Where is the Confetti?

Today, I did something that I have been waiting for - for 21 years. (To be exact) Sometimes I never thought that it would ever happen.

First, about nineteen years ago, Mike broke the ball off the top of his right elbow. It healed. Then he broke it off again. We almost lost our roofing company in the aftermath of his extended healing time and the fact that we were just starting out in his business and we had just bought the farm. That was strike #1.

Then we tried to catch up by renting 150 Simmental cows in a partnership agreement. I was against it from the start. Mike was "all in". One particularly bad calving season, when we lost over 1/3 of our calves to viral scours and both of us were suicidal from all of the little black and white dead bodies, we almost "cashed in" the farm. Cows returned, partnership ended...strike#2
Did I mention that a big Simmental cow can eat a big round bale of hay a day! And if you think that my reference to the cows in comparing them to a poker game is just an accident, you are wrong. Owning cows is the biggest frickin gamble that you can ever take!!

Then the infamous 30 foot on the job site. Most of you know how that turned out. That was strike #3.

Then the slip on the ice and the implosion that spelled the end for Mike's leg. Strike#4.

But today, I walked in the Pincher Creek Credit Union at exactly 10:00 am and made the FINAL F------ payment on the farm. We are done!! Twenty one years. Twenty one years of scraping and making do. Twenty years of wicked blizzards and digging frozen calves out of snow drifts. Two years of bad grasshoppers that ate our crops. Three years when it was so wet that we didn't even get to seed. One year that the crop froze in the field. Nineteen years of raising our kids on the farm. Four life changing crisis situations. (All involve Mike, do you see a pattern here?)

You know what? Somehow I expected that there would be bells that went off, confetti would fly, a grinning bank manager would slap me on the back and say "Way to persevere, lady!" and hand me a glass of champagne. I was envisioning that something should happen like when you are in Vegas and you hit a jackpot. Lights go off, there are sirens, everyone stands around admiring your good fortune...Nothing! A little "blip" on the computer and the line disappeared and the teller asked "Is that all?" I wanted to shout right back at her "What do you mean, is that all, you -----!" I was so let down. It was so anti climatic. Twenty one years and no confetti. What the hell?