When It Rains, It Pours

Isn't that the phrase? When it rains, it pours? Well, honestly, it's been pouring a little bit over here on the Egbert's. We feel like we are just barely keeping our heads above the water!

It started on Christmas night, when we were driving down to Dave's parent's house for the evening. It was snowing all day here, but it had calmed down a little bit for the evening. Still snowing, just not as hard. We were driving on I-15 and were right around the downtown area, when everyone started slowing down. Before we knew it, we had hit some black ice and were sliding and fishtailing ALL OVER the freeway. There were cars all around us, and I was just waiting for us to hit one of them. We had no control at all. We did an almost complete 360 turn, slammed into the median, then slammed into it again, became perpendicular to traffic, and then stopped. My heart was racing. The entire time the car was out of control I was thinking, "What is going to happen to Lydia? How can I keep her safe?" I looked back the first second I could after the car had stopped to make sure she was okay. She had screamed when we slammed into the median and I was so scared that he was hurt. She looked back at me and grunted, and then continued playing with her toy. Thank heavens! Now I could focus on everything else. I made sure Dave was okay, and that I was okay too. I had hit my shoulder pretty hard against the window, and Dave had hit his knee pretty hard too, but other than that, we were all okay. I looked around outside and there were no other cars that we had hit. Traffic around us was slow, but was passing by us just fine with no other damaged cars. Hallelujah. How we managed to slide out of control all over the freeway without hitting anyone, I will never know. After I made sure that everyone was okay, I remember noticing how quickly my heart was beating. I have never in my whole life had my heart race like that before. I noticed I was shaking and breathing really fast. Two men in a suburban had pulled over just ahead of us and were getting out to make sure we were all okay and to check out the car. Surprisingly, the car didn't look too terrible. We saw the damage and kept thinking, "How is there this little damage done?" when we knew how hard we had hit the median. We had hit the median on the rear passenger side as well as the front passenger side. The back tail light was out, and there was some pretty significant damage to the back bumper. The front was banged up too, but didn't look horrible. We knew we were in trouble though, when Dave had a hard time opening HIS door - because we didn't even hit on that side of the car. The car was amazingly still drive-able though, and the nice men helped stop traffic enough that we could get on our way again and we drove away from an accident with nobody hurt and no other cars involved. That is a miracle to me. We kept driving to Dave's parent's house, and I think I was in shock the entire way. I kept hearing the noise of the crash in my mind. When we got to Dave's parent's house and came inside, Dave started telling his family what happened and they started giving me hugs and I just kinda lost it. I couldn't stop crying for a few minutes. I was happy that nobody was hurt and I realized how lucky we were, but I think I was just still getting over the trauma of it all, and had to let it out somehow. We were worried the car was totaled, because of the problems Dave was having with his driver door. We thought maybe the frame was bent or something, and that would be the end of it. Well, it turns out that's exactly what happened. The car was totaled, and we are still in the process of finding a new four wheel drive car. I was so sad the day I had to go get everything I wanted out of the car and say goodbye to it. I felt like I was losing part of my family! We had grown really attached to that car, and were really sad to see it bite the dust. I walked away from the auto shop with this little box as all that was left of our little car that might have saved our lives during the crash. It was a sad day for sure. I might have even cried a little bit as I was driving away.

This is all that was left of our Jeep. I felt so sad walking away with my little box of stuff. :(

The car crash came at a really bad time too. Not only did it happen on Christmas Day (Merry Christmas to me!...NOT!), but it came after two big, expensive car repairs on our other white car and after all of the expenses of Christmas present-buying. So, we are trying to figure out how to be even more bargain shoppers than we already are, and how to factor in a new car to the mix.

Remember how I wrote about our water heater going out? We were lucky enough that our AWESOME neighbor helped us right away, and it wasn't too much of a problem, but now we have a leak in our roof. It's gotten through to the sheet-rock and has made a big, ugly, soft spot on our ceiling. We were worried about more water getting in and actually breaking through the sheet-rock into the house, so Dave climbed up into the attic to see what was going on. There was water around the spot for sure, and it looked like it was coming from a vent type thing in the roof. There was no way to really tell though, because it wasn't raining/snowing when we found out, so we gave it a good old fashioned band-aid fix. We dried out the area as best we could, and have put a paint roller tray right over the spot to catch the water if and when it leaks again, and will have to worry about that when we have time to get around to it!

