The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

THE GOOD

My niece and I rode our first Elephant, this beautiful 8,000 pound Indian Elephant.  I figured why not.  It's not like a person gets the chance to ride an Elephant very often.

I think I mentioned a while back that I was asked to help out with a local 5k.  Well that is coming up this weekend.  The only bad thing is, I booked a wedding for the same day as the race.  So I am not sure exactly how much of it I will be helping with on that day.  However, I've let them know I am fully okay with helping out with anything else they need this week and the night before set up.

Thanks to Diet-To-Go, I am enjoying a delicious week of yummy and healthy meals:)  Which is perfect to help me loose some of the past weeks "camping calories."

THE BAD

So last Monday, afternoon my Achilles out of the blue became seriously aggravated (again, yes I know I am a broken record on this subject).  

I am going to be honest, I am not exactly okay with it.  I still have to move on, and smile and say to myself  "This Too Shall Pass."

However, I am doing everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that the Dr's and PT's taught me to help and that includes a lot of time in the boot again.

It's hard to tell at this point if it is a full on flair up like before, or something else? 

Although I haven't felt the Achilles pain in a couple of days now, I am too paranoid to attempt to do anything on it right now, I think it is too soon.  I might take a test walk later this week, but only if I get that "feeling" that is okay to do so.

It just is what it is, and frankly it's not fair.  But I will get past this too!  I am just hoping my immediate action on it gets me back into things in weeks this time, instead of months/year like before.
But it will, I am confident in that, even if I am totally bummed right now.

THE UGLY

Thursday at around 5pm I received a call from a frantic mother of a bride.  

They were doing a "do it yourself, Pinterest" backyard wedding.  However, like many of these type of people they procrastinated, and well their things hadn't arrived in the mail in time and their wedding was, tomorrow...

So despite the fact that my initial gut reaction was, this woman sounds flighty and a little annoying.  I was a sucker for the sob story and since I was available to help, I agreed to it.

Now, when I do things like this (yes it happens more often than you'd think, rush 24-15 hours or less wedding notices.)  I have a Cash Only (or certified funds) upon my arrival the next day.  Credit cards/Checks can have problems late in the evenings, so I am "Cash Only" when they are asking me to be there in 15 hours or less.

I had discussed with the mother of the bride all of this, and despite being a total ditz, which I hoped was in part because her daughter was getting married in the morning, and they didn't have what they needed to pull it off.  She agreed to my terms, and I set out on a very long night getting everything prepped.

In short, the next day when we went to set it up (bridal party wasn't there yet, they had the ceremony at another location - wedding reception was going to be in their backyard)  let me tell you, these people had money.  You could have easily fit 3 of my homes inside their main house, and I won't even go into the grounds.  Lets just say multi-million dollar property.

Well I get a text from the bride's mom, that she has the cash on her, and she will just pay me that night when I come back to take it all down, and asked me to go ahead and set it all up as arranged.....

Rule #1 for all small business, rich people are the hardest to get money from!  So I was NOT okay with this.

Let's just say, when I threatened to cancel and leave, someone showed up with the money just a short while later and the person who did, told us that he agreed with us and he wouldn't of set it up without the money first.

However, that night was the first time that I experienced the "snub, nose in the air", the wedding party was awful to both to me and my crew.  It was a little mini nightmare.  However, I was SOOO thankful that I did not agree to have her pay me that night, because I know I wouldn't have seen a dime! 

These people were all about not having anything to do with "the help", and let me tell you we were not "the help" not that they should have been rude to a cleaning crew either.  But we were the People that made their daughters/family members day a beautiful success!  Who went out of our way on short notice to do so.
I am not used to rude people like this, normally used to a late evening of nothing but phrase and thanks from most I come in contact with...

However, I did get even:)  You can think what you want of me, I still don't feel bad about it.

A raised hot tub, had been covered and transformed into a huge gift area.  I had been asking for who could come take the gifts, and all I kept getting was a nose up in the air.  I needed my linens underneath so I carefully took the gifts off, stacking them so they wouldn't fall into the pool.

Well, a lot more happened than I am telling you now, to put me in a foul mood and I was in that, it's late at night, "get it done and get out" mode.

A little girl comes up to me, and asks "when is it time to opening the gifts?"

I turned to her annoyed, and then looked over at all the family who had been so awful to us, then I turned back to her with a smile.

I said, "you can open them if you want, I am not going to stop you."

She smiled and went around the the side of the hot tub I was already finished with and sat down with the gifts to have her fun.

Shortly after, I finished with the last of what I had needed, glanced at the child and walked out of the yard with a big smile on my face.

________________________________________

So that was my week, a little bit of everything.  But thankfully it had some fun highlights!
How did your week go?
Have you ever rode an Elephant?  
Have you ever done something nice, only to have it thrown in your face too?  Do you think I am a good evil or bad evil for letting the girl open the gifts, haha?