Twenty-seven Years of Accident-Free Driving Bliss...Until Now!

I got into my first real car accident last week. That's not a bad record.....27 years of accident-free driving! I did HIT my parents house when I first got my license at the ripe young age of 16, but that was just plain teenage stupidity. I got into my brother's 1946 Jeep and thought I could drive it. It didn't LOOK hard to drive. It wasn't hard to drive, but it was hard to stop. I took out two garbage cans, yard tools, and a picnic table before the Jeep came to a stop crashing into the back porch of my parents home. My dad had just finished drywalling and painting the inside of the porch (a project my mother hounded him about for a decade). The paint smell was still in the air, and I busted up the wall. UGH!

This time, I was sitting at a red light minding my ps and qs and BAM, I was hit in the behind. I will admit that I said "What the h_ _ _?" out loud, but I was the only one in the car, so I didn't have to apologize to any little ears, I just said, "Sorry, God, but what the heck?!"

This happened on one of THOSE days. I was running late from the moment I got out of bed. Adam (10 year old) had to take his science fair display board to school that day, so I had to drive him to school. Caleb (8 year old) wanted me to also pick them up from school.

I was barking my usual "HURRY UP!, LET'S GO!, GET IN THE CAR!, I'M LEAVING" etc. We piled into the car and as I opened my door, I was reminded that "someone" put a ding in the door panel on the drivers side. This is a brand new car. I've been driving a mini-van for fifteen years and I finally got into a car and one of my boys put a ding in the door with their bike handle or scooter handle. I know this because the ding is handle-high, and there was a bit of rubber scraped on the door also. The ding was barely an indentation, and I knew it could be easily repaired, but I have only had the car for three weeks and I was very upset.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that after Adam put his display board into the trunk, he got in the front seat passenger's side and locked Caleb out. Caleb kicked my car. He didn't hurt anything (except maybe his little foot), but the point was that he kicked my car.

I LOST IT!

I went ballistic on the boys yelling at them all the way to school that they don't take care of things, and the fighting, and the carelessness, etc...

As they got out to walk into the elementary school, Caleb asked if I would be picking them up and I snapped "NO, if you kick my car, my car won't be bringing me here to pick you up. TAKE THE BUS!"

Then I went on to a meeting I had for work that I was going to barely be on time for. After the meeting, I had to leave immediately to get back home because my computer crashed and my technical support guy was supposed to be at my house fixing it.

My son Nate (soon to be 19) was supposed to be awake at 8:30 a.m. (the time the technical guy was coming) to let him in and get him started. I had a feeling that wasn't happening and excused myself from my business meeting (with 30 other business owners). I stepped out of the building to call Mike and tell him to just go in and fix the computer and that Nate was likely sound asleep.

OK, so that worked fine. I called mike after the meeting adjourned at 9 a.m. and he was there running scans to diagnose the problem and he felt he could get me back up and running shortly. I had to exit the building parking lot where my meeting was by turning right (even though to get home, I would have to go the opposite way). The lot has a one way entrance and exit, which I think is totally stupid, but I obey the stupid signs.

So, I turned right and pulled into another lot to turn around to go back left and get home to meet up with the computer guy. As I sat at a red light, that's how I got hit. The truck behind me was stopped with me in front, and the left lane of cars got the green arrow to turn left and when he saw them move, he smashed into my back end. UGH!

So much for my NEW car and I had just gone nuts on my own flesh and blood about a tiny ding on the door, what would I do to this guy?

First of all, he was a very nice person and he did the right thing, because I was an idiot. Right after I got hit, when the light turned green, I went through the intersection intending to pull over in a parking lot to get out of the way of traffic. The guy who hit me COULD have just taken off, but he followed me into the lot and asked me if I was okay.

I told him how this was my first accident and that I didn't think about getting out at the point of the collision because it was a very busy intersection. He said he would never just take off in a case like that. I told him that some way, some day, God would bless him for what he did.

