One crazy afternoon

Life for a young wife was not quite what I had planned for. We moved into a unit that cost us $100 a week in rent. Considering all of our income was $300 per fortnight $200 in rent did not leave us much left over. We also faithfully paid $30 tithing to our church which is 10% of our income and what was left over was shared with food and text books for our studies. My mother would bring us meet to eat and a lovely lady from church brought us a box of bananas each week which helped theocery budget to stretch a little further. We could not afford a phone connection and used the pay phone at the service station. We lived in down town Lismore right behind the KFC so each day I would smell that golden fried chicken woft past my veranda window and into my front door but could never afford to buy any. Just as well as I could have been as big as a house! 
We lived at the base of this wok shaped city. I call it a wok because it is surrounded by beautiful mountains all around and the city itself is built right in the valley where. In the heat of summer the humidity would cook you and any breezes that would cool you were blocked by the mountains. Summer storms are a common occurrence in the afternoons.
We started our day to day living with transporting ourselves like a missionary companionship on push bikes or walking. We became experts at hanging  the grocery bags on the bicycle handles and riding through the main streets back to our humble abode. There were times I absolutely hated the ride, I was often panicked that Dean could not see well enough and would get squished by oncoming traffic. Deano however was never fazed. He had grown up with parents that encouraged both himself and his visually impaired older brother Lorin to have no fear and to go out and be and do what you want to do without their loss of this one sense to hold them back. The boys would often ride their bikes into town following the white line that marked the side of the road and use their other senses such as hearing and smell to guide their way. Living a country life they could certainly tell you when a cattle truck was approaching and passing just by the sound and smell.
Me on the other hand didn't really enjoy my buttocks sitting on the pin cushion of a bike seat.  Not being capable bike rider it became apparent to me that this part of my life journey was going to be tough.
On one such occasion I was riding my pushie following behind my hubby and to my dismay the chain fell off and the bike came to a stop. Ladened with groceries I was not a happy princess! I have a fairly loud voice and I called ahead to Dean but obviously on this stinking hot summers day he did not hear me. I felt like my world was just about to crumble. My goodly other half not seeing my dismay kept on peddling all the way home. All of a sudden I was on my own. With the night sky growing darker I sat in the gutter and cried. Surely Dean would get home and realise I am not behind him and come back and be my hero...I waited sobbing out my little heart. I was so precious about my demise that I didn't care about anyone seeing me upset as they drove by. After about 45min I realised that my knight in shining armour wasn't going to come and save me. Right there and then the pampered princess crown slipped off my head and with that I had to get some resilience about me. This was a challenge that I know most people reading this would consider a laugh and looking back it really wasn't that much of a challenge, but to me at the time with growing up having parents that had pretty much pampered me being there for all my self inflicted disasters to pick up the pieces, this was the worst feeling ever. Right there and then I learnt that I can get through challenges on my own. If Dean can do it I can do it. I picked myself up from the gutter. Collected all of my groceries and walked the bike and all the way home.
Arriving home my knight in not so shining armour was back in his room studying didn't seem worried about his damsel in distress at all...and boy was I in distress by this time. Once I had let leash my distress and not so politely blamed the whole incident on him (poor guy) ..my hero not knowing how to react to a hissy fitting crazy wife lost his cool and punched a hole in the wall...and what did I do...I stood there and laughed at the absurdity of the whole situation.  We both calmed down and today look back at this as a crazy learning afternoon, when the summer heat twisted our minds into moosh. Could we have handled this better. The answer is yes...would I start all over again and pick Dean as my companion and live in poverty for a few years again Heck yes! It's through these trials I have gained gratitude for the blessings I have today. At the time even though it was hard I was always grateful for my health, for food on my table and a roof over my head. Although I have much more worldly possessions now I still have that attitude of gratitude and accept that all that I have has been given to me by my Father in Heaven. Plus repairing that wall gave us an opportunity to learn about renovating and a taste of creating and restoring....which is something Dean and I have done now in 4 houses that we have purchased. We have been blessed indeed!