Lori McKenna "You Get A Love Song"

It has not been the smoothest summer for the Finns.

We had a serious financial hiccup at the beginning of the summer, that resulted in my wife, the teacher, NOT being able to have the summer fully off.  Which wouldn't be a big deal, accept that we had to scramble from week to week for daycare options for our kids, to cover those times when she worked.  Again, not a huge deal, but you parents know what it's like when you have to juggle, shuttle and otherwise disrupt.

But we're 10 days away from her going back to school, and from receiving her first paycheck of the school year.  We just about made it through the summer.

Yesterday, I stood in the driveway as the tow truck lifted our Honda onto its back and rolled our old car away.

For the last couple of weeks, the muffler has been loose and when I go down the road, it sounds like an aircraft carrier is coming.  But I knew it wasn't really dangerous to drive and we'd get it fixed in 2 weeks.

Then the starter died.  Well, at least it doesn't sound horrible---it doesn't make ANY sound and it can't go anywhere.

So we are down to one car until we can figure out what to do.  And again, there are people who have problems far worse than this, so with a little perspective (and a nearing-maxed-out credit card) we'll get through this too.

It's our seventh anniversary on Monday.

Tabitha pointed out that a lot of marriages crash and burn at the 7th year.  So we, despite the stress, were doing okay if we've made it this far.

We had been planning an overnight, sans kids, with dinner in a real restaurant, as an anniversary present to ourselves.  I'm not sure if we can pull that off now.

It made me think of this song.

You go through so much on a day to day basis with your partner, and not that you expect it, but no one ever tells the two of you "Good job!" or otherwise recognizes what a laborious task it can be to make it all work.

While our problems aren't fully analogous to the characters in the song (no drinking problems, fortunately!), I'm really glad that someone wrote a acknowledgement to the idea that "the only thing harder than letting go, is holding on."

It's an achievement worth celebrating.


See the video on Youtube.