Ok so I know I have been majorly slacking here but I've been running a little behind on this whole blogging thing but it's been a hell of a week/weekend. Let me see if I can catch up a little here.
The last time I posted was last Wednesday. I have not posted since then because I really don't have an internet connection at home that is sufficient to support much internet activity, particularly blogging. As I was headed to work Thursday morning my part of Texas got hit with a NASTY ice storm. When I left the house, weather was fine, but I didn't get terribly far down the road before it started raining and the rain was freezing on my windshield faster than my wipers could wipe it off. It was ugly. I wasn't far from home at that point, but I was still on the highway. I was trying to find a good place to turn around when things kind of got wonky. I was going....maybe 20 mph. I think I was probably going slower, but regardless, the point is I was not going fast. I came to a spot where the high way curved a little and Maud (my car) and I just didn't curve with it.
Now I've never been in a situation before where I hit ice like that but I was sort of having flash backs to drivers ed and my mom saying things like "Don't Panic," "Don't hit the brakes," "Turn into the spin instead of away from it." Well I tried to do all of those things. Didn't panic, didn't hit the brake or gas, tried to just let the car do what it was going to do because frankly there was nothing I could do about it at that point.
I'm not sure if I did a circle or not...I feel like I did a full circle and ended up in a ditch actually facing the proper way. All things were good. It wasn't a terribly rough experience. The worst part was just the feeling of being in a several thousand pound vehicle and knowing that I had absolutely ZERO control over it. Not pleasant. And I was deep enough in the ditch that I was stuck. But all in all everything was fine. My next big concern was that someone else was going to hit the same patch of ice and slide into me. So I stayed in my vehicle, with it running and with my seat belt on and I proceeded to try to contact people who I thought could pull me out of the ditch.
That fear of someone else hitting me turned out to be very valid because not 30 seconds later another car who was I guess going faster than I had been spun out behind me and they hit the ditch hard. Fortunately they were still about 40 yards behind me. They had picked up enough speed though that they actually ended up in the freshly plowed field. They were able to drive along the edge of the field and get to the road that was right in front of me. But they had a flat tire and a crummy jack. After I saw that no other cars were coming I got out and offered to let them use my super nifty hydraulic jack to speed up the process because it was COLD.
As we were getting their car jacked up some very nice guy, who said his name was Slugger, stopped in a 4x4 truck to check on us all. He didn't have a tow strap with him but said he'd be right back. And sure enough he did, he pulled my car out of the ditch with little effort. I reassessed my vehicle, everything looked pretty decent. Now I just needed to get my jack back from the other couple who had spun out. Well apparently my jack is broken because it would not lower the car back down.
Slugger to the rescue again, he got his jack out, which actually worked properly and we were able to get my jack out from under their car and their tire changed.
I was closer to a little town than I was to my own house and it didn't seem like anything positive would happen if I tried to use one of the turn arounds on the highways. My landlord runs a store in that little town so I knew if I made it there I'd be ok. Well I did make it and I settled in and just waited for the initial phase of the storm to pass. After the worst of it was over I took the back roads back to my house to avoid the high way and one of the guys from the store was kind enough to follow me home in a 4x4 truck...just in case.
And Home is where I stayed for the rest of the day. By Friday afternoon, even though the temperatures were still below freezing the roads had been scraped and sanded. I made it into Lubbock and got my car to the mechanic just to check on it. I figured it would probably have to be realigned after that experience and I was right. But if that's the worst that came out of it then I count myself lucky.
Everything's back to normal now but that's what's been happening. I looked at some of the blogging challenges that I missed. I'm just going to skip some of them because I don't feel like doing them, but there were some good ones.
Friday I was supposed to write about what I wish I had more time to do each day. I wish I had more time each day to pray and to work out. I seriously pray all day long. Maybe it's not a settled, quiet, peaceful time of prayer, but I say little prayers to God throughout the day for all kinds of things as they occur to me. But I wish I had more time to just sit down in the peace and quiet of my home and just meditate and pray. What I really mean is that, while I spend all day talking to God, I wish I had more time in the day to sit down and actually listen to what He has to say back. And the working out...well who couldn't use a little more time to work out each day??
