People Like To Take Our Stuff!

Okay, this is very long, and you don't have to read the whole thing. It was very therapeutic for me to get it all out!

You may all be wondering where we have been since there haven't been any posts since January... so prepare yourself for a small miracle in a chaotic world.

In mid-January, I foolishly forgot my cell phone on the table at the park across the street one afternoon with the kids. I didn't realize I had left it until the next day at noon. My stomach was in knots as I felt lost without it. Such a minor thing to lose and I felt so dumb for leaving it there! I said a prayer for guidance and then started asking all of the Mexican workers on the street if they'd seen it or taken it. I kept saying "Pink Phone? Pink Phone?"... to which I kept receiving the reply "No Englis." I knew I had seen the landscapers there earlier mowing and pruning and then a group of maybe 12 drywallers/painters eating lunch at the tables where I left it. I grabbed some $20 dollar bills from the house and happen to walk out right when the landscaping truck returned. Abby and Parker kept moseying around the workers in awe of their mowers and other "cool" machinery. I asked two men if they'd seen it and told them I'd be glad to pay anyone who brought it back.

After all the workers left our culdesac, one lingered behind and pulled his truck slowly up to our driveway where i was standing. He was leaving and I thought he was just slowing down to wave bye to the kids--they were waving back. But his waving turned into him motioning for me to come over. I hesitated and then walked up with Parker in my arms and a small miracle happened next. He pulled my bright pink razor phone out of his flannel shirt pocket. I couldn't believe my eyes as tears quickly welled up in them... Tears of unbelief and gratitude that he would actually bring himself to return it. His gesture means much more to me than the phone ever has, but now the phone reminds me of what he did that day. I tried to give him the money in my pocket but he kept pushing my hand away saying "no, no money, no, you make me cry" with tears welling up in his eyes. I kept thinking to myself I want to do something for this man! I wish I knew what he needed!

After thanking him profusely, he pulled away and i haven't seen him again since. I went inside and said another prayer of gratitude, this time with tears streaming down my face. I don't blame him or anyone for taking the phone- I was my fault for leaving it in the first place. What I am in awe about is that there are still people in the world with good hearts who do noble and great deeds. That man didn't speak English and didn't have a great paying job. I don't know much more about him other than I believe he is making good choices that will bring him more happiness than $50 would for a stolen razor phone.

And then there are the people in the world who are making bad choices, trying to make a quick buck at the emotional expense of others. This may have seemed like a long precursor to what I am about the share next, but it was needed to explain how I am recovering and healing from our burglary. Our community is still being built, which means there are dozens of mostly Mexican workers on our street daily. I have been very watchful of our kids and careful to lock the doors whenever I leave because it has always made me a little bit nervous.

On Friday, February 1st 2008, I opened the front door to start putting the kids in the car for preschool around 10:00am. I noticed a white 4door sedan on the street in front of the house next to ours with a mysterious man in the front seat. Looking at him gave my a very creepy feeling. At that moment I should have been more in tune to the Spirit and called the cops, but I wasn't and didn't. I was packing the car and too distracted by the kids running all over. He and I made eye contact a few times and then he pulled away. The image of him is forever ingrained in my memory.

We left at 10:30am. We arrived home at 5:30pm with Jon to find our garage door open, our side gate open, our front door open, and our garage inside door propped open. We had been burglarized. We called the police to make a report. Our neighborhood is so new, that the streets are not yet mapped and so it took police over an hour to find us. They did an okay job making the report and looking for fingerprints, but didn't find any. The burglars got in through a side family room window by jimmying it. Our garage was full of stuff so they literally threw it up against the walls so that they could back a small truck in and close the garage while they "worked". While they were in my house, my sister happened to IM me and they actually IM'd back a few times. The nerve! They said a few things and she knew immediately that it wasn't me, but she didn't really think anything of it because it sounded like a little kid so she just thought I had some friends over.

They took basically anything that plugs in, and more---plasma TV, DVD player, receiver, speakers, computer, modem, printer, telephones, answering machine, literally ALL of Jon's tools with the exception of 2 drills, my entire jewelry box (I still have my wedding ring and locket from Jon, and that's it!), my scriptures (because they looked similar to all the CD cases they took), our wedding pictures (because they were next to all the CD cases they took), video camera, digital camera, house keys, Honda car keys, and a 12-pack of Costco Tissues (go figure). And much much more totaling over $17,000.

