Tis the season to be paranoid

Today I'm writing to you at 4:45pm on a Friday. You might be wondering, shouldn't you be at work, Div? Ya, I should. But it snowed a lot today. Bc none of the networks can coordinate their coverage, it's probz between 8-12 inches. This morning, neither my drive nor my street were plowed in time and I knew my car was going to stuck somewhere between here and Sandy Hollow. I was supposed to go into work later but, the plows just came by a short while ago, so by the time I got ready and traveled to work, I'd have been there an hour max.

The last two weeks have been a trial. Not this week, really. But the weeks prior. Two weeks ago, as I mentioned previously, my mother got into a car crash. She was fine, are car was kinda OK, but we were all shaken up. Of course, there were insurance issues. While at first we had thought the women driving the other car (the one at fault) had insurance, turns out the car she was driving was insured, but for another driver.

The following week, in the wee hours of Monday morning, someone entered my house and stole a few things from our living room while we were all asleep. Some time between 1:30 and 6, dude broke in and stole my brother's Ipod and backpack and calculator, appeared to get scurred off, and left. My mother and I, on separate occasions, woke up to use the restroom. When we got up, we found our hammer out of place in the middle of our family room. It appears that one of us woke up while he was here, so he might have found this weapon in case one of us found him out. Thankfully dude was a fool. It had snowed Sunday, so his footprints were all up in the snow. The police sent over a CSI detective and they measured the footprints and whatnot. Later that week, they found the guy casing another house in our neighborhood. How'd they know who he was: his shoes matched the footprints. He was arrested, though no doubt released right away. Still the fact that he was arrested gives me some peace of mind. I don't think he'll be around any time soon.

I've been really paranoid lately as a result. The following Monday morning I had trouble going to sleep bc there was a storm with a lot of wind, and every time the branches shook, I imagined someone breaking into our house. I forgot to mention that our doors were locked when dude got in. He snuck in through a side garage door we haven't used in years and presumably unscrewed our door handle. The next day - Tuesday- the knob fell off into my hand in an action that would have otherwise been comical.

Last week we also attended fraud training at work. We watched footage of an actual robbery in the burbs, which also scared the hell outta me. As it is, I fear for my life when I'm walking to or from the car after/before work. So many malcontents hang around the bank in our parking lot and I just never feel safe in the area. I've resolved to buy some self-defense spray. I know I won't be able to fend off bank robbers, but it'll just make me feel better to have some pepper spray in my purse.