So, anyway, after totally scolding out my children for the tiny ding, I told this guy, a complete stranger that "It's okay, accidents happen." And, I said it with a nice tone and not mean at all.

I had an ugh-ly day and I learned something. I learned that things happen and cars are just things. I was happy that no one was injured badly and that we could all sleep in our comfy beds that night. Thank God for the simple things.

I hope I go another 27 years without an accident!

Jumped Through the Airline Hoops and Still Missed the Flight

Air travel in America has become such an ordeal.....you have to remove your shoes, limit your carry-on bags, store your liquids in a Ziploc baggie and they have to be a certain size, pay to check a suitcase. And, on top of that you have to get to the airport two hours before your departure.

My husband and I are not world travelers, yet it seems that we experience "road blocks" every time we fly. Last night we were booked on a Delta flight from Wilmington, NC to Chicago with a stop for a connecting flight in Atlanta, GA. We arrived at the Wilmington airport in plenty of time to check in and go through security. We didn't check bags because we packed our clothes for four days into a small duffel bag like Italians casing homemade sausage.

We thought we had the right size toothpaste, but the "toiletry police" gave us the option of checking our paste or throwing it away. After rolling up our pants and underwear like perm rods from the eighties, I didn't think it would be prudent to "check" the toothpaste, but now that I think about it, I should have told the woman that "Yes, would you please put my two ounce tube of toothpaste in the baggage area underneath the plane and I will pick it up in Chicago." Now that would have been funny! I will have to try that next time.

OK, so we get through all the procedures and we waited for our plane to board. It was raining and overcast in Wilmington and our flight was delayed about thirty minutes. That meant we didn't arrive in Atlanta on time, but we thought that our connecting flight would be delayed too since it was raining there as well. Or, we hoped that the plane might be held for the dozen or so passengers that had to get to Chicago.

NOT!

We got to the gate and the plane was there, but Delta had closed the door already. They said we would have to fly standby on the next flight which was also the last one out that night. If we didn't make that one, we would have to spend the night in Atlanta and fly out the next day.

"We have five kids," we told the Delta people at the gate. They didn't really care about that. They told us to go to their customer service counter and take it up with them.

We joined thirty or so other disgruntled Delta customers at the counter and waited our turn to talk to a customer service agent. They had a live person with a half moon smile and starry eyes at the end of the line who pointed to a roped off area that reminded me of the zig and zag lines at Disney World. This half moon smiley person said we would have to pick up one of the 40 phones behind her and wait for the next available operator (who I was sure would be in a land far far away).

I waited in line, picked up the phone, and waited about fifteen minutes longer until a customer service agent picked up the phone. I told her that my husband and I NEEDED to get to Chicago that night and not the next day because we have five minor children at home and (She cut me off mid-sentence, which didn't make me feel very warm and sunshiney inside). She said that I would be on stand-by with the other Chicago bound passengers on a fully booked flight. She couldn't guarantee me a seat on that flight, but I would have a confirmed seat on a flight out the next day at 10:30 a.m. (Which did me no good whatsoever).

I tried to tell her again about our orphaned children at home......(she kept talking). I asked her if she had ever seen the movie "Home Alone?"

"Do you know who Macaulay Culkin is? Do you want to be responsible for that?" The woman kept repeating the same thing over and over as if she were a recording about no seats on the flight and standby and tomorrow at 10:30.

Now I was ticked. Not only was I stuck in Atlanta when I started out in North Carolina and why in the world Delta would fly us south to go north was beyond my ability to comprehend, but now this woman was totally ignoring my dilemma.

I asked her how she could listen to me when she was doing all the talking. She kept talking. I asked again, only a bit louder. She kept repeating herself. I asked one more time and this time I was determined to be heard and I blurted out all the frustrations of the day and how it was the responsibility of the airline to make sure that their connecting flight information is supplied to their employees (our flight attendant said he had no information on our connecting flight) and that they had a duty to get their paying customers from point A to point B on time and that there was no reason for them to let that plane leave 120 seconds before the dozen passengers from their own connecting flight were able to get there.

