The J6 Journey: Year 3, May 3rd, 2018: When All is Lost, Or Is It?

Today started out fine, but it ended in a horrible mess. I'm still putting back the pieces. Let's see how this went. It started with a long introductory appointment with a new chiropractor. He's giving me a discount, but it's still expensive. He's been in the business for a long time, and knows what needs to get done and I felt much better after that adjustment. The office is kind of set up weird where when he actually adjusts you, it's in front of other patients in a big room. I know you aren't talking about private information at that point because you've done that in a private room, but still, kind of weird. That's after some cold therapy and massage therapy. Anyway, I'm hoping that this will help me a ton to get back on track.

The afternoon was fine and dandy, but I had to squeeze a lot of prep work for Friday in a short amount of time. I was going to be the one to drop Benaiah off at prom in the evening, so that was going to take a good chunk of time. I had a concert the next day but have had zero time to think about it, and it's my favorite artist, Michael W. Smith! I am just not liking this back to back crazy schedule and I know it's mostly my fault. Anyway, time to drop off Benaiah.....

Benaiah's prom was at the Circle Center Arts Garden where I took the middles about a month ago. So I knew exactly where the entrance was from the mall. I also had observed how Jared drove downtown last weekend to see the American Ninja Warrior course and a light bulb dawned in my head that THAT'S the garage that him and his parents always use because we take literally two major roads to get there from our house. And it so happens to be under the mall. And when you go up that set of escalators, the elevators to the Arts Garden is right there. So we didn't even have to go outside. Yeah! I hadn't thought it through that after I dropped Benaiah, and his date, Ethan (his best friend, same as last year), that I would be alone in the garage and the mall and getting back home when it was getting dark and I was downtown. Eek! But I thought I would be safe enough because I always have my phone out ready to dial 911 just in case. But, I lost my phone, or so I thought.

Before that, I walked Ethan and Benaiah to prom, and stayed around long enough to get a few pictures. I left when the last other non chaperoning parent left. I love watching Benaiah interact with his peers, so I try to hang around as long as I can. He's quite the popular guy. Lots of the students just go as singles, not couples. It's a very low stress kind of event. No one is left out that way. In fact, Benaiah had one of the worst embarrassing moments a teenager or adult could have. This happened after my problem that I will discuss below. Benaiah went to do a squat, and he ripped the whole entire backside of his pants! Or rather of Jared's WEDDING pants!!! I would have been extremely mad if it wasn't for needing the laugh and that Benaiah handled it well. He was near just a small group of friends, so he shimmied over to a table and sat down for an hour while Jared was bringing him new pants. This had happened while I was on my way home, so Jared was ready to walk out the door after I arrived. Benaiah says he's just grateful that he was wearing dark underwear! I'm sure they are going to tease the heck out of him at school this week, but he'll take it in stride. They all love him and will laugh with him. Thank goodness he didn't have a girl for a date and it's not his senior year! Poor guy, but what a hoot! Jared ended up coming back home because he didn't know that prom was going to be over soon enough. And I couldn't tell him that or communicate with him because I had his phone. I had his phone because I lost my phone....or so I thought.....

Back up to me leaving Benaiah at prom. I walked out and around the elevators right outside the Arts Garden onto the 2nd floor of the mall thinking I would do a little window shopping to get an idea of how to overhaul my wardrobe. And one of the things I was thinking about was shoes, and lo and behold, the very first store was Payless Shoe Source where I get all my shoes! They are trendy enough and sturdy enough for the light use they get, and they don't cost more than $35 full price. My fashion boots were maybe $40 and they've lasted harsh winters for 3 years running. Anyway, I start browsing and taking pictures of the shoes I might just buy when they aren't full price, so halfway through summer probably. Score! I turned my phone to "buzz" but not off because I felt awkward taking pictures of shoes I wasn't buying and I didn't want to bother the employees or customers. I then walked around to the girl shoes and then to some socks. I thought I had my phone in my hands when I was looking for socks, which was right near the register. I found the socks I wanted to purchase, stood up, and I thought I had put my phone in my pocket or jacket pocket which was tied around my waist. There was one lady in front of me at the cashier. A tall, black man entered the store with what I thought was shopping bag, but I only caught him out of the side of my eye. I turned around back to the cashier and I think he cracked a joke or made a comment, but I ignored him, because I thought he might be with the woman in front of me and was just coming into the store to meet up with her, like he might have been at the other store while she was at this store. But now I'm not so sure.

I paid for my socks at the cashier thinking I had just slipped my phone into the jacket pocket which is pretty big and open. The guy that had been to my right definitely had a chance to steal it while I was distracted. Because when I walked out of the store and went to find my phone, it was gone! I searched my purse, the employees and I searched under the shoe racks thinking I had dropped it and kicked it, we looked in shoe boxes. It was nowhere. We even tried calling it but it went straight to voicemail, which means it had been turned off. I was and am devastated. I knew I had to be careful of my surroundings. I had the big DSLR with me and I kept my purse on me and zipped at all times, which isn't something I do all the time. I was scared and angry. I've never lost or broken a phone or any other electronic device. Yes, I've junked up devices with apps and malware, but not physically broken the hardware. The phone is not fully paid for, although we do have some time left on the insurance on it, so maybe we'll be able to get it replaced easily. Finally, I went back to the prom and called Benaiah over to tell him what had happened. Thankfully, the security lady let me do that because I think she had since us earlier on the elevator. We used Ethan's phone to contact Jared and then I came home. But that short walk down the escalators through the garage was so scary for me. I should have had Benaiah walk me down to the van, but I didn't want to bother him and embarrass him even further after having been one of the only parents to stay and take pictures and then to come back to give him the heads up, poor guy.

