Pamunkey Post from Mom...

Okay, most of the time I think our life is sooooo boring that none of you would find it the least bit interesting...but of course, minor things go on and I think that 'oh yeah, I can include that in a post'..and then the rest of the week is 'dry'. not yesterday...I was doing my house chores, checking ebay (it's been very slow lately and gasp, might need to look for a 'real'job), and found a geo metro...for reasonable..and in NC..forwarded the info the Craig and he gave me a bid range..and I won it in between doing hill climbers on the treadmill...I have been putting away a small sum every month for car improvements & replacements...so it will be a cash deal..read another old beater..that just happens to get 50 mpg... rest of the day was working and planning pickup arrangements to Asheville, NC..home of the Biltmore Estate....sounded like fun..going to get an early start today...hah! Cait called at 11:00..and was stuck in an upside down car..she had rolled it 3 miles from the house..it was dark, wet and she had no idea how to start to get out...didn't call 911..but thought Dad was the best bet...apparently she swerved around a big puddle, then had a big branch in the road..swerved again...and rolled into the ditch...I haven't seen it yet..PT was asleep so I stayed here and talked to her while she was crouched sitting on the roof..a little disoriented but perfectly fine. Of course, wearing a seatbelt..and to her amazement..they really work..totally held her in place and she arrived sitting upside down hooked to the now ceiling...thank goodness she is the wildiest roller coaster rider in the house so she thought it was an adventure. Craig drove her into the emergency room just in case, and an hour later I had pounding on my door...Local sheriff quizzing about whether I was the owner, where is the driver, why we didn't call it in, etc...they followed cait to the hosp to assure themselves she was fine, probably make sure she wasn't drinking, etc..they already had the car towed to the wrecking yard...that was Craig's grumble as we have AAA and it would of been free..now, it's several hundred dollars...and of course, it only had liability on it...and I just spent the car allowance money that morning....AAAAh life! But Cait is dandy..she got up on 4 hours of sleep and drove in wait tables this morning at Cracker Barrel...I told her to call & see if she could get the day off..but in her mind she should not let them down...nicely enough they had an extra worker and sent her home..and the rest of the family is at the wrecking yard trying to figure out the next move..how bad it is (especially since it would get damaged again turning right side up), how much they want to pay for salvage..vs whether my dear husband thinks he can resurrect or part it out on ebay....so in one day we've done a car rotation..and I'll still be stuck occasionally taking the suburban into town...at today's prices it's $10 just to get a $5 gallon of milk..go figure! on to more pleasant stuff...we surprised Pierce for his birthday (monday Aug. 25th) with a trip to Disney world....we had planned it months ahead of time when there was a cheap hotel/free food promo...and had it half paid for...then Craig's work was going down hill and we didn't know whether to cancel or go...since the part we paid wasn't refundable..we decided in for a nickel in for a dime...we planned, packed and woke him up at 4 a.m. on Sunday, had Cait drive us to the airport (he still had no idea where we were going that day)...and ended up in Fl for a week...oh what fun! and oh how tired! I did a TON of research before we went...went to ride sites that have figured out to the minute on every day of the year what rides are busiest and how long the wait time would be...you stick in the activities you want to do and it spits out a plan...and of course, we had free food so we rode and ate our way through all their parks...PT came home with a cold and gave it to me a couple of days later..so we each had a cold a week or 2 after the fact...and my new favorite ride is the rockin' roller coaster in Hollywood studions..an in the dark coaster with enough lights and road signs you have a vague idea where you're headed...and all the while playing aerosmith songs...the car takes off from zero to 60 in seconds and IMMMEDIATELY sends you into an inverted loop...OMG! I could of spent the day on that one...so there was our fun!!!! Pierce loved it... onto the weird coincidences of life....like everywhere Qimonda is struggling..they were spun off from Infineon..and