Just Makin' It

In early December 2013 there was a Book Fair at the kids' elementary school. There was also a craft fair attached to the event, and I had the crazy idea to sell my wares at it. I wasn't quite sure what my wares were....but I got sewing and crafting and had an eclectic grouping of handmade goods to sell come time.

Because I had a mix of items, I wasn't sure what to call my new little "business." I had the thought that if things sold well, I would consider doing more craft fairs throughout the year and might even open an etsy shop. I wanted to start off with a clever name and finally came up with "Just Makin' It." The tag line: "Crafts Made During Those Rare Quiet Mom Moments." It was supposed to be a sort of play on words for the handmade nature of the goods and the feeling that many a harried mother has of "just makin' it" through the day. It also gave me the freedom to have a variety of crafty things to sell. I don't know if people got it--or even paid much attention to it at the fair--but I was pleased with it.

I worked hard during spare moments for several weeks, cutting, sewing, stuffing, gluing, and more. I was so anxious on the day of that I had trouble sleeping and got up early to attach my price tags. Damon found me in my bathrobe at the kitchen table with a hole punch and some string.

My products included hair clips, kids' aprons, stuffed animals, headband hangers, and a significant stock of leftovers from Damon's mother's dancewear business that she gave me to sell.

The stuffed animals, which my kids had dubbed "Fleecy Friends," were definitely the best sellers. I had bluebirds, elephants, penguins, whales, and frogs. I'm not sure which one was my favorite. I designed all of them (with some template-searching help on Google) and am proud of how they turned out.

The hair clips had pretty stiff competition and I only sold a couple of those, and the headband hangers were a complete bust. I'm not sure people understood and caught the vision of their purpose, even though I had a display. (Personally, I think they're brilliant and ours has totally saved us from a mess of headbands in a drawer or on the floor in our bathroom.)

I sold a few aprons, a couple of the Watercolour skirts, and many of the Watercolour scarves/ties. What I didn't sell became a great stash for birthday gifts throughout the last year as my kiddos got invited to parties, so none of my work was for naught.

It was a fun experience and I'm glad I did it. My enthusiasm and motivation did wane after the event. Truthfully, it was difficult to find other venues for selling; I did dedicate some time after the holidays to searching for other craft fairs. I wasn't really ready to launch an etsy shop. From here, if I press on with any of this, it will probably be in the Fleecy Friends department. They were fun to design and popular with the customers (and the birthday gift recipients). Hmmm...just writing this post is giving me a little itch to get out the fleece....

Back in the Saddle

I've had a few encounters recently that have encouraged me to return to blogging. I was moving along pretty consistently in the spring and then got derailed by some Picasa/Blogger photo uploading issues. It just got harder to blog. (Why do they have to change things that are working?) Then life kept humming right along while blogs--mine and my friends--continued to fall by the wayside. Who's blogging anymore?

Turns out, a few people are. And I enjoy reading their blogs. Julia, Liz, Maren, Marisa: Way to keep at it!

Who was reading my blog? I wasn't sure. But then a chance mis-text reconnected me with a friend to whom I hadn't talked in years! She said that she liked to follow my blog. Really? A reader? I thought maybe I should get back at it, even if it was just for an audience of one. (Thank you, Heather.)

Finally, during a schoolyard chat with yet another friend, I was reminded of one of the real reasons I ever started blogging in the first place: it's a record of my family's life. Simple as that. Whether anyone else is doing theirs or reading mine, this blog is where--for now--I've chosen to record what happens. It's my history. It's my family's history. That's worth the effort.

So, now that the Thanksgiving holiday is only a few days away, I've got some serious history to catch up on. The last post I published was from Thanksgiving 2013. I've got a whole year to record, and I'm going to do it. It'll take awhile, but I can do it.

I'm Still Here

I've had a bit of trouble with Blogger, Picasa, and uploading photos, which has really slowed down my blogging, as you can see. It seems that blogs are becoming a bit passe, what with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. I definitely see that among my friends and family. Notice the sidebar and how many people haven't updated their blogs in the last 6 months, or even year.

