She got out of her electric chair and into her regular wheel chair and we headed out to the car only to find that her car was TOTALLY dead. It took about 30 minutes before her road service place got a vehicle out there to jump the car. The battery was so dead that they had to keep the cables on for almost half an hour before we finally got the car started. Long story short, her fog lights had somehow shorted out and came on and that’s what killed her battery.

We finally headed out, and got to the store only to have to make 3 trips around the parking lot until there was an available handicap spot for her to park in. We spent quite a while in the store, made a few other stops on the way back to her apartment and I was finally able to head home around 7 this evening.

If you thought things were a bit hairy up to now, just wait, it gets MUCH harrier!!! I decided to take the back way home from my sister in law’s because as I got to the express way I could see that traffic was INSANE and I just didn’t want to deal with it. All went well and I decided to stop and grab some dinner on the way home. Shortly after that is where things went REALLY REALLY bad!

Last night our area got some fairly major rain, some areas in the upwards of nearly 9 inches of rain in about 12 hours. So some areas are experiencing some pretty significant flooding right now. I live out in the sticks and 2 years ago last month we had some fairly significant flooding in the area. But hubby and I went out in his truck and drove through it, slowly, but we made it through it with no problems. So I’m in my van and when I see the sign that says “High Water, Road Closed” at the far north end of my road I think to my self that it can’t be any worse than it was in 2006 and as long as I take it easy I’ll be fine. I couldn’t have been more wrong!

As I headed down this near one mile stretch of road I took it slow and steady, making sure to stay in the middle of the road because I know that’s where the road is higher. What I didn’t take into account in comparing it to when we drove through it in 2006 was the fact that while we were in a truck, we were in a 4 wheel drive truck. I got about 1/4 of the way down the road and the water started getting higher than anything that I’ve ever driven through. I had the thought that I should back up and get out of there, but for some reason, I didn’t, a decision I would soon grow to regret!

At about the half way point the “wake” that my van was causing, for some reason, came out in front of my van rather than staying behind me and the water came within a few inches of coming up onto the hood of my van. I started getting freaked out, but knew that I really needed to keep my cool if I was going to pull this off. So I just forged ahead, knowing that I was half way. Things went down hill from there. Shortly after a wave came from around my van and the water went up over the hood by just a few inches. At that point, the van gave a “chug” like it wanted to stall. I knew that I had to do everything I could to prevent water from going into the intake and that at this point, putting the van in reverse to back out of it was no longer an option. I also knew that if I let up on the gas, the van would stall, bringing sure doom, so I just gave it a little more gas, just enough to get it past the “chugs” it was doing.

Things got even worse. I passed a slight clearing in the trees along both sides of the road and it was like a current, both trying to pull the van from the middle of the road and sending water well up over the hood, almost to the vents directly under the windshield. By this point I was TOAST, completely freaking out, shaking almost uncontrollably and hyperventilating to the point that my hands felt like they were covered with pins and needles. I just kept saying “Please God, just let me get through this, I have to drive to Baltimore and if I kill the van my husband will kill me”, over and over again. I stopped looking at the water and focused on the intersection that was a few hundred yards ahead of me and above water.

The van tried to stall 2 more times, each time I gave it just a little more gas, with the speedometer dropping to “0″ the last time. I was in tears, I KNEW I had totally messed up, I should have known better than drive down that road, no matter how familiar I was with it and no matter how sure I was I would make it through the water. While I’m not a “religious” person, I do have my own beliefs. Call it divine intervention from a higher power, REALLY good luck, or what ever you want, but the next thing I knew I was at the intersection, on dry ground, and my van was still running. There was a car there that was stalled as well as an ambulance and fire truck, so I parked my van, but did NOT turn it off. One of the firemen was my former neighbor and he could tell I was a wreck, so being the person he is, he started making fun of me to get me to laugh…LOL! He also pointed me in the ONLY direction from that intersection that didn’t have water, moved the ambulance so I could get through and told me that my van would be OK since it was still running.

