Two car accidents in one month.....yeesh!

OK, so somehow I managed not to get into a car accident last weekend on the way to the IVCF retreat on the highway in the dark when there was a complete white-out but I got into an accident in broad daylight on a nice sunny day in Regina. GRRRRRR!!!!! I was on my way to meet some people for lunch after church. I had Eldon and Kat with me and I had promised Eldon and Andrew a ride home afterwards. For those of you who are familiar with Regina, I was merging onto Arcola coming off of Ring Road. I was shoulder checking and it was clear, so I went to go. However, I did not realize how many cars were in front of me and that none of them had moved out into traffic yet. I heard Katherine scream "Look out!" and I turned to see the my hood crumple as I collided with the SUV in front of me. Immediately I wanted to scream at myself because it was so stupid of me. I should have been more careful!!!! The lady in the other vehicle was very nice and the first thing she asked was if we were all alright. I apologized profusely but ehe didn't seem that upset. She was a farm lady....yeah farm women!!!! I called 911 and they said if our vehicles were drivable we didn't have to report it to the police so we weren't going to. Her SUV was fine. I hit just under her spare tire on the back so my hood was crumpled. It was questionable whether or not it was driveable but I thought that I could make it at least to Poverino's. We were just getting ready to leave when a cop pulled up. He asked if we were all alright and if the vehicles were driveable. I wasn't sure about mine so he took a look and said he would call a tow truck for me. He said we should maybe do up a police report just to be safe.

He said we could wait in our cars and he would have us on our way fairly quickly. We called Steph who was also on her way to Pov's but had gotten lost so she wasn't very far from us. She came to the rescue to give us a ride. The cop issued me a ticket but he took it easy on me. He could've given me a "undue care and attention" which would have been like $165 but instead he gave me a "following too close" which is considerably less. He was really nice and said he took it easy on me. He took it easy on me and he was also easy on the eyes!!! He was pretty good-looking and he even had the aviator glasses on. He even escorted me to Steph's car because he said that if he got pegged off he was insured, but I wasn't.

Kat, Eldon and I jumped in Steph's car with Bryan, Carlyle and Steph. I was in the back with the boys and it was pretty cozy. They cheered me up and they all had a good laugh when I told them how cute the cop was. The cop had taken my phone number and Eldon was kidding me saying that they don't really need to take phone numbers for accident reports. Then when I said he gave me a court date if I wanted to fight the ticket, the others started joking that I had a date with the cop and that we were going to be courting!!!!! It was pretty funny. I'm glad I got a nice cop though and not a dink. I'm also very thankful for Steph who was willing to come pick us up. She's an awesome friend and is always there for me. I also very much appreciated the boys and Kat. They cheered me up and Eldon and Kat told me it was OK and not to worry when I was almost reduced to tears. I was just so frustrated because I still have to deal with the fender bender that I had with Kat's car and now my car is out of commission. Plus, I can't really afford all of this and my driving record is going down the toilet!!!!! I hate it when you have an accident because right after one like this you automatically think of what you SHOULD have done. It happens so fast though. It makes you think about how those "that was close"s can quickly turn into something more serious.

That's all for angry, frustrated thoughts of the day.

A Ring on my finger tomorrow would be nice.....

No, no I'm not getting engaged or expecting to anytime soon. I'm referring to the biggest test of my materialism and it happened to me today. I lost my watch and my two rings that I always wear. I could care less about the watch but one of the rings was from Kat and the other was a gold ring from my parents so the rings, especially the one from my parents, have sentimental value. I mean, that ring reminds me of their love for me. However, just because I lost the ring does not mean that they will stop loving me. Its just that I feel kind of like I am honouring them and all they've done for me when I wear it and now that I lost it I just want to cry. It makes me think of the whole idea of if you are trustworthy and faithful with the little things, then you can be trusted with the bigger things. I'm not really sure if that applies to material possessions as well as other things. Needless to say, I am extremely upset I lost this ring because it makes no sense. I had taken off my watch and rings because I didn't want them to get sticky (I was working with lemonade for methadone) and I can remember the exact moment I was taking them off, but I don't know where they went. Usually I put them in my jeans pocket and they had fallen out once before today, so I hope its just a matter of them falling out in the store so one of the other workers finds them. Meanwhile, I'm praying that God would help me find them, as simple and selfish as that is.

On the plus side, there was a huge sheet of large-sized bubble packing at work today so I brought it home to pop....good stress reliever.

Birthday Blues

So its my birthday today and I'm kinda bummed. I can't even figure out why. I think my expectations for birthdays are just too high. I mean, I have it in my head that its my special day of the year and so amazing, exciting things should happen. However, it looks like its just going to be a boring day of homework and class. I mean, I have a stinkin evening class for pete's sake and I didn't even so much as get a happy birthday let alone a good morning from my roomates (although my sister did redeem herself and call me on my cell to sing Happy Birthday. Maybe she was just kind of spacey this morning when I saw her). Sometimes it makes me long for things that were...such as living with Becca because she really showed me she cared on my birthday and she did treat me like a princess (and I tried to treat her the same way on her birthday). The thing that is the stupidest is that its not like I didn't celebrate at all. I had a small birthday party on Monday night with mostly girls and it was a lot of fun. Then, yesterday my parents, (who by the way are the best parents in the world) came down to Regina just to take me and my sis out for supper for my birthday. Mom even baked a cake and brought it. It was definitely the highlight of my day. But now after those 2 days of excitement, today, my actual birthday seems very dull and unexciting. I mean, there has been a few emails and phone calls from people but I think what disappoints me is that there will be no form of celebration today which makes no sense because I've already celebrated. ARGGHHHH!!! Sometimes I wish I could just figure myself out and not be so dang emotional and sensitive. Sometimes it feels like that part of me is ruining my life! Which makes no sense because that part of me is what makes my life my life......grrrr it just gets more and more complicated. Sometimes I think it would have been simpler if I never had a birthday.