I wasn't really afraid of what Jared or Gary (we are on Gary's plan, but we pay for it) would say, but I was so angry and disappointed in myself. I'm still grieving. My whole life is on that device or connected to it. Yes, my real life is in front of me, but I do all my planning and communicating and learning and business through the computer and the phone, but mostly through the phone because my computer is super slow. It's a laptop, but it isn't portable like a phone. So when I got home, Jared told me I was going to be the one to figure it all out, although I wanted to just throw it over to him to fix since I've heard men are great at fixing things. Rescue me! Nope, I had to make the initial phone call, and then the ball was bounced over into Gary's account because he's the account holder. And I still have to finish the claim today because Gary had bounced the ball back to Jared and Jared didn't have a clue what to do with it. Anyway, moving on.

I spent the rest of my evening dealing with the phone calls, changing passwords just in case, checking my iCloud, trying to use the phone finder thing, etc. The funny thing is is that the pictures of the shoes I had just taken moments before were already loaded up to the iCloud. Thank goodness I pay for the bigger iCloud so I don't have to worry about running out of room! And the phone is backed up every single day. Because everything is on the iCloud like my calendar and notes, I can still access all of that through the computer. I revamped our tablet after many a struggle to figure out a way to make phone calls out of it and get my social media and email apps on it. I'm just not always near my computer to write things down or email myself. I was leaving with my friend for a concert at 1pm the next day. I did not have time for this! But the tablet is Android based, so none of my iCloud data will transfer. Which means I have no portable calendar or notes. To get an idea how hard this is, think of my phone as your calendar, dayplanner, watch, alarm clock, entertainment, phone, texting/messaging, library (for looking up things like how long does iced tea last in the fridge), news source, GPS (that was fun not having a GPS to get me out of downtown), weather, etc. etc. A lot of these things can be done on the computer, BUT BUT BUT, I can't have more than one tab open on my computer or it will freeze and it takes 2 minutes to unfreeze for every 5 minutes of work I can do. It's incredible inefficient and with an already full day Friday, Sunday, and all next week, I have zero time to waste. I'm behind on the blog, but I thought I would have time on Saturday to catch up. I'm trying but I'm still not going to get everything done I wanted to.

Losing my phone is like having my arm cut off. I know most won't understand that. Some said maybe it's a good time for detox from electronics. Except that I don't have the paper versions of a calendar and to do list put in place. I don't own a watch. I don't have a landline to call people on or get messages from. And I can't post anything on Instagram for my businesses because it's strictly a phone app and not a web based app. There goes trying to earn the special for the month. The tablet is up and running, but it can only handle so much. And it's picture and video quality is awful. I did find out how to take a screenshot though, so now I have the screenshots from the musicians as they prepped for Friday night's concert. I know all of this is first world problems, however, if you have solid routines and someone comes in and destroys all of them in one second, you'd be thoroughly thrown off, too.

I'm trying to manage, but it still hurts. I can't pick up my phone and take a video of my kid. I can't check the time or email without toting around the tablet. I've had to really learn the android system of swipes, clicks, and screenshots. I've now used it to take pictures and cleaned it off, but discovered that it's been signed into the wrong account. And this leaves the kids without their beloved tablet and then they have been whining about that. I'm trying to be grateful, I really am, and I'm actually a bit better after getting everything situated yesterday and today (Saturday as I write this). People are just plain flat out mean. And it comes at a time when our bank account is low due to large annual bills. So we can't just pick out a new phone directly from the shelves and restart. It's just another example of scabbing together the bits we have to make do instead of really excelling and prospering and making progress financially. And after working so hard for the last 20 years, it really hurts. Anyway, I can't really turn this into something positive yet, except for having another device to scab myself into using. And, now, I'm falling asleep from lack of sleep trying to keep up and catch up. It's been a rough couple of days. Good night.

All the kids that went to the Southside Christian School Prom 2018 at the Arts Garden in Downtown Indianapolis.

I think it's that blue trigger point, and the tan trigger point affecting my neck and shoulder.

Maybe that green one, too. Nice posters at the chiropractor! This is exactly what I need to know and have been trying to figure out!

Benaiah had the whole day off so his fellow female classmates had all day to prepare for prom. The middle schoolers has a half day. So, we had more tickle fights!

My living room looks like this every day. I look away and leave it alone for a few days, and I try to not let it migrate into other rooms because I cannot breathe and work and think in this chaos!

Yeah for big brother!

The Cinderella carriage! I told Benaiah he should take his first real date on a ride like that. Jared and I went on an open carriage one when we were dating. It's kind of expensive, but worth it. They do it year round.

Facing west looking at a theater on the right and the J.W. Marriot hotel that it right in front of the Indiana State Museum/NCAA Hall of Fame and right behind them all is the Indianapolis Zoo across the White River.

Yup. This sign. They put up a time lapse of putting it up and it took like 4 days to do! They change it every so often, too. What a job!

It was drizzly and not the best lighting, but before prom picture with the family.

Them crazy boys.

They crack me up. Benaiah is super tall but Ethan is even taller! Best friends for life!

Finally, a decent smile!

Events are held here often enough, so they cover the tables and move the art displays out of the way.

Small but fun!

Benaiah with some of his friends.

Ethan always makes a dorky face when he sees a camera. I hate him. No, I love him, and I'll take his picture anyways. They can cringe in 10 or 20 years when they look back and say to themselves "I was so dorky!"

Serious picture with some of their friends who didn't have actual dates.

Being funny.

The last pictures from my phone, boo hoo hoo. Abishai wearing Daddy's sandals, or shoes with holes, or air conditioned shoes. Jared hates calling them sandals.