I SWEAR I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever drive down a road that has standing water across it for the rest of my life! And to be honest, I’m not sure I could even ride in one going through it, even if I knew 100% for sure that it would make it through it fine. That was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever gone through, even worse than the night that there was a shooting outside my bedroom window. It took me better than 2 hours just to stop shaking, and I feel like the worlds biggest idiot for doing what I did. I put so much in jeopardy for what? Nothing more than trying to save myself from having to turn around! I feel so fortunate that I didn’t ruin my van! There was NO WAY I’d have been able to get it fixed and it’s what we’re driving to take the kids to visit their sister. If I’d have ruined it from the water, there wouldn’t have been any other way for us to get them there!

And THAT was the stupidest thing I’ve EVER done!

Where did the past 13 years go? I look back and think about where my life was then and where it is now and it’s honestly not that much different. It’s not that I feel my life is bad, because I don’t! If anything I feel eternally grateful for what I have been given.

Years ago I was told by a very prominent doctor that I would never carry a child full term, let alone give birth. And look at me now, I’m a mom of two wonderful children, well, they’re wonderful sometimes…..LOL But seriously! I truly feel blessed for what I have been given! There are so many out there that go through so many more struggles than I do, but I draw my strength from their stories!

Be forewarned, I’m going to have one of those “Mushy Mom” posts tomorrow…LOL! But I think that you will enjoy it!

I was quite shocked when one of the online travel sites that I checked out last night had a 3 night Vegas trip for $249 per person that included a really decent hotel! I also found a 4 night package to Orlando for $247 per person, but I’m just not sure if I want to go to Florida in July, ya know? But were trips that had to be booked by July 1, which I can’t do right now. If we do something like this it’s absolutely going to be booked last minute, with just a day or two notice, if that. So I have a feeling, as it gets closer to the dates that we want to travel, I might be able to snag us up something within the prices we wanted to pay! I’m NOT giving up! LOL

Going through all the boxes that got put into the attic did have one major benefit though! I found my box of books from the bookshelf at the old house and we also found the box that had all of our CD’s, DVD’s and videos, which we haven’t seen since last October. I had asked my husband more than once if it had been put in the attic, and he swore profusely that it didn’t, guess he was wrong, wasn’t he? LOL

I had NO clue that we had collected so many CD’s over the years. Probably because the vast majority of them are my husbands and he kept his either in his truck or by his computer. Since he no longer has his truck, and the Honda doesn’t have a CD player, we now have to find a place here in the house to store them all! I’m thinking we need to look at audio racks that could hold the stereo and all these CD’s that we have. That way the stereo and CD’s all in one central location!

I live in the NW Ohio area, just outside of the towns of Toledo and Holland. This morning I met my mom at the Spring Meadows shopping area because she was taking my daughter shopping for her upcoming birthday. After a very major car accident over 20 years ago I am a very cautious driver, my husband often calls me a “grandma driver”…LOL! I’m especially cautious when driving through parking lots of busy shopping areas and I ALWAYS stop anywhere in parking lots where stop signs have been put, with NO exceptions!

As I was approaching the stop sign in front of the Kroger store I seen a woman coming out of the store. While I could have easily stopped at the sign and then gone through before she even entered the cross way, I took the extra time and waited for her to cross. After she walked through I looked and then looked again and there was no one getting ready to walk across the cross way, so I started to move on. After I got past the stop sign a “man” and woman came out from behind a parked car and started freaking out, basically trying to tell me that I hadn’t stopped. Now I know I stopped and so did my mom and daughter, so I yelled through the window “I did stop, back there where the stop sign was, not up here where you are” and started to drive away. As I drove away, I noticed that this “man”, who was easily in his mid 50’s and very nicely dressed, thought it would be perfectly acceptable to flip the bird to a car full of women.

I’ll admit that I’ve flipped the bird to my fair share of people in my life time, sometimes with reason, and sometimes without. But I’ve NEVER flipped the bird in a situation that would deem it totally inappropriate or when I know that I’m the one at fault. But there is just something that makes my blood BOIL about a well dressed grown man who feels it’s perfectly acceptable to try and intimidate a car full of women when HE was the one that was in the wrong. If I had done something wrong, I’d have gladly admitted it, but I am 100% positive that if there had been a police officer who watched the whole situation, even he’d have agreed that I did everything 100% legally.

