Rear ended…

Yesterday was a busy day to begin with. My honey asked me to help him clean the outside of our shop so it would look nice for two weddings we are hosting this weekend. My schedule was already extraordinarily light for the day, mainly detail work in preparation, and getting to top it off with a grandkids ice cream date after school. I ended up washing all four sliding glass doors as well as four windows and all their screens.

A tent was delivered, and I took pictures of its installation for both brides. Weeds were pulled, a greenhouse spider mite infestation dealt with, wild cat was played with. A bride brought “stuff” over to put in the upper room to await the big day. I’m not a professional photographer, but I love taking “before the wedding” pictures! I offered to help take “getting ready” pictures. The wedding was being run by a wedding coordinator who was doing it for free for this family. She does that once a year as a ministry. Since she was paying for a photographer, she needed help.

I took a few pictures of the dress and two floral bouquets, signed rental delivery documents and scurried off to the school to pick up our fourteen year old granddaughter and our twelve year old grandson to take them for ice cream. A regular date time with them that I hope continues for a while longer.

About a mile away from the school, the right hand turning traffic began to slow drivers, so I began to slow, as I dropped to between 15-20 mph, I glanced in my rear view mirror just in time to see a guy barreling towards me. I had just enough time to think he’s going to hit me, when he did. Hard. he was going between 35-45. We had just passed the school when the speed limit drops from 45-35, and many people don’t slow down. So, who knows.

I pulled over a few feet to the shoulder, and thankfully, so did the other driver. I asked the kids if they were ok, both said yes. I got out to exchange insurance information. He had his in his hand, and asked if we were ok. I asked the same. I took some pictures, wondering if I should call the police for a repost. I almost let him leave after that, but thought I should call my insurance company first. Since I got an automated system, I did decide to call the police. Oddly, the other driver was fine with that, even though he would get cited. It didn’t seem like a big deal to him. He even laughed when he said his car (an old Monte Carlo, a beast) would probably be totaled. I wondered if he might be stoned. The damage to my hatch was significant also. I texted my honey and the kids parents to let them know that we were ok, but had been rear ended. The sheriff came, pictures were taken, I was interviewed, the kids were asked if they were ok. I told him we would be visiting a chiropractor, just in case. I know whiplash can be a sneaky thing, sometimes the results don’t show up for months.

We skipped ice cream, and I took them back to school to meet up with dad. He’s a teacher there and hadn’t left yet. I told him I would try to get appointments with a chiropractor for each of us. Once I arrived home I called my insurance company, but bypassed the claims department. They recommended I go get checked by a doctor. I had vaguely remember t that some companies don’t pay for medical unless you are immediately checked out. I met our son at the local urgent care and we did our due diligence.

The next morning found my shoulder area sore and I could feel my pelvis was out of place. I texted our son to ask about the kids. Our fourteen year old granddaughter was very sore in the neck and shoulders, and it was worse when she lifted her arms. She skipped volleyball practice. Our twelve year old grandson said he felt fine. We were able to find a walk in clinic, and walked in. We were placed with a non neck twisting chiropractor, as per my request, who was very thorough and used a gentle technique I was unfamiliar with. Chiropractic is my main source of medical care. After he adjusted our granddaughter and had her walk across the room and back, when she turned to come back she had the biggest smile on her face and said I feel so good!! It was my turn next. He said my pelvis was twisted, probably due to bracing for impact and pushing hard on the brake. And my shoulders, neck were pretty tight, probably the whiplash. After the adjustment I had a similar response.

I purchased a two month package of adjustments, four each month, for less than the standard price of two appointments. My insurance was easy to deal with and said send the bills as they arrive and we will reimburse you as they arrive. my insurance company is the Hartford through AARP. I’ll let them go after the other insurance company to recoup costs.

I took everyone out to lunch after the chiropractor visit in place of ice cream,

Although our grandson still seems to be unfazed, I am going to also get him in this week, just to deal with it, even though there are currently no symptoms.

It was a long Friday, when I added in filing claims and getting appointments for colossi on repair estimates and doctors for everyone to my already busy prepping for two weddings. But… I am grateful that God protected us. I am grateful that I was wearing my ankle brace (on my driving foot) at the time of impact. I am grateful the other driver didn’t run. I am grateful for my girlfriend who called to check on me when I texted her about my accident. I am grateful for so much.

What are you grateful for?

Still learning…

A couple weeks ago, some friends of ours asked if we wanted to double date with them and attend a one night marriage conference. It promised to be hilarious, and helpful. I was hesitant to ask my honey if he would go, knowing that he was teaching the next day at church and he usually likes that night before to soak in his studies. I asked, he agreed. I was thankful. I learned at the convention, that he was making an “emotional connection” with me with that decision to do something with his wife, even though he may have preferred to do something else.

The laughter started in the car on the way there. The four of us rode together. We talked about this and that, finally landing on music trivia. Who wrote what songs, when, etc. You can guess where that led… eventually we all broke out into song in that mid-sized sedan space. It didn’t surprise us that the theme song for the night was the very one we had been singing. The laughter continued through the night, including the moment when our friend’s husband leaned over to apologize for bringing us to a Mormon church function (no mention of who sponsored it on the info packets we got). We laughed and said it was fine. We may not agree with the Mormon doctrines, but we do know the Mormon church does “family and marriage” really well and we respect that. We would just chew up the marriage advice and spit out any doctrinal stuff.

