What's important

Before we left on vacation, I had planned to take my truck in for an oil change, which is something I've done numerous times before. We do our best to minimize any interruptions while we're out of town. When you travel, if you don't prepare for the unexpected, you'll be greeted with chaos. After a quick stop at Valvoline, I headed home, and suddenly, my once functioning AC was no longer working the way it was supposed to. The once cool air that flowed freely throughout my car was now replaced with burning hot lava, complemented nicely by a touch of humidity. I thought that maybe it was just an issue that would be resolved by restarting my truck. Unfortunately, nothing in life is ever that easy. Upon arriving home, I went through the process of pulling fuses in the hopes that one had been fried and could be easily replaced. After an hour of pulling fuses, which as a random fact, there are three different fuse locations on my truck, I discovered there was no issue regarding my electrical system. I promptly drove back to Valvoline and asked if there was something that they may have done, because the timing seemed eerily questionable.

Unfortunately, there was nothing they could have done that would have impacted my AC system. So, in a cry of desperation, I set up an appointment with the Bob Brown service center. As the days crept by and our trip loomed on the horizon, I knew it would be challenging to plan for my vehicle to be used as the primary one for our trip. This was confirmed a few days later after I received a call from Bob Brown that my Compressor Clutch, which is essentially the device that runs the AC system, was inoperable. And better yet, they were on back order. So all I could do is wait until they had a unit available. 

As an aside, I still don't have AC in my truck, and Bob Brown has yet to call about when a Compressor Clutch will be coming. I even investigated aftermarket options, and apart from that, my particular vehicle has a special kind of Compressor Clutch that isn't readily available, even with aftermarket options. Those are also on back order. So I've been surviving the oppressive heat of summer with my windows rolled down. Anyway, back to the story. 

After receiving the terrible news, we knew we needed to pivot to Emily's vehicle because traveling across the country in a truck with no AC sounded awful. We made the required arrangements and worked on preparing her truck. As the days ticked closer, Des Moines began to experience a large swath of storm cells that left the area on the verge of flooding. With this immense amount of rain came a sobering reality: our cherished roof, like my poor Compressor Clutch, was reaching its end of life.

Up until this point, we had been patching parts of it as issues presented themselves. However, it was becoming increasingly clear that the roof wouldn't accept any more band-aids. The story of our home is a complex one, but let's say it's filled with countless owners, some of whom made good decisions, and others who made terrible ones. Well, the roof was a horrible decision by someone who hired a company that evidently didn't know what they were doing.

For those who are unfamiliar, we have a Spanish-style home, and the original roof would have been made of terracotta tile. At one point in our home's storied history, a tree fell on the house, damaging the roof and chimney. This is when the roof was replaced with a concrete tile that looks like terracotta. With any tile roof there are mounting brackets that hold the tile in place. The way they mounted the tile doesn't allow water to shed away from the membrane underneath the tile. Instead of shedding water, it catches it, allowing water to soak the membrane and causing leaks around the home. We've been playing a game of whack-a-mole with our roof for years, and now the time has come to address it in its entirety. Of course, this meant that we needed to leave buckets around our home to catch the beautiful, fresh summer rainwater as it made its way into our home. We called our roofer and initiated the replacement process, aware that the style we were looking for would be costly. 

The day eventually arrived when we packed up our belongings and headed to Colorado for our summer family vacation. In the past, we would have let things like this impact how we approached our time off. We would have been consumed by frustration and stress. However, time has left its mark on us, and our tolerance for these kinds of inconveniences is much higher. We're no longer concerned with the little inevitabilities, the things that trip us up or throw us for a loop. There's no point in trying to control the uncontrollable. Things are going to happen; they will always happen, but the way we allow them to interact with our lives is what defines us. We knew we needed this trip, and nothing was going to get in the way of that. Don't let the small stuff rob your life of happiness.