chip prices have been down..and orders lower because of the economy...talk is they are going to get bought out...and guess who the top takeover person is? Micron...Micron is in Manassas 2 hours north...so no one knows whether they just want the equipment, close up shop to remove a competitor, or who might have a job..or for how long...so we've been living fairly cautiously but like everyone..things have gotten more expensive and we have been tightening the belts...But truly the whole idea that we moved 2500 miles and could end up under the Micron umbrella is a little odd.... Weather here has been nice...it's cooled off from the summer heat and humidity...fall has cooled off the evenings (finally)..I had been reading the Boise night temps and ours..we were 20 degrees or so warmer at night and similar temps in the day...I've talked Craig into paddling on the river several times...it's been gorgeous...leaves just barely starting to turn, eagles, osprey, insect hatches, monarchs eating up the plants and creating chrysalis...I see we are right in the middle of the pathway from Canada to Mexico for them....and we have had the swarms of red wing blackbirds come through..and when I saw swarm..I mean thousands upon thousands...darkening the sky and creating a huge noise... Craig's shoulder is holding it's own..still pinching nerves daily...feeling week..but he has been pushing it to get a few pushups in (it looks weird to see the bone configuration so I can't stand to look), he's chopped some of the neighbor's hardwood...he now knows why they call it hardwood..even with a maul it takes 12-15 direct hits to get it to split on an existing crack....he found that having a thick pillow between his arms allows him to sleep on his left side for a while...it had been immediately causing a pinched nerve severe pain and he wouldn't stay that way for more than a minute..so it was on his back or nothing... Garden is pretty much finished...since I hadn't written a pamunkey in forever..you wouldn't know..but I got a wild hair and started rototilling the side yard (sand in the shade), adding manure, leaves, compost and planting rows...as I filled up the rows I rototilled more..and kept going....after I planted everything I could think of I rototilled in front of our shed, Craig & Pierce dug a curving path from the driveway to the shed and filled with excess pea gravel...then I planted either side with periennials, roses, grapes, herbs, a few yard decorations as time and money allows...thankfully, our local trash station has free mulch..so each week..trash in, mulch out..and so we've covered most of the permanent garden with bark...thought I was done with the progress for this year..then...on Craig's birthday I saw a freecycle ad for some shrubs if we dig...so we took the truck and went to dig..the lady totally underestimated the amount..we ended up with dozens of big plants: daisies, monkey grass, holly, roses, barberries, azaleas, lilies, vines, butterfly bushes and a whole bunch I have no idea what it is...can't say I spent a lot of time deciding the perfect arrangement as it was over 100 that weekend and I just wanted to get in the ground...so the boys dugs up at her end..and I dug and planted at my end..2 days of solid digging..'happy birthday' I said....Craig said he couldn't wait to see what fun I had planned for next year....so it was the hustle to keep everything watered, alive and established...Strangest thing in my garden was a nesting turtle...right in my potato patch...so we marked off where she was and left that area alone..but I've never seen any holes of baby digging back through..so I don't know if snake, gopher, vole or something got them...while planting the free monkey grass Pierce discovered another nest of eggs..that nest has had holes show up so I'm assuming some of those hatched and headed to the water... okay...I think that is all the highs and lows...Cait is perfectly safe..THANK GOD! and send up lots of thank yous...and as I hear from all of you I hear all your highs and lows...Blessings: martine found a great job and is getting settled in St. Louis..that will be a good excuse for a road trip sometime...Cait's friends are settling in for their college experiences...Prayer requests...for Gerhard and his family...I hear his dad is ill with cancer...and Heidi looks like her job may be out the door...and Marilyn lost her twin sister recently...so as we all share our ups & downs know that at this end..I'm daily sending you all hugs, praying for all you too... love & hugs..jo

Update Extravaganza-I'm alive!