Monday asks if I could banish one thing from the earth, tangible or intangible, what would it be? I haven't put a ton of thought into this, but I would eliminate ethnic discrimination. Ethnic discrimination is an absolutely common thread in every nation on every continent that has traditionally been the defining line in social and economic class structures. Nationality, unfortunately has little bearing on these things. Sure as American's we are typically better off than lots of other countries, but even in the history of our own country, poverty lines have often been drawn by race and ethnicity. Look at a country like Rwanda. (If you don't know what happened in Rwanda...google it and then be ashamed of yourself and your education. You should know about this.) Now there were lots of factors that spurred what happened in Rwanda, but fundamental break down: There were two ethnic classes and one of them traditionally ruled the country. There was a rebellion and then one ethnic class tried to completely eliminate the other. It was like the Holocaust, but on a smaller scale and not nearly as well talked about or taught in schools. Most of the world just sort of sat by and ignored it because it stayed mostly within it's own nations borders. Our own nation has dealt with and continues to deal with this. And this isn't just white or black. Region to region there are different "types" of poor people. In some regions they are primarily of a hispanic decent. In some they are of Irish descent.
My point is I feel like a WHOLE lot of the worlds problems would be solved if everything in life wasn't divided into an "US" and a "THEM." Now of course there are always going to be countries against countries but the division that we see within each nation based only on someone's ethnic back ground just causes more misery than is necessary. I'd get rid of that.
Today's post asks how good am I at putting others before myself. Difficult question. Especially since I am in a period of my life where I am being more than a little selfish and I'm doing it on purpose so I can get my life together and on the right track. Generally I think I'm pretty decent at putting certain people before myself. Like I go out of my way to do things for people that I care about and it's no sweat. But I am by no means some kind of golden angel that is just selfless and thinks of everyone else first. I guess right now I'm more of a "I don't think of others first, I think of them as I go" type girl. My number one goal right now is to get my life together and on track. Because frankly, if I don't have all of my ducks in a row, how am I supposed to help anyone else with theirs? So right now I'm kinda living life in an all about me way, and if I think of you as I'm going, or I see something on my path that allows me to do something kind for you as I'm taking care of my own business, then I'll do it, no worries.
But I'm not ignoring my duties right now so that I can help you with yours...Sorry.
Im a relatively young, single female with a bunch of zero's tagged at the end of my name (student debt). There's no one taking care of me but me and I simply can't afford to drop the ball any more than I already have just so I can help others out. If I can help you as I go, cool. If you're too far off the beaten path, you had better be super special for me to stop and head your direction.
That's not a very Christmas-y things to say. Sorry.
- Scarlett.
The last time I posted was last Wednesday. I have not posted since then because I really don't have an internet connection at home that is sufficient to support much internet activity, particularly blogging. As I was headed to work Thursday morning my part of Texas got hit with a NASTY ice storm. When I left the house, weather was fine, but I didn't get terribly far down the road before it started raining and the rain was freezing on my windshield faster than my wipers could wipe it off. It was ugly. I wasn't far from home at that point, but I was still on the highway. I was trying to find a good place to turn around when things kind of got wonky. I was going....maybe 20 mph. I think I was probably going slower, but regardless, the point is I was not going fast. I came to a spot where the high way curved a little and Maud (my car) and I just didn't curve with it.
Now I've never been in a situation before where I hit ice like that but I was sort of having flash backs to drivers ed and my mom saying things like "Don't Panic," "Don't hit the brakes," "Turn into the spin instead of away from it." Well I tried to do all of those things. Didn't panic, didn't hit the brake or gas, tried to just let the car do what it was going to do because frankly there was nothing I could do about it at that point.
I'm not sure if I did a circle or not...I feel like I did a full circle and ended up in a ditch actually facing the proper way. All things were good. It wasn't a terribly rough experience. The worst part was just the feeling of being in a several thousand pound vehicle and knowing that I had absolutely ZERO control over it. Not pleasant. And I was deep enough in the ditch that I was stuck. But all in all everything was fine. My next big concern was that someone else was going to hit the same patch of ice and slide into me. So I stayed in my vehicle, with it running and with my seat belt on and I proceeded to try to contact people who I thought could pull me out of the ditch.
That fear of someone else hitting me turned out to be very valid because not 30 seconds later another car who was I guess going faster than I had been spun out behind me and they hit the ditch hard. Fortunately they were still about 40 yards behind me. They had picked up enough speed though that they actually ended up in the freshly plowed field. They were able to drive along the edge of the field and get to the road that was right in front of me. But they had a flat tire and a crummy jack. After I saw that no other cars were coming I got out and offered to let them use my super nifty hydraulic jack to speed up the process because it was COLD.
As we were getting their car jacked up some very nice guy, who said his name was Slugger, stopped in a 4x4 truck to check on us all. He didn't have a tow strap with him but said he'd be right back. And sure enough he did, he pulled my car out of the ditch with little effort. I reassessed my vehicle, everything looked pretty decent. Now I just needed to get my jack back from the other couple who had spun out. Well apparently my jack is broken because it would not lower the car back down.