Things they didn't take? Our basket of remote controls-hah! Oddly, this makes us very happy. They also missed our old TV which was in the corner of the office because we didn't have it setup yet, and 2 big boxes of DVD's which weren't unpacked yet. What they did take were 2 family room blankets to cover and protect the tv, etc. It's been long and difficult trying to notice everything that is gone, and I'm sure we will still be discovering things in the years to come. Like our swimming pool air pump! Man! Everything is mostly replaceable and if we could have one thing back it would be our wedding pictures. We got married before the digital age :( Luckily Jon backed up our computer on an external hard drive which they didn't find, just 2 months before this all happened so we do have 99% of our computer pictures and music. But what they have is our identity. It makes me sick to think about what they could do with all of the information on the computer. All of the websites that were linked and set to automatic passwords, etc. So far we haven't seen any signs of identity theft and have put fraud alerts on at the credit bureaus, but every day it's like we're still waiting for something to happen. We are praying that they cleared off the computer and sold it as fast as possible!

So the emotional side of things... We feel extremely violated. I felt like this new house isn't my house anymore, I wanted to move, it felt ugly, empty, and negative inside the house. They went through every dresser drawer in the house, including the kids. That night we were so shook up that we slept with all the lights on. We of course checked all the windows and even put chairs in front of the doors. They had our car keys (our garage was still full of moving boxes, etc.) so we pulled the car completely up to touching the garage and then we pulled the truck right up against it... It could not be stolen. We hardly slept that night in unbelief of the days events. The next day, exhausted and drained, we took the car to the Honda dealership to reprogram the keys and we changed our all the locks on the house. Jon put PVC sticks in all the window gutters and additional screwing locks on every window.

We are sleeping much better now. Sometimes I think it didn't really happen and i have to tell myself that it did happen. Jon has been so great in dealing with our insurance company, calling them every day and being on the ball. They, however, have been beating around the bush and have been horrible about calling back. So who knows how long it will be before we see any money.

Our new next door neighbors deserve more than a paragraph on my blog, and someday I will find a way to really say thank you. Craig and Alicia have been more than amazing through this experience. When we initially came home, they were the ones who took care of Abby and Parker for the next few hours while we dealt with police and got the house back in order. I was so thankful that Abby and Parker did not have to see my tears or the house in disarray because I don't want them knowing what really happened and thus feeling unsafe. You never want that for your child. Furthermore, Craig's work was recycling through some old computer and he was able to pull some strings and get us this one. All we had to do is buy the monitor--I'll take that any day!

Abby has quickly become a computer addict when it come to her Dora games and Barbie dressup, so we laughed a little and then felt really bad when she finally noticed the computer was gone. We just told her that we had to get a new one and left it at that. Now she begs to go over to Alicia's house to play mylittlepony.com because she knows that Alicia has a computer. I personally think she needed this month-long computer break!

Jon has been great too- in fact this was the easiest Valentine's Day he's ever experienced! Since all my jewelry was stolen, he bought me several necklaces and a good variety. He also bought me a new red digital camera! Yeah!

I must say at the end of this that I am thankful we are all safe. Things could have turned out much worse that day and I know we are protected and closely watched after. Everything happens for a reason and someday we may be enlightened by this experience. But for now, I am still thankful for the landscaper who gave back my cell phone, otherwise it would be so easy and excusable for me to be overly judgemental and even prejudiced toward certain others.

Irony:
The Sunday after this all took place we were sitting on the 3rd row in church with our white church bag at the end by the aisle. As church was starting, one of the moms walked up to our bench, picked up the bag and took it to her bench a few rows up. Jon and I gave each other a funny look wondering what she was doing taking our church bag. I was waiting for them to open the bag the entire meeting long because I couldn't wait to see the expression on their faces, but much to my disappointment the bag just sat there. At the end of the meeting I politely walked up and asked for it back. Looking a little embarrassed the dad said it was identical to the bag they had...yeaaaah riiiiight. People just like to take our stuff, so why shouldn't she have it?!