We ended the night with a quick stop at Baskin Robbins for a scoop (or two) of ice cream, and continued laughing as we made the dark drive home. All of us concluded that we came home with some great resources for our relationships. Some things we learned about: men and women communicate for different reasons. Men collect data, women want to just interact. I learned that if I want my husband to really hear something I have to say (our grandson has had a high fever for the last few days), that I need to make sure I have his full attention before saying it (ie. Make sure the football game is over before sharing it). Their brains don’t multi task like ours. And I learned that if I want time with him, don’t ever say “Honey, can we talk? Or we need to talk.” That immediately triggers fight or flight in them with thoughts like, “what did I do wrong?” “Is this going to take hours?” “Where is the exit?” Instead, ask I can ask him if he can set aside an hour after dinner on Tuesday night so we can just chat about life. It answers the questions. What? Talk about life. When? Tuesday night. How long? An hour. They can be prepared, not surprised. Oh! And my favorite, reverse your buts! Don’t say, “I love you BUT you are driving me crazy!” Say “You are driving me crazy BUT I love you.” I once heard it said that most people only hear what comes after the word BUT. If that is true, let’s make sure what they hear is I love you. What a beautiful way to let our speech say what we mean, while building them up instead of tearing them down!

Many years ago, when I realized men were not mind readers (why do we grow up thinking that? It is so unfair to them.) I started telling my honey what I needed. For instance, “Baby, I need to have a good cry. Could you please hold me in your arms, let me cry on your shoulder, and when I am done, just tell me everything will be ok. You don’t need to fix the problem I am crying about.” Honestly, what I learned last night takes that to a whole new level for me. I am excited to see where our love goes from here.

Thought for the day: if you are married, write down seven things about your spouse that you love. Start it out with “I love 1, 2, 3, … about my spouse.” If you are a single parent, do this for each of your children, if you are single without kids, do it for your parents. Then, leave it someplace for them to find, like a love letter, and see what happens with that relationship.

Sickness…

I have two choices today. One, I can be annoyed by the fact that my grandchildren are such good sharers, and left their cold germs behind when they visited last week. Or I can choose to look at my raging sore throat, sore ears and lack of energy as an opportunity to take a down day. I am definitely torn by these two decisions. Being a type A personality I want to continue to tough it out and get done all the things that are on my l my list for today. However, I know that since I am not hungry, and I do not feel energetic, I should probably crash on the couch with a good book, a fuzzy blanket, and a cat on my lap. Taking it easy is sometimes the best route for getting better, but also the hardest.

That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the two days with our grandchildren. My dad, their great grandpa, came to COSTCO for a shopping trip. We had fun browsing, and topped the trip off with hot dogs and pizza for lunch. The rest of the afternoon was down time, read books, take naps. The oldest had arrived with a cough and stuffy, yet runny nose. The youngest was extremely emotional , and a bit demanding all afternoon. I could tell he was tired. Baseball practice was cancelled due to rain, and after a healthy dinner, we all went to bed at a decent hour. I let them sleep in as long as they could. After eating the delicious banana chocolate chip pancakes, we drove to a nearby citywide garage sale. Each child was given twenty dollars to spend however they desired, with my veto power intact.

It was interesting to watch their two personalities at work. Our granddaughter who is almost 12 chose to spend her money on a travel alarm clock that came housed in an adorable pink gray and white case. Her large purchase ended up being a set of two pieces of luggage in a nice magenta color. Both were in excellent condition. The wheels and handles worked, and they were fairly clean. That was her treasure for the day. Our grandson on the other hand, who is almost 9, chose to look for baseball cards and Pokémon stuff at every stop. He came home with a couple Pokémon manuals (?), two small stuffed animals, a baseball clock, two brand new computer mice, a baseball bat and a huge box of baseball cards that he bargained for all by himself. I was pretty darn proud of the way he handled that. It went something like this: He had gone up to the man with a couple small stacks of cards and asked how much they were. The gentleman said,”that is a good question. Would you be interested in buying the whole box?” My grandson answered in the affirmative, and was then asked how much he thought he would like to pay for the box. He answered quickly and decisively, “five dollars.” The gentleman said he thought that that was a fair price, and then said, “I hope you find a million dollar card in that box”. I so appreciated his generosity.

Lunch at Subway, as planned, ice cream at Baskin Robbins, as planned. Since it had been colder than we expected, we were all a bit chilled, and our grandson had begun to show signs of the cold his sister had, we headed home for some down time before baseball practice. This gave me time to pack some snacks for them to eat beforehand. Baseball always seems to be during the dinner hour. Hopefully the snacks would tide them over until they had a late dinner at home.

They both went home happy, I went to bed that night happy. Our love tanks were full. So, I honk that I will choose not to be annoyed at the sickness. I am so grateful for each moment I get to spend with them, healthy or sick. Time passes way to quickly. So, I am grateful for the down day. I choose to see the silver lining. I hope you will also as you face the challenges of each day.