Alrighty... so I do believe it is time for me to update and post a new blog, especially considering recent events. As many of you already know, I rolled my car. I brought it on to myself so I should have seen it coming. I'm just glad I got so lucky and managed to sustain absolutely NO injuries, not even a bruise. I was coming home from work and I was going to leave a note for my parents telling them where I was because I was meeting a friend at IHOP, change my clothes, and drop off my book bag. Yes well none of that actually happened. I was only 2 miles from my house (approximately) and it was very foggy and the road was wet because it'd been storming the past couple of days and of course this all happened around 11 at night so it was dark. I came around a corner at the top of the hill and as I'm about halfway around the corner I see a branch sticking out into the road. I swerve to avoid it and end up hitting a patch of gravel from somebody's driveway. Due to the slick road and the gravel it caused me to skid across the road, of course Caitlin has no idea what to do so I decide to do the worst possible thing I can. I overcorrect which only makes the situation worse and in a matter of seconds I've managed to flip the car upside down. Thankfully I'm off to the side of the road in the ditch so if anyone else rounds the corner, not suspecting an overturned car to be there they most likely won't hit me. So at least that was taken car of. But I'm not out of my predicament yet. I'm still suspended upside down in the car. Thank goodness I wear my seatbelt because it's got me strapped in so I'm literally dangling, if I unbuckle it, I WILL hit my head on the windshield and I'm sure injure myself worse. But I really have no idea how I'm situated because the headlights are focused in dirt so are providing no light, and the only thing I can see is the glow of the radio console. So I know that I'm upside down and I know I heard glass break so now I'm afraid that if I unbuckle myself not only will I hit my head but I'll also fall into a pool of broken glass that will get embedded in me. Not the best situation I've ever been in. But I know that somehow I have to get down so I can get to my cell phone which I had sitting on the dash so is now who knows where. I braced my arms against something metal (not really sure what but I knew it wasn't glass) and my feet against the dash, well at least I'm assuming it was the dash because it was near the radio. I literally couldn't see a thing, it was pitch black. So after I had successfully released myself from the grasp of my seatbelt I began looking for my cell phone. I tentatively patted around me hoping there wasn't a lot of glass ... I found my cell phone within the first few seconds and called my dad. "Hey dad, I'm upside down sitting on the roof of the car. I rolled the car, I'm fine don't worry but I need you to come get me so I can get out of the car because I can't see anything" "(undistinguishable muttering) okay let me get my shoes on... where are you?" "I'm sitting at the top of the hill where mom and Gail and Lynell walk, I'm off on the right hand shoulder and if you could just shine your headlights on the car that'd be fabulous... thanks dad!" "Here talk to your mother, I'm on my way".... so I got to talk to my mom who is um.... well to put it nicely a little less put together than my dad. Dad is calm and collected in emergencies, mom on the other hand is freaking out that her daughter could of died... which I suppose is a reasonable reaction. Dad comes to the rescue, all we had to do was roll down the passenger window and I crawled out. The glass breaking that I heard was the side mirror that was broken... that's really the only damage. The car looks like I just gently rolled it over and it took a nosedive. None of the windows are broken, the roll bar is still intact and obviously worked effectively, the framework has a few dents but no more than any fender bender would give you. Otherwise the car is fine and I'm fine. I didn't hit my head on anything, I'm not bleeding, the seatbelt didn't cut into me, I don't have whiplash, I have no injuries whatsoever. But we decided to play it safe and take me to the ER, I mean you never know. So we're on our way to the ER and make a pit stop at the 7-Eleven to get a slurpee because that always makes everything better and then get to the hospital. While I'm getting checked out my dad gets a call from the police saying that someone called in the car as a recent accident so they sent out cruisers, the fire department, and the search and rescue, because they thought I could have hit my head and was wandering aimlessly around in the soybean field. Then they went to my house and my mom half asleep told them my dad brought me to the hospital and gives them my dad's cell phone number. Then we get a phone call from the police saying they've already towed the car and they're on their way to the hospital so that they can file an accident report because if the damage is more than $1,000 or a serious accident they have to submit it to state. Yeah, wonderfully. This is not good because now instead of calling AAA which we were planning on doing to tow the car we have to pay for the police's towing company and when the police call the tow truck you automatically pay 2x what you would have otherwise. :( Not good. I ended up checking out with nothing, they said if I developed any bruises/aches/pains to come back in... Now my dad and I are waiting at the ER for the police officer, he takes down everything I tell him... I conveniently left out the part about speeding... I was "focused on avoiding the branch in the road" I didn't know how fast I was going.... *ahem* Yup, just like that. so finally after everything's said and done my dad and I get home at 2 in the morning and I have to wake up at 6am to be at work. Not so much fun. So I got my 4 hours of sleep expecting to hurt like a mother bear in the morning after such little sleep and such a traumatic accident. But as usual I was wrong. I woke up just like it was any other day, I didn't hurt anywhere I had no bruising, no headache or sore neck, I was absolutely fine which is amazing. I went to work and then afterwards we went to go pick up the car from the towing company... cost me $300, ouch! But it could be much worse. The only damage is the side mirror, we need a new windshield because when they flipped it over they cracked it and there's a problem with the ball joint because when I rolled it I screwed it up but that's fixable and not a big deal. A few dents and dings here and there but nothing major. So as many have told me I'm pretty sure I had a guardian angel or something that day because instead of dying or being seriously injured I was just fine. Amazazing!!! My mom sent out a Pamunkey Post for those of you who get those which explains some other details but basically that's it.