had also scheduled a Salvation Army truck to come pick up furniture from the guest room (soon to be nursery) that morning.
Morning.
They didn’t come until 3pm. Curve ball number 2.
So I’m already irked about that. They come, take the furniture and we finally get out of the house around 3.15pm. It took us an hour to get out of the city and another two to get up to Ellijay where the cabin was. By then the snow has let up a little but the roads are starting to get a nice dusting on them as the temperature drops below freezing.
We made it almost to the cabin. The last 6/10 of a mile is a gravel/dirt road that is extremely steep and leads right up to our cabin. We slid trying to go up it so, instead of risking all our lives, Stephen turned the truck around and made the very silent, very depressed long trip back home.
To say we were disappointed would be an understatement. I just cannot express how much we were looking forward to this weekend and getting away together. We don’t have a lot of money and Stephen works his arse off to try to keep our bills paid, us fed, and slowly climbing out of debt. Add to that the stress of “oh my god, we’re going to be parents” and you have two people who are in need of a teeny little break.
That was Curve ball number 3.
We get home really late and pissed off – I’m fighting tears and not succeeding very well. Stephen unloads the truck and I unpack. He goes to put the duffel bag on the top shelf of our closet and the shelf breaks from the wall. This shelf also holds the rod upon which all of our clothing is hung.
Curve ball number 4.
So now all of our hanging clothing is hanging from various curtain rods around the house and the closet is emptied out in to the bedroom so he can have room to fix it when we can get better fasteners.
Saturday was just quiet. We played some video games, watched some TV, made cinnamon rolls and hot tea. Generally tried to relax.
Sunday we cleaned a little – he sorted through a dresser he has filled with tools and general randomness in an effort to get it out of the nursery. I checked our bank accounts to see if we had any money available to do something for Valentine’s Day. Dinner? A movie?
Nada. Curve ball number 5.
Now, I realize that Valentine’s Day is mostly just a commercial, over-priced romantic holiday. However, it was our first commercial, over-priced romantic holiday married. It meant something to me. We’ve been through a lot together and we’re about to have a baby and this seemed like a big milestone and a last “just us” romantic something. I know we can do that any old night of the week – the logical part of my brain knows this but the romantic, emotional, stressed out part of me just felt defeated when I realized we couldn’t do anything on Valentine’s Day. It sounds silly and stupid but, at the time, it was a big deal to me.
Then we lost internet and cable. Curve ball number 6.
For those of you who don’t know, Stephen and I are gamers. We’re geeky, nerdy, gamers on custom-built machines and we love it. We play Guild Wars, Civilizations, World of Warcraft and any alpha/beta game we get invited to (of which there have been many). One of the things we use to manage our stress levels is our love of gaming together as a couple and our fantastic guild we have in World of Warcraft made up of real life friends. Sunday is a day we all get together and do something as a guild.
No internet means no gaming.
Internet finally came back up later that night so we were able to do something but some drama in-game ensued that I had to deal with and, by that point, after everything that happened over the weekend, I was just tired and crushed.
And crying. Lots of crying.
Stephen, bless him, tried his damned hardest to maintain a positive attitude the whole weekend. I am, by far, the more emotional one between us. I get stressed out a lot easier than he does. I lose my temper and patience a lot quicker than he does. He is, most of the time, my calm and my perspective. Ever since I got pregnant and my hormones have been completely out of whack, he has stepped up the effort to be that calm and that perspective. He doesn’t always succeed but he tries and, for that, I love him more than I could ever say.
This whole weekend, whenever I would just dissolve into tears, he would never tell me to snap out of it or say something patronizing like “it’s not that bad” or “look at the bright side” or stupid nonsense like that. He would do something like hug me, give me a tummy massage, make me some tea or even watch a fantastically romantic girly movie with me.
It’s Monday now and I’m hoping the stresses of this past weekend are behind us and we can begin to tackle some of these new problems one at a time over the week. The one good thing that did come out of the weekend is that the furniture in the guest room is finally gone so I can move onto the next phase in getting the nursery ready by cleaning it and prepping it for painting. We sat down and picked out the paint colors we liked so I’m heading up to Lowe’s sometime this week to pick up all the paint.
I do have to say, though, I have never wanted a drink so badly as I did this past weekend.
