Once again.....in perspective

I thought I was having a very bad day today. Brad finally found some time to start tearing down the wall between our garage and house this weekend. He got the dehumidifier out to run it for a few days and make sure the studs were completely dry before he went any farther. The 2 month old dehumidifier was not working. Today I took it back down to Lowes to exchange it. I stood in the (as always) line for 20 mins and then when it was my turn, the cashier said I needed to go get another dehumidifier. When I came back, I had to get in the back of the line and it was another 15 minute wait. After that, a 40 minute drive in traffic back to the house.

When I got home, I called the fence company who we signed a contract with and asked them where we were on the list. They said they had laid off the guy who wrote our contract and they needed to put me on the end of the list again to wait for a new guy to come back out and give us a new (even more expensive) estimate. I said no thanks and tried to call another fence company. The only one who would even put me on any sort of list said it would be the end of February before they could come give me an estimate, and they had no idea how long after that before they could start. In total frustration, I started searching the internet for fencing on the Gulf Coast. One of the hits I got really put things into perspective for me. It was an article about dairy farmers who had to sell their herds after Katrina struck. They lost miles and miles of fencing (thus the hit) and they could not afford to replace or repair it along with all of their other damage. Many of them lost their animals before they could even round them up to sell them. The farmers felt abondoned when New Orleans and the Coast got all of the publicity and aid while they struggled along by themselves. A group of farmers from up North pitched in to help, but it was too late for at least 63 farmers who lost their stock. It certainly made my problems seem very very small in comparison.