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.