Man, it has been a crazy week so far (and it's only Wednesday!), so you can all thank the fact that I'm in an all-day AtTask training today for me being able to write this post.
I am going to try and make this as brief as possible... but yeah, if I don't succeed I hope you wont hate me.
So, the first weekend of July, my brother and I traveled home to CA to help my Mom and Step-dad move into their new house. And by move I actually mean paint and clean the old house in preparation for the renters to move in, since my parents actually "moved" before we got there. I chose to fly because that would [usually] give me more time at home without taking more time off of work. Well, our flight was set to leave Thursday evening at 7:35. This was to be a 1hr flight to Vegas with a 1 hr layover and then another 1hr flight to Ontario, CA. 3hrs all together. Not too shabby.
Well, to preface this story, I should tell you that the week previous to my flight was a nightmare. I was going from 7:30am-11:00pm straight, every single day. It was the end of the quarter at work, which meant that I had to make sure everything I was working on that quarter got finished so that I could get my quarterly bonus. I also had to do a bunch of preparatory work for the next week since I was going to be out of town for so long. So I was doubled up at work and on top of that, I had just received a new calling in church that required me to be in meetings Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night until late. On top of that, another reason I was going to CA was so that I could receive my endowments in the San Diego Temple, so I had to find time before I left to purchase everything I needed in preparation for that, which proved to be a little more difficult than I had planned. On top of that, I hadn't seen Chad in 2 weeks. Suffice it to say, I was running around like crazy, I was exhausted everyday, and I was quickly approaching my breaking point. Also, I was more stressed because I knew my trip home wasn't going to be relaxing; I was going to be working hard and every day was pretty planned out, so I just didn't see an end in sight.
So, when I arrived at the airport an hour early on Thursday evening, I had JUST missed seeing Chad, who had left Roosevelt early to try and see me before I left for the weekend, I was tired, anxious about missing my flight, and emotional. Then I found out that my flight had been delayed 40 minutes. Immediately I was bummed out because, had I known that in advance, I would have been able to see Chad. But I shrugged that off. They told me I would still be able to make my connection flight alright, so I took a deep breath and pressed on. Then I went through security. Lucky for me, I had forgotten to take my $15 hairspray out of my carry-on, so when the security guard pulled me aside to go through my bag, pulled out my hairspray and said, "this can't go," I lost it. I nodded politely, walked over to a bench, sat down, and cried. Did I care about the hairspray? No. That was my mistake. It was the week-worth of ridiculousness building-up. The hairspray just pushed me over the edge. I then said to my brother, "If one more thing goes wrong, I'm going to lose it."
Well, to spare you the rest of the dirty details, here's a drawing that I did that captures the emotions I felt for the rest of the night:
When I left for the airport, I was happy. Then in the car I was SUPER hot. Then I found out my flight was delayed. {then the whole hairspray debacle happened}. Then I was okay again and just worried about making our connection flight. Then I found out that our flight had been cancelled. Then I was holding back tears and an extreme emotional breakdown. {The rest of this sequence occurred in less than 4 minutes} Then they asked me if I wanted to change my flight to one that was leaving in t-4 minutes direct to LAX. Then I had 30 seconds to decide. Then I said yes. Then I got to the gate for the new flight and the plane was already boarded and the door was closed. Then they had to walky-talky into the plane for them to open the door and not leave us. Then they had to kick two pilots off of the flight to make room for us. Then we got on the plane. Then we were leaving, but my parents didn't know that we weren't flying to Ontario anymore and that we'd be arriving 2 hours earlier than expected. Then my mom wasn't answering her phone. Then I almost had a heart attack because they were telling us to turn off our phones, but I didn't even know when our flight was going to arrive. Then I called my stepdad and gave him a cryptic and frantic message to give to my mom. Then I had to turn off my phone and hope to heaven that my Mom would get the message and not be mad at me. Then I put my headphones on and wearily started to pray.
Well, GOOD NEWS! My mom got the message, but got stuck in crazy LA traffic for 4 hours, so we waited in the airport until 11pm (12am in my brain). Then the freeway was shut down on the drive back so we had to take a long detour. Then we didn't get home until 1:30 in the morning (2:30am in my brain). The next was when I was supposed to go to the temple.
The temple was a totally awesome and tender experience.
Then during the weekend we watched 2 firework shows. Though by the 4th of July we were all so pooped that we watched the fireworks out of a second story window in our new house.
Then we spent 3 entire days painting and cleaning the old house, which was a much more involved project than any of us expected. Luckily there was an army of angels who volunteered to come and help us (we were up against a deadline, of course). At one point I even painted a bathroom ceiling whilst standing on a bathroom counter and leaning backward and forward as if I was a limbo champion.
AND THEN, the cherry on top. Our flight out went off without a hitch. We were exhausted, it was going to be late when we arrived in SLC. I had to work early the next morning. When we got to Phoenix for our layover, we had plenty of time for food and everything. Then, 20 mins before our flight was to depart, there was a GIANT sandstorm and all the world went brown. You couldn't see anything. All flights were grounded. Most flights were cancelled. We didn't end up leaving until 11:30pm. And long story short, we didn't get home until 3am. Poor kid who picked us up had to work at 6am.
Apart from all that, I spent my weekend being completely full pretty much all of the time, enjoying as much of my family's company as possible, and getting high off of paint and cleaner fumes.
Good times had by all.
