D. Barbara McWhite grew up in York County, S.C., and lives in Orange Park, Fla., with her husband and cat. Her column is published here each Tuesday. Opinions expressed are solely her own.

I wanted a wool rug. A nice, plush carpet to warm my family room and welcome in the winter season.

But wool rugs are expensive, and in these tough financial times, the money just wasn't there. So I worked extra hours and saved really hard and at last I had enough money to buy it.

I gave my old rug to my daughter, who lives in another city, sure that I would soon have a beautiful replacement.

The thought was quite heady: I could go to Home Goods, Tuesday Morning or Pottery Barn and buy any wool rug they sold.

So I bought the first one and took it home, but it wasn't quite right. I tried another. Still not right. Over and over, I lugged the thick wool carpets home only to find that they all somehow missed the mark.

Last Saturday I decided to give it a rest, to slow down and wait until I was sure I had found the right one, no matter how long it took.

I had a plan.

And that's where life usually gets tricky -- when you think you have a plan.

The poet Robert Burns knew it in 1785 when he wrote," The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry."

He could have cut the crap, though, and simply said," Stuff happens!"

On that same Saturday morning, on the way home from returning the last of my wrong rugs, we received a call from our son. The call that all parents dread: "Mom I need to borrow some money."

His car’s engine had thrown a rod. Right through the engine block!

It didn't take long to understand that this news spelled the end of his motor and also the end of my rug money.

My son works hard and is reasonably responsible, so we easily agreed to lend him the money.

Trying not to cry over the loss of my much-longed-for rug -- not so easy.

I remember hearing my uncle say when I was young: "Man may appoint, but God can disappoint."

So I waxed philosophical: God must have known that this would happen; that's why he didn't allow me to find a rug that I liked.

Yet deep inside, I grieve for what might have been.

I know that if I had been able to keep shopping, by now I would have found the magic carpet to revived my family room, transforming my drab old sofas and creatively blending with my plain curtains to create a room suited for any HGTV show.

Instead, we have dragged out the rug from under the dining room table to its temporary new home in the family room, and life goes on.

And I have concluded that disappointment is bitter medicine, best swallowed in a big gulp.

Stuff happens.

To be sure, a wool rug is a simple thing -- nothing, really, in the scheme of life's journey. But whether the disappointment is large or small, sometimes we have to make do with something less than we dreamed of and learn to say, as the young folks do, "It’s all good."

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