Angels on my side???

Saturday night Tim went to play poker over at Ed's house as he has been doing pretty often lately. Good group of people playing for fun. So Dylan and I decided to head out to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. We came home driving down Algonquin Road the entire way going about 80mph or so at different spots. Nothing unusual happened, no weird noises, no curb checks, nothing...... Sunday morning I wake up and start thinking I better get going because I'm suppossed to be dropping Dylan off at Judy's around 1:30ish. I had some grocery shopping to do plus I wanted to stop at Wal-Mart and run a few other errands. Dylan decided he wanted to come with me partly to buy some new phone cards for both Leif & Sam (yes SAM has a cell phone now too) and to look for something for me to buy him for his birthday. We jump in the car and and it starts to start up then just dies. Try it again and NOTHING!! Okay... it's a 2006, never changed the battery.... it's time... these things happen whatever. Call Tim to come out, jump it, he drives it around the block and I decide to take the truck. I take the truck, do my errands, come back, jump it again (of course it was dead again), drive it around the subdivision. Tim had noticed everytime he turned it made a strange noise so I wanted to check it out. I drove it around and every time I'd make a sharp turn it would feel as if I had a rear wheel drive sliding out behind me in the snow! Not good. My gages were popping up and down every time I gassed (yes every gage including my temp and gas would pop up and down) and my digital odemetor was not blinking but doing some little crazy dance. So I called my dad, who was off at the flying field. In the mean time I called Dan just to ask his opinion and he said "it's probably the battery and the alternator, run out to Auto Zone and buy them and I'll come over and install them" ummmm okay! lol! So Dylan and I run out and buy out gadgets and come home. Dan walks in the door, walks right back out to the garage, comes back in less than a minute later and pulls me outside. He said "look at your car, what's wrong with it" now earlier in the morning when Tim had pushed it out of the garage I noticed it looked strange but I thought it was the angle he pulled it out on.... now looking at my driveway I didn't see anything strange. Dan points and says "one tire is facing in.... the other is straight, you have way bigger problems than a battery!"..... UHHH CRAP! Sure enough my right side tie rod end was completely broken off, MEANING if I had been driving 80mph when that happend, the car would have been totaled with both Dylan and I inside. Wonderful. Dan starts hacking away at the car, neighbors come down to help, my parents show up, Dan's mom shows up, neighbors brought their dogs and Blue was having a regular dog party in the house. Dan's mom was cooking and cleaning in my house. I was running out to Auto Zone making friends with Jon there, the liquor store for more beer and cigarettes, Tim and my dad were busy changing out the battery, all three Chris/Kris neighbors where here (Chris Allen even brought some special kind of torch Dan needed and of course Tequila), MOI stopped over because she got locked out of the house, the immediate neighbors stopped over just to see what happened etc. It was pretty funny. Okay, Tim got the battery out and my dad immediately tested it... there was nothing wrong with it. It was fully amped, there was no reason at all it wouldn't start my car, but they put the new one in, it started right up, the battery light didn't come on, and the gages are working normally!! whoo-hooo. So this is where I know that I have angels on my side... if it would have started I would have been on Algonquin Road maybe going 50mph plus. Someone's looking down on me! Dan got the tie rod fixed and suggested I get an alinment, went in and ate some of what his mom had cooked/brought, hung out for awhile, and I immediately got sick. Was in the bathroom for over an hour with it coming out both ends doubled over in pain. At one point I crawled into bed and Blue came in and straight under the covers he went pulling them down with him. I rolled over and the blanket magically pulled itself back up as if someone was staning over me, tucking me back in. I started crying knowing that my grandma was there with me, and a minute later my mom walks in and I couldn't tell her that grandma had just been there. I was too emotional about it. Well anyway.... the moral of the story here is I know I have angels watching over me and I don't know how much longer or how much more each of them will be able to "save" me in certain situations, but I do know I'm lucky to have them. And today, I go back to Auto Zone to return my unused alternator that never had to be replaced and the old battery even thought it's in fine shape! ahhh the tangled webs we weave.

EXHAUSTED and don't want to go back to work

Well my trip to AZ is over.... not enough relaxing time and too much "go time" meaning most of the trip we were going going GOING!! Anyway.. came back home to my clean home which became a disaster area in less than 5 minutes... ahh well. Got a really cool gift from Pam. A key ring that has Melissa on one side "Lifetime" on the other and a candle. I guess she felt bad she didn't make the meeting, which was okay.... very nice gift either way! :)