After we got back from our cruise, around the first part of January, we found out that my cute grandpa was getting some pretty severe dementia. We saw him on Christmas Day and he wasn't too bad. When we got home, he had declined a lot. Within the last few days he has declined even more. It's been really hard to see him be so confused and worried and anxious. He is living in the building that Dave runs, so it's good that we get to keep a close eye on him and have somebody there to keep us informed all the time, but it's still hard to see him be like this. It's taken an emotional toll on everyone in our family who has been involved for sure.
 
Also, we don't have a health insurance plan that offers affordable dental insurance, so we like to say that brushing, flossing, and mouthwashing twice a day every day is our own dental insurance. It has worked pretty well over the past few years. If we get only three cavities a year between the two of us, then it is cheaper to fill them out of pocket than buying into dental insurance. So far it hasn't been a problem, and Dave has never even HAD a cavity. My teeth are cavity-prone, and even though I brush and floss and mouthwash with an anti-cavity rinse EVERY SINGLE DAY, I still usually have a cavity or two at my appointments. Well, Dave found out at his appointment in December that he had his first cavity, so we've had to pay for that as well. My appointment isn't until February, but if things continue the same way they have been, I'll have a cavity or so and we'll have to pay for that too. 

Now, all this crummy stuff has happened to us, but don't think that I'm about to be a Debbie Downer. I had my fair share of time where I was completely overwhelmed and I cried a little. Maybe a lot. But, I just tried to focus on all of the positive things that happened instead of all the crummy things that happened, and it's amazing how much my viewpoint has changed.

1. Nobody was hurt in our car crash. Not us, or anyone else involved. We were able to drive our car away from the accident, still go to our Christmas party, and not be stuck filling out paperwork on the freeway on Christmas night. Or worse, stuck in a hospital bed on Christmas night. Seriously!? So lucky.
2. I have the world's best mom who COMPLETELY took care of our car situation while we were out of town on our cruise. She was in contact with my insurance company, got the car to where it needed to go, and figured out everything we needed to know to get the totaling process started. She is seriously the best mom in the whole planet. I'm sorry to all of you guys that you don't have my mom for a mom. :)
3. Even though our four wheel drive car went out, we still have our little white car that is all fixed up now, thanks to the two repairs we gave it. It stinks that it all happened before the Jeep went out, but thank heavens it was fixed and ready to go for us when we were down to only one car. So - maybe the timing for the white car fix ups was actually good timing after all. And also, my parents have an extra car that they've just been letting us drive until we can figure out what to do for another car. See? They're the best.
4. We noticed that leak in our roof before it actually leaked into the house! We were able to kind of take care of it before it became a serious enough problem that we had to call a roofer or somebody to come and help us fix it.
5. The cavity thing was a hard one for me to find a positive one for. Because getting cavities filled stinks. Period. It hurts AND it's expensive. A double whammy. Maybe we'll get lucky and I won't have any cavities at my appointment. That would be awesome. But, I guess I can be grateful that we have dentists that can take care of cavities so that our teeth don't fall out. Haha. Don't judge on the lameness of this one.
6. My grandpa is for sure going downhill, but he is in a place that specializes in dementia care with the best workers and hospice aides ever. Dave gets to see him every day and keep tabs on him. I don't know what could be better for him at the current moment. It's for sure hard to see him get like this, but we have had 89 years with him before he had dementia. That's a lot more years than some people get. I will always be grateful for the great time we did have with him.

So - I think that's all. I'm not sure that I'll ever say I'm grateful for trials and hard things. But - I can say that I'm grateful for the things that learn from them. I'm grateful for the support that family and friends give when things get tough. And I know that if you choose to look at your glass half full, even when you know it is half empty, things will turn around. I'm kind of a Harry Potter nerd, but I think Albus Dumbledore said it best when he told Harry that, "Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one just remembers to turn on the light."

So turn on your lights everyone!!

Thanks for listening. :)