She hung up on me.

UGH! My husband was standing near me and three other dissatisfied Delta customers were giving him the thumbs up and saying, "Yeah, we agree with everything she just said."

I was feeling slightly embarrassed and definitely like Delta still had not heard me out. I wish people who work in customer service would realize that LISTENING is a skill that can be learned. The problem may still be there, but when you listen to the one who has it, at least they have the satisfaction of knowing that they have been heard.

Well, we made our flight. We were the last two people to board and they shut the door leaving seven other Chicagoans in Atlanta for the night. I was happy for us, but I really felt bad for them.

Next time, I'm driving!

Post Office Miracle

Something miraculous happened to me yesterday at the Post Office. I had to go there to mail a manuscript copy of my book, UGH! The Joys of Raising Boys - Survival Stories from a Mother of Five Boys to a fellow author in the north Chicago Suburbs. I called this author a few weeks earlier to sort of pick her brain about publishing and how it all works and she agreed to read my book, and if she likes it, to give an endorsement.

Well, she is a busy mom too, so she had been meaning to call me for two weeks. Yesterday was the day we finally connected (after one round of phone tag a few days prior).

"I will mail you a copy of the book as soon as possible," I told her and then hung up.

I put the book with her address next to my car keys because I would be driving into town to pick up my twelve-year-old son Joel at the Junior High later that day. Joel was going to help me deliver the Coffee News (a weekly local publication that is distributed to area restaurants). I was supposed to drop off the papers to the regular delivery person last Thursday, but TOTALLY forgot. My bad. I told my delivery person that I would take care of getting the papers delivered.

Because we live in the country about equal-distance between two towns, I reserve errands for times when I already have to go somewhere. So, next to my book that was to be mailed, there was a stack of three library books (two days overdue) that I would also drop off at the library.

As I got closer to the junior high school, I realized that I may have enough time to go to the Post Office first, but that would depend if there was a line. I decided to play it safe and go to the junior high first so that Joel wouldn't think I forgot him (a STRONG possibility). I parked my car behind the line of other parental vehicles and was happy that I am finally NOT driving a minivan anymore! After fifteen years of minivans, my husband and I recently purchased a car. Yeah!

After a few minutes of watching adolescents pour out of the double doors of the old brick school building (they looked like a mass of disjointed ants going every which way), Joel found my car. He hopped in and had to move my stack of library books and my manuscript and he said, "What's this?"

"We have to go to the Post Office and the library before we deliver the Coffee News," I said.

He responded with an UGH! and got out his Ipod.

I went into the Post Office and took care of the postage for mailing my manuscript and moved to the side counter to complete the address label of the large envelope. While I was filling out the label, a woman walked in whom I knew casually from my church. I thought she would remember meeting me, but wasn't sure if she would remember my name, so I said, "Hi Karen. Do you remember me, I'm Tracy from church."

"Oh, yeah, Hi Tracy." and we carried on a bit of chitter chatter. She was at the Post Office to complete a change of address card. Her husband had just been laid off due to the slow economy and their family decided to move to a less expensive home.

I wished her well and said that I knew things would work out. She agreed. Then, I decided to take a little risk. A little voice in my head was saying, "If you don't tell people about your book, how will they know?" I had been doing research online about how to market a non-fiction book and one of the ways is to build a platform (following of people) through speaking engagements.

"Hey, Karen, I am just going to throw this out there to you..."

She looked at me, nodded and said, "Sure, go ahead."

"I have written a book about my five boys." I showed her the copy that I was mailing to the other author. "I am looking for speaking opportunities in the area so that I can promote my blog and my book. If you ever hear of a church group, scouts, ladies auxiliary, PTO, etc... that is in need of a speaker, would you pass them my information?"

She lit up a little and said, "Did you know that I write for the publisher of all of the small town local papers in the area? I cover feature stories as well as school board meetings. I would love to do a feature story on you."

"WOW, that would be great! I am giving a talk this Friday night here in town, would you like to come?"

