In the realm of Murphy, this week was beyond belief. To begin with, seven of my classes were cancelled due to a lack of registrations. (Thankfully only 4 of the 42 on my schedule for the next six weeks are in jeopardy.) Then Wednesday, half of the officers registered for that day’s class cancelled at the last minute.

School is starting up next week which means books for me and Amy (about $400 together); supplies for Jeremiah and Sarah ($82.94 at Wal-Mart tonight) and an upfront payment on Amy’s tuition ($370). She usually gets that money back in the form of a Chaplaincy scholarship although it is not guaranteed. My school is totally paid with Army Federal Tuition Assistance (working on my Masters this fall) with the exception of books; additionally I received a new GI Bill with my deployment; chapter 1607 which will pay me $792.68 per month while I am in school the next two years…of course none of that money came in this week.

Earlier in the week my laser printer again quit on me; this time refusing to work until I replaced the cyan cartridge, even though I only wanted to print in black and white. I ordered it Wednesday…another $105 out of my business account that is supposed to be supporting me.  Even with that expense, I finally would have enough money to send out my next set of flyers after this morning’s class in McDonald County…which brings me to this morning. When I began setting up at the Sheriff’s Department in Pineville I noticed the screen on my computer was on a DOS prompt instead of the normal Windows blue. After several minutes of attempting to troubleshoot the problem I was finally able to open in safe mode and run my power point.

Fearing the worst for my computer, I quickly found the cheapest external hard drive in Springfield. Thankfully I had some extra walk ins at my class earlier in the morning which meant I still had enough money to send out my flyers…until I got home that is. Upon arriving home, my new cyan cartridge was waiting. Once I installed it, my printer decided it still wouldn’t work because I needed to replace my magenta and yellow cartridges as well. After $211 for those, I no longer have the money to send out the flyers until I get more money next week.

It was so crazy this week at one point I said to myself what next, is the car going to break too! I immediately went out to the car and it wouldn’t turn over at all. I was in a state of shock. I got out and checked the battery cables, wiggled them a little, and then tried again with surprising success. All my radio presets were gone and the clock was showing 12:00, so I wasn’t imagining the fact it had lost power; I think God was trying to tell me He is still in control!

Next week Amy and I are planning to give plasma twice each which will give us just enough to pay our rent and utilities. We still have enough grocery money to get by, and my mom sent us a gift card for Chili’s Our emergency fund is depleted, but we are still around to fight another day. September has never looked so good!

Oh yeah, did I mention Amy found out she is allergic to milk. Do you know how many things have milk in it?