My Brand of Heroin

I thought it high time to admit, fully and unashamedly, where I've been for the last month. I've been living in the realm of that which is the Twilight Saga. For those of you who have read (or are reading) it, I need pose no further explanation. For those who have not, or who are harboring some unfortunate boycott against the whole thing because it is so trendy, well, your loss. Books don't usually grab me, especially fiction novels, but the 2500+ pages of this series were consumed in 8 days. I then read the unpublished manuscript, Midnight Sun, online on my flight to Charlotte in a couple of hours. I've seen the movie, albeit an unworthy representation of the series, 5 times. I've made Lauren two tee-shirts that say "Team Edward" and "Cullen Baseball". I've read the entire series a second time, amidst stumbling through The Shack and a few other fiction novels, and am finally on to something else that I enjoy, although my mind often wanders to a certain meadow... For the skeptics who think this should be avoided because it is a vampire novel, for crying out loud, Chronicles of Narnia contains an evil witch, a talking lion, blood-thirsty wolves, and several over-sized beavers and it was fabulous. So go get lost in a bit of fantasy for a couple of weeks and let me know what you think!

Crashtest Dummy

So I apologize that I haven't blogged in almost a whole month! My only two excuses are that I have been caught up in the world that is Twilight, reading all four published books, the partially completed unpublished one online, and seeing the movie an embarrassing number of times. Other than that, I've been working, taking care of the kids, and leading a fairly normal life without any true blog-worthy moments. Until yesterday, that is.

I was driving in the left, middle lane down a 4-lane highway when the car in front of me suddenly swerved. I quickly saw why; there was a large box of furniture in the middle of the lane. With about 2 seconds to react, I followed his lead and swerved into the far left lane and then back into my lane so I wouldn't hit the middle guardrail. The Jeep fishtailed, spun around to face traffic, and skidded across the entire road off into the grass on the side of the highway.

I hit the grass at a sideways angle, felt the passenger side of the car lift, and about 10 feet later flipped over. The Jeep rolled 2 1/2 times and landed upside down. I remember flipping over a couple of times, and I very clearly remember how tight the seatbelt felt.

I couldn't unlatch the seatbelt because I was hanging from it upside down, so I kind of contorted myself so I could push my body up and away from the pull of the seatbelt and braced myself against the roof of the car (which was on the ground). Once the weight was shifted, I unlatched the belt and caught myself. I flipped over and pretty quickly figured out I wasn't going to be opening any doors so I kicked the driver's side window out and crawled out. I totally made sure to grab my purse, and had an onlooker go search for my phone. :) Here's the driver's side:

The police, firetruck, and ambulance were there in about 3 minutes, and once they found out I am 4 months pregnant, they insisted on doing the whole C-collar and backboard routine. They took me to the hospital as a precaution and to check the fetal heartbeat (which was strong). Greg met me at the hospital, but had to drive directly past the accident scene to get there which was really hard for him. He stopped to get the carseats and a few other things out of the car.

After they let us go, we had to go to the impound to get the rest of our things from the Jeep so the insurance company to haul it away. Here it is back on it's feet...sort of:

I can't exactly say that I walked away without a scratch because I did, in fact, have one scratch.

And one broken thumbnail.

So how's that for a re-entry into the blogging world? It's 6:27am and I've been wide awake since 3am b/c everything from my head down to my waist hurts and I pretty much took a bath in Biofreeze. I feel very blessed to have walked away from that one with only a few aches and pains, and feel doubly blessed that the baby is okay and that my other babies were not in the car. Noah gave me a big hug when I told him I broke the Jeep, and he told me that we have to get a new car and that it should be a red firetruck--with a ladder. I think that would be very safe.