I wrote this post hoping I never have to tell this story again...

Matthew 24
43 Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would keep watch and not permit his house to be broken into. (New Living Translation)

Matthew 6
19 “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. 21 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be." (New Living Translation)

Matthew 6
34 “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today. (New Living Translation)

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My house was broken into on New Years Eve. In the middle of the afternoon. I was at work.

My neighbor left a voice mail on my cell phone while I was at work. I listened to the voice mail, then exclaimed to my office mates: "crap! My neighbor just left voice mail & said someone broke into my house. He called the police. WHAT THE HECK?"

When I first called him back, he didn't answer so I left him voice mail. And had only to pace around the office, waiting for him to call back.

When my neighbor called back, he said there were 5 police officers, guns drawn, surrounding my house. He had seen the thieves knock fervently on, then try to kick in my front door. When that did not work, they grabbed a rock and headed to the back door, threw the rock threw the door, and entered my home. That's when he immediately called 911. Thanks so much to my neighbor for happening to be home (only b/c he had vacation to burn in 2008), and for acting so quickly.

My neighbor never saw the guys leave the house, so he thought they were still inside. But since my neighbor could not watch both the front and back entrance of my house at once, it turns out the theives were actually not still inside my house after all, when the police arrived 15 minutes later.

I was in such a state of shock, I didn't really know what to do. I didn't even know whether I should try to go home, or stay at work. All I knew was that technically I didn't have any vacation time left for 2008 and it was the last day of 2008 and I had lots of stuff I wanted to finish up that day. I needed someone to tell me what to do. My boss told me to go home. And my co-worker, whom I had by chance carpooled with that day b/c he was having car trouble, drove me home (thanks Paul and Dean). In my non-thinking-clearly state of mind, I even said that if I got home and there was nothing to do, I'd try to work from home that afternoon. Everyone humored me and said OK, knowing full well that I'd be in no state to work for awhile!

In the car, as we made our way through the streets of my neighborhood, I was surprised at just how nervous I felt. So nervous. Almost home. So nervous.

The house was secure by the time I got home, and my job was to survey the house and figure out what was missing or out of place. I'm not the tidiest person, so it wasn't that obvious to anyone but me. Here's how it went down.

• The first thing I see is the contents of various backpacks and other bags I had laying around strewn all over the living room floor. Picture frames. Clothes. Pens and Pencils. Makeup. Papers. etc. One of the bags was found in the yard by the police, and they brought it back inside.
• Next I go to the bathroom. Sitting in the bathroom sink was a large knife from my kitchen. The reality of what that meant to me would not sink in for at least 10 more minutes.
• Next I went to the bedroom, the messiest of all my rooms for sure. Looking... looking... oh, a large jar of change was gone. "How much?" the officer asks. I have no idea. $50 maybe?
• Looking... looking... oh, and my jewelry box is gone. The reality of how much that meant to me, the pieces of jewelry that had no monetary value and extremely high sentimental value, would sink in little by little for the next several days. "What's the value of the contents of the jewelry box?" the officer asks. I can't handle these questions, I don't know the answers. I start rattling off things that I recall were in the box, and how much I think they might be worth, but I really have no idea yet.
• Next I went to one of my guest bedrooms. Closet doors open, boxes and bags pulled out and emptied. And a few pieces my grandmother's china are laying on the floor out of the box they were stored in. I am glad none of it is broken.
• It's then I start to wonder: what else? What else of sentimental value to me, like the china, am I going to find? And at this moment I realize that finding your own kitchen knife in the bathroom sink means they were carrying it around with them the whole time they were in my home. And if I, or anyone else, had been there to get in the way... shudder the thought. I had kept it pretty well together until now. I start to cry.
• I went back to my bedroom to see if I missed anything. They went through my underwear drawers. They went through my UNDERWEAR drawers! I try to tell myself, "It's not personal. They just wanted money." But they went through my underwear.
• I check the other spare bedroom. It's a mess, stuff from my closet is all over the place. Nothing missing that I can tell.
• In the hallway, I had a bag full of Christmas presents I had not yet put away they had gone through. Some candy, knick-knacks, whatever. Nothing missing. Except I had gotten an awesome-nice, new, cordless drill for Christmas. It was gone. Had no sentimental value there, and being only a week old very easily replaced. But still, I JUST GOT IT.
• Back to the living room. My laptop computer is gone. My external hard drive is still there, thank God. And I'm glad that the backup I've made was only about a week old. But it occurs to me that I have my financial information and things like that on the computer. Granted, it's in a location where you have to be logged in with my username and password to get to. But I know that nothing is really secure. It just depends on how hard someone wants to work to get it.

I spend the rest of my afternoon taking care of everything. These thieves were in my house no more than 15 minutes, may they will get a few hundred dollars at most for the things they stole, and I will spend hours - no days - cleaning up their mess.

• It's about 30 degrees outside, it's snowing, and I have no patio door. So first Dean helps me put up a sheet on the door. Plastic would have been better but I couldn't find any. (Thanks Dean, for going to get me some lunch after taking care of that. Even though I mostly forgot to eat said lunch except for a little bit of nudging the food in my direction.)
• Then I call the insurance company.
• Then I call a glass company to try to get my patio door replaced ASAP. (Thanks again to my neighbor for getting their phone# for me from a buddy of his who does windows but not doors.) I am not hopeful about getting this taken care of today, being the afternoon before a holiday. Huge props to GLASSWORKS PLUS for sending a guy out to measure, having the glass in stock, and sending a technician out to replace the glass in the door within a few hours on a cold day before a holiday! And the woman I spoke to on the phone first, she called me no less than twice throughout the afternoon to update me on what was going on from their end: who they were sending and when, and making it very easy for me! (as easy as can be expected given the circumstances anyway).
• Meanwhile, I made all the calls necessary to change my credit card numbers. But to change my bank account info I had to go into a branch in person. (Thanks to James for staying at my house for when the glass repair man showed up, while I took care of my banking needs.) Thumbs down to CHASE BANK for sending over the branch manager to try to sell me other banking products, while I'm just in there to get my account number changed a few hours after a traumatic event!

I've experienced a wide range of emotions the past few days. And I've thought about and learned a few things. These will be covered in blog posts to come.

But I doubt these guys will be caught. The police fingerprinted some things, with no luck. My neighbor gave the best description he could from what he saw: 2 white guys around 25 years old wearing hoodie sweatshirts. Unfortunately this isn't much to go on. The officer left me with the words "Don't worry, we'll get 'em." I appreciate the sentiment, but I doubt that very much money or resources get put toward a case like this.