"Sure."

I was amazed. Right before I got into my car to head into town, I had been surfing the web reading and reading and reading about the many ways to promote and publicize a book. It was overwhelming to me. So many books, so many authors......UGH!

As I drove by myself in the car, I prayed out loud for God to lead me to the right people and the right circumstances that will help me move forward as I follow my dream.

AHA! SHAZAM HERE I AM, God said to me as He allowed my path to cross with Karen's so that I could be featured in the local newspapers. It may seem like a small thing to others, but to me it was HUGE because it means more that just a moment in the spotlight. It means that the God who gave me my dream is listening to my prayers and He will be faithful to provide each and every resource necessary for me to achieve all that is purposed by Him.

Sometimes, the world can make me feel very small and insignificant. Rejection and disappointment can bring discouragement, but when I saw all the things that God aligned perfectly according to His plan so that Karen and I would be in the Post Office at that exact same time, I marveled and how much He loves me. I stand in awe at how much He cares about my dream. I am empowered by His strength! I am boosted up by His intimate touch on my life.

By the way, while I was in the library returning my overdue books, Karen walked in. I smiled and laughed a little and told her that it looks like God had a "PLAN B" for us to meet here just in case we missed each other at the Post Office.

Raccoon Warrior

I am at WAR with a mama raccoon.

Two weeks ago, my 10-year-old son Adam, told me and my husband that he saw a raccoon climb up our front porch post and go into our attic. (We are chronic home improvement procrastinators and still have not repaired the hole in our porch from the tornado that blew through our neighborhood last August.)

We didn't believe "Mr. Boy-Who-Cried-Wolf." Then, my eighteen-year-old son Nate told me that we definitely have some sort of MUTANT MOUSE in our attic making a ton of noise. I didn't put the two pieces of information together until a few days later when I saw the Mama Raccoon for myself.

I was walking home from the neighbor's house and as I approached the front porch, noticed a large furry rodent looking animal slowing lumbering up my post and then she disappeared into the tornado hole.

YIKES! The good news was that Adam WAS telling the truth. The bad news was I didn't believe him. Hmmm.

That night, our seventeen-year-old son Luke complained that Mama Raccoon kept him up all night clanging around in the wall next to his second story room.

I called a wildlife control expert who inspected the attic and sure enough, there was plenty of evidence that our unwanted and, might I add, FREE LOADING tenant was in fact preparing to give birth! She was nesting up there in our attic.

The wildlife guy said he would be back the next day.

Later that evening, my husband happened to be passing by our front door when he saw her big raccoon head pop out of the tornado hole. THERE SHE WAS! Then her head retreated again.

"SHHHHHHHHHH," Ron quieted me and the boys and he kept watching. After a few minutes, Mama Raccoon climbed down, meandered around our porch and then she ran under our van that was parked in the driveway.

Ron had the boys keep an eye on her while he quickly got a hammer and nails. I called the neighbors to see if they had a few scraps of plywood in their garage.

The neighbors came over with the wood. By this time ALL my boys plus the neighbor kids were monitoring the movements of Mama Raccoon.

Ron and the neighbor nailed the tornado hole shut. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!! Well, it turns out the Bush administration were not the ONLY ones to make that claim a bit prematurely.

We thought we had successfully blocked her entrance and could rest easily that she would no longer be wrecking our attic.

The next morning, I noticed a few roofing shingles on our front sidewalk. I stepped back several feet and noticed more loose shingles strewn on top of our roof. ODD, I thought.

Ron grabbed a ladder and climbed up there to find that we were dealing with one tenacious raccoon. She had torn off our roof and the plywood under-layment and made a hole large enough for her to get back in! UGH!

We currently have a cage trap set on our front porch and are hoping she will be caught and that we can evict her from our attic.

There are two valuable lessons that I have learned from this experience. 1. Do NOT put off until next Spring what you can take care of TODAY! 2. Be as determined and tenacious as a Mama Raccoon and you will go far in life.