So, do you want to know what I did when he did that? I stopped the car, put it in park, took off my seat belt and got out of the car. I then looked at this joke of a “man” and proceeded to tell him what an impressive “man” he was for doing what he did to a car load of women, and that I’m sure his wife was very proud to say he was hers. Should I have kept my mouth shut and just drove on? Probably, but I’m sorry, pathetic excuses for human beings who do stuff like that give me every right to tell them exactly how pathetic they are!

I’m SOOOOOOO glad my husband is a decent and respectful MAN who would never be so disrespectful to treat women or any other person like that! I should know, he’s put up with me for over 16 years now…LOL!

She called last night with some neat news! They came in yesterday and approved her for an in home health care aide, which we had not doubt they’d do because she had one where she moved from. Anyway, the good news is that it’s ran differently down here than it was where she was before and she can now actually choose who she wants for an aide and wanted to know if I’d be interested in the “job”. I put the word job in quotes because it would in no way be a job for me, I’d be spending time with someone I care about and helping them out.

Anyway, I’ll be gone until sometime this afternoon, I’m hoping not too late in the day though because they kids will be home alone and we’ve got storms coming in and I know them well enough to know that they’ll be freaking out if it’s anything more than a minor storm! See ya this afternoon!

A couple of weeks ago I helped my daughter get her room cleaned up, it was just a gross and disgusting mess and I had tried everything to get her to clean the mess up on her own before I finally offered to get in there and help her. It took us a few hours, but we cleaned that room ceiling to floor and it looked GOOD! When we were done, I set down a few basic rules, no eating in her room, no drinking unless it’s bottled water and keep it picked up.

I finally got around to hanging her new blinds today and when I moved the bed away from the window I about fell over from what I seen. Under her bed were dirty dishes, food wrappers and dirty clothes. So when I was done I came out and told her to get in there and get it picked up. Of course, she tried the “I don’t know how that stuff got in there” line, to which I told her that if she wanted to be in even more trouble than she was to keep it up, so she zipped her lip.

Honestly, if I were in my right mind, I’d pack my stuff up, hire a New York Moving Company and high tail it out of here. Everything lately is an argument and I’m really tired of everyone’s attitudes, hubby included. There is NOTHING difficult about putting your dirty glass or plate in the sink and bringing your dirty clothes out to the laundry room, unless you ask my family to do it. I just need to pack and go, then maybe they’ll realize how tired of all of this I really am! Anyone looking for a room mate?

From the sounds of it, Dyane is very busy and has her hands full getting ready for the Faire! I hope that everything goes well for her and she has a wonderful time and I can’t wait to see the pictures!

George was not a comedian who sugar coated things, he simply told it how it was! He was one of those one of a kind people that you just don’t come across very often and will truly be missed! So Rest In Peace George!

In case you’ve not seen it, here is a YouTube clip of what I think is one of his best acts! It’s long (over 10 minutes) and filled with lots of words small kids shouldn’t hear, but it’s George at his best!

I tried everything I could think of, even took a sleep aid, but nothing worked and I ended up being awake most of the night. I snuck in a 2 hour nap yesterday morning, then last night, around 5, I decided to take another nap and didn’t wake up until a little after 9. I got up, helped my hubby wrap things up for the night, and went back to bed, sleeping through until 4 this morning. I still feel out of it, but not as bad as I did yesterday.

I’m thinking I should take advantage of the fact that the kids sleep in late and go take another nap this morning. But I have so many things I really want to get done today. I have a couple of phone calls to make, I need to run to the pharmacy and get a couple of prescriptions filled and since our car insurance policy is up for renewal, my husband wants me to check around and do some car insurance comparisons to see if I can’t find some better rates and save some money. I also have a couple of loads of laundry left over to do and have some paperwork for our health insurance that I need to get turned in today. OK, maybe taking a nap this morning isn’t a very good option…LOL