Slugger to the rescue again, he got his jack out, which actually worked properly and we were able to get my jack out from under their car and their tire changed.
I was closer to a little town than I was to my own house and it didn't seem like anything positive would happen if I tried to use one of the turn arounds on the highways. My landlord runs a store in that little town so I knew if I made it there I'd be ok. Well I did make it and I settled in and just waited for the initial phase of the storm to pass. After the worst of it was over I took the back roads back to my house to avoid the high way and one of the guys from the store was kind enough to follow me home in a 4x4 truck...just in case.
And Home is where I stayed for the rest of the day. By Friday afternoon, even though the temperatures were still below freezing the roads had been scraped and sanded. I made it into Lubbock and got my car to the mechanic just to check on it. I figured it would probably have to be realigned after that experience and I was right. But if that's the worst that came out of it then I count myself lucky.
Everything's back to normal now but that's what's been happening. I looked at some of the blogging challenges that I missed. I'm just going to skip some of them because I don't feel like doing them, but there were some good ones.
Friday I was supposed to write about what I wish I had more time to do each day. I wish I had more time each day to pray and to work out. I seriously pray all day long. Maybe it's not a settled, quiet, peaceful time of prayer, but I say little prayers to God throughout the day for all kinds of things as they occur to me. But I wish I had more time to just sit down in the peace and quiet of my home and just meditate and pray. What I really mean is that, while I spend all day talking to God, I wish I had more time in the day to sit down and actually listen to what He has to say back. And the working out...well who couldn't use a little more time to work out each day??
Monday asks if I could banish one thing from the earth, tangible or intangible, what would it be? I haven't put a ton of thought into this, but I would eliminate ethnic discrimination. Ethnic discrimination is an absolutely common thread in every nation on every continent that has traditionally been the defining line in social and economic class structures. Nationality, unfortunately has little bearing on these things. Sure as American's we are typically better off than lots of other countries, but even in the history of our own country, poverty lines have often been drawn by race and ethnicity. Look at a country like Rwanda. (If you don't know what happened in Rwanda...google it and then be ashamed of yourself and your education. You should know about this.) Now there were lots of factors that spurred what happened in Rwanda, but fundamental break down: There were two ethnic classes and one of them traditionally ruled the country. There was a rebellion and then one ethnic class tried to completely eliminate the other. It was like the Holocaust, but on a smaller scale and not nearly as well talked about or taught in schools. Most of the world just sort of sat by and ignored it because it stayed mostly within it's own nations borders. Our own nation has dealt with and continues to deal with this. And this isn't just white or black. Region to region there are different "types" of poor people. In some regions they are primarily of a hispanic decent. In some they are of Irish descent.
My point is I feel like a WHOLE lot of the worlds problems would be solved if everything in life wasn't divided into an "US" and a "THEM." Now of course there are always going to be countries against countries but the division that we see within each nation based only on someone's ethnic back ground just causes more misery than is necessary. I'd get rid of that.
Today's post asks how good am I at putting others before myself. Difficult question. Especially since I am in a period of my life where I am being more than a little selfish and I'm doing it on purpose so I can get my life together and on the right track. Generally I think I'm pretty decent at putting certain people before myself. Like I go out of my way to do things for people that I care about and it's no sweat. But I am by no means some kind of golden angel that is just selfless and thinks of everyone else first. I guess right now I'm more of a "I don't think of others first, I think of them as I go" type girl. My number one goal right now is to get my life together and on track. Because frankly, if I don't have all of my ducks in a row, how am I supposed to help anyone else with theirs? So right now I'm kinda living life in an all about me way, and if I think of you as I'm going, or I see something on my path that allows me to do something kind for you as I'm taking care of my own business, then I'll do it, no worries.
But I'm not ignoring my duties right now so that I can help you with yours...Sorry.
Im a relatively young, single female with a bunch of zero's tagged at the end of my name (student debt). There's no one taking care of me but me and I simply can't afford to drop the ball any more than I already have just so I can help others out. If I can help you as I go, cool. If you're too far off the beaten path, you had better be super special for me to stop and head your direction.
That's not a very Christmas-y things to say. Sorry.
- Scarlett.
You have had a helluva week! I'm exhausted just reading about it. The topic of banishment got me too. That was a toughie. I think that you proved you do put others in front of yourself the day your butt hit the ditch. You could have stayed in your car and not offered your jack, but you didn't. You braved the cold to help someone else. Sometimes you have to put yourself first in order to put others first later. At least I hope so!
ReplyDeleteI would love for you to swing over and take a look around if you have a sec! Here's mine from today: http://www.zuzustidbits.com/im-stashing-gifts-and-saving-money/