On the other hand, this birthday in particular has been very revelational for me. I am taking a class on Philosophy of Kinesiology. Basically its layperson's philosophy applied to kinesiology and health practice. Today we were talking about Ontology (the study of what it is to be human for those of you who are not philosophical). We were discussing several things including Dasein vs. Facticity. Dasein is when you view others in a constant state of change. You believe that others have potential for change and can grow and change. Facticity, on the other hand, is when you believe that who a person is is based on what they have done in life; what jobs they have had, activities they participate in etc. I realized that I am very much a Facticist. I am usually very pessimistic when it comes to people changing, especially if I had a negative view of that person in the first place. I am usually in denial when someone that I had a positive view of/had as a friend begins to change for the worst or change so that we grow apart. For me, once things have got to a certain point (ie. you are friends with someone) they shouldn't change. However, if I look at it that way, if people didn't change, I likely wouldn't have some of the friends I have today because we would have not been willing to expand our social horizons and get to know each other. So I realize that change is a necessary part of life but I still tend to have a Facticist view. When I get know people, I usually ask them what they do, not what they think or have thought in the past. Even when I say I "know" a person I usually only know facts about their life. I have been realizing this more and more in the past few years but now I have a term to put with it. I know that deep down I do want to hold a Daseinism view but I don't know if I can just change to be like that because it definitely does not come naturally. There I go again....stupid facticity!

Anyways, that probably made no sense at all in the end but I just wanted to get thoughts down on "paper". On a lighter note.....have you ever noticed that janitors at universities only clean washrooms in between classes so that no one can use them? Its definitely one of my pet peeves. The other day I was at the university and needed to use the washroom and take off all of my winter clothes (I had walked). I walked past 2 bathrooms before I finally got into another building and a third bathroom that was open. I tell you, they should send the janitors to school to learn how to do scheduling!

God and my neighbours are watching over me

Well, this is my first official blog entry. I had not really heard of blog until about 6 months ago and I have only recently realized how useful it can be. A good friend suggested that I should start one up, even just to start journaling. I agree, it is a good idea because some days you just need to vent, so here goes.

I would like to state for the record that I have the greatest neighbours ever. When I moved into the place I currently reside in back in the fall of 2003, I really had no idea what to expect of the neighbours that we had. I mean, I grew up in the country where you knew all of your neighbours really well but I thought, hey, this is the city. Things are not the same here. The only living experience I had ever had in Regina was in an apartment and I did not know my neighbours at all. When I moved into this neighbourhood though, the people seemed very friendly and I have really really come to appreciate them, especially Jim and Lillian next door. They are both retired so they are usually around and we see them the most of everyone in the neighbourhood. These last few days they have amazed me.

It all started on Tuesday night. I had offered my roomate Ally a ride to work in the morning because it was supposed to be like -45 C or something like that and I did not want her to have to walk at all because that's just not cool. So, I went out to plug in my car. It was so cold that the plug on the end of my block heater cord snapped right in my hand!!! So much for that. The next morning I woke up and prayed that my car would start, which of course it didn't because no car can possibly start in that weather without being plugged in. So my sister let me take her car. Her car was kind of snowed in because the grater had gone by while it was parked. You had to drive it straight back for aways before you could go forward and around the ridge. Me, being the smart one, decided just to whip a pseudo-3-point turn into our driveway so that I could go the other way down the street. However, I failed to see that Lillian's car was parked far back on their driveway (we share a driveway with them) and I bumped into it. Call it the fact that it was like 6:30 in the morning or call it I wasn't used to Kat's car or call it just plain carelessness.

Anyways, I went to drop Ally off and then workout because I know Lillian does not get up that early and I could talk to her later. I came back dreading telling Kat because she had trusted me with her car and I know I would likely flip if something like that happened when someone borrowed my car but she was fine and understanding and even lent me her car for the rest of the day to run errands. There was minimal damage to each car (mostly a fender bender) but I still dreaded going over to tell Lillian and Jim. When I did go over to talk to them, they just said "It happens" and said they would take a look at it later and let me know what they thought. They understood that it made it kind of difficult with that ridge of snow in front of our house.

In explaining the whole thing to Jim and Lillian, I mentioned what had happened to my cord on my car and Jim said that he would see if he could fix it. Before I knew it he had something rigged up so that it was plugged in and he said that once I could get it started and open the hood to give him more cord, he could fix it properly. Sure enough, by 10:00 this morning it was fixed and I can plug my car in again!!!! I tried to give him some money but he wouldn't take it because he said I was just a poor school girl. I was so thankful I wanted to hug the man but I don't know him that well.... I just couldn't believe that after I told them I had hit their car he offered to fix my plug. I thank God for the neighbours he has blessed me with and I also thank Him that there was minimal damage to the cars as it could have been messy if there was a lot of damage.

Well, that got really long really fast, but I just had to get that off my chest because I am overwhelmed by how amazing my neighbours are....wow.