The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

You may or may not have heard that our house was broken into on Friday. The house is fine - though there are marks on the front door that show how they pried their way in. I think I would feel more burgled if we had a big mess to clean up or things to repair. Nope. They took a laptop which we can replace, the safe with a lot of sensitive papers/paperwork inside and everything else they took had high sentimental value. I'm pretty mad about some of the sentimental things but I am completely freaked out about the paperwork in the safe. That is going to be a nightmare to deal with.

Thankfully we weren't home when the folks broke in so no one was hurt. Jess walked to the house after school and knew something was wrong. She called me to tell me she thought the house had been broken into. I told her to get out of the house, go to the neighbor's house and call the police. I shifted plans from picking up Wy and went immediately to the house to wait with Jess for the police. Devon and the kids showed up minutes after I did and we waited together. The kids did not understand why it it took "SO LONG" for the cops to get to the hosue. Jack wanted me to let him call the police to ask "WHY aren't you at my house yet?" I explained that they would get to us as quickly as they could.

In some ways the sight of 2 police officers going through my house with guns at the ready is more disturbing than the thought of someone breaking in and stealing things... As we waited for the officers to check the house, Jess kept telling me she had touched things inside and she shouldn't have. I finally looked at her and said "This isn't CSI. They aren't going to fingerprint our house." Guess what, they fingerprinted the house.

Jack spent most of Friday evening pacing and telling John we had to move. He was happy that the thieves didn't take his soccer balls but he was sure they had stolen his soccer shirt and shorts (they were in the laundry). Wy was baffled that the thieves did not take any of his Thomas trains. That was incomprehensible to him.

One of my friends suggested we have someone smudge the house and I immediately knew she was right. Mom called my Aunt Beth and she brought her smudging gear and and went through the whole house cleansing and blessing and protecting us as she went. Jack and Wy beat the drums to chase out the bad spirits. (Before she came over, Jack kept saying "Beth is going to s... Beth is going to s... What is Beth going to do to our house?")

Here she is with the heron wing she used to waft the sage through the house as the boys beat the drum. (Jack may be a little drummer in the making as he created and kept up a very specific pattern for the smudging.)


And here she is smudging one of the rooms.


As for the house, we are pricing new front doors and discussing installing a security system.