Still, I like blogging. I like the way it makes my chronicle my family's life. I used to scrapbook. I wish I still did. However, like many a young mother I know, I fruitlessly long for a room with a locking door where I can spread out my crafts to work in peace, or leave for later when it's not peaceful. So, for now...and maybe forever more, I don't scrapbook. I blog.

At least, here's me trying.

White Salmon Trip & Roy Webster Swim

After just nine days of school we took a trip we'd been planning for a year: we returned to White Salmon for Labor Day weekend so I could swim the Columbia River.

Unlike our summer vacation road trip, this one set off with a more auspicious beginning: our minivan hit 200,000 miles!!

The euphoria, however, was short-lived. We'd actually been hoping to buy a "new" car before the trip and have the old van in someone else's hands before making the 700-mile drive to Washington. When the check engine light came on somewhere between Klamath Falls and Bend, we knew that car-shopping effort had not been misplaced. Still, we kept on truckin' and eventually made it to Bend in the wee hours of the morning. Damon's boss had graciously offered the use of his vacation rental there, so we had a comfortable free place to spend the night before our Safeway breakfast and final 3 hours on to White Salmon.

Immediately after crossing over the Hood River Bridge, we stopped for lunch at Killer Burger (home of the famous peanut butter and pickle burger) in Bingen and I couldn't resist snapping this photo of a logging truck rumbling past on Hwy 14.

Our next scheduled stop was at the schools so Adah and Maggie could meet up with some friends. We had enough time to drive through town  past our house. Then we parked just up the street from the elementary school, and as we strolled down to the front of the school I said to Damon, "Being here feels so . . . normal." "I know," he agreed.

I spent the afternoon at my friend Marisa's house while Holly and Gunnar played with her son Jack. Damon visited his old work place. We had dinner with other friends before finally landing at our weekend hosts' house for the night. Wayne and Jody Goodrich put us up for the whole weekend.

Saturday morning we stopped by the White Salmon library to see the best children's librarian in the world: Heidi.  After that we went to Mountain View Orchards, which is owned by our friend Lyle McAlexander. We picked peaches and bought apples from their bins.

 

Everywhere we went that weekend (Thriftway, Wal-Mart, the library, etc) we ran into someone we knew...even at the orchard. My friend, Brooke Whittle, who'd be swimming the river with me on Monday, also happened to be there picking peaches at the same time! I still really miss that small-town aspect of our White Salmon days--just knowing people almost everywhere we went.

On Saturday night we had dinner with our next-door neighbors, Jim and Cheri Anderson and their kids. (No photos!) We sure miss them and enjoyed catching up and spying over the fence into our own yard. As we stood in the Andersons' yard looking across at our house, now occupied by another nice family, I told Cheri, "You know, it doesn't feel like that's my house. I'm okay." She said, "Well, I still feel like it's your house!" They were such fantastic neighbors.

Sunday we got to attend church at our old ward, where again, it just felt very normal. We even sat on the same pew in the chapel where we used to sit! Most of the people we knew and loved were still there, but a few had also moved away. That afternoon the Goodriches hosted a spaghetti dinner with many of our good friends and we just got to hang out, visit, and catch up.

Monday morning was the big event, the real reason we'd come to White Salmon that weekend: the 71st Annual Roy Webster Cross-Channel Swim.

There were four of us planning to jump in together (below, left to right): me, Brooke Whittle, Lee Goodrich (Wayne's oldest brother; he flew in from Utah for this), and Ryan Van Sickle. Jody, who swam it with me two years ago, opted out this year, but she did volunteer to get up at 4:30 in the morning and drive us to the Hood River Marina. This photo was taken just after we checked in and were assigned to a flight. 

Each flight consisted of 10 people who would all jump off the Sternwheeler at the same time. (That boat lit up with the red lights across the marina is the Sternwheeler.) We were in Flight 14. That means there were 130 people who wold jump off before us. There were another 352 after us.

Swimmers in the water! Small sailboats, kayaks, and paddle boarders line the course to offer encouragement, resting spots, and rescue, as necessary. My good friend Yolanda and her husband were part of their volunteer crew in their kayaks. She's not a swimmer, but we convinced her to get up early and participate in this way and it was fun to see her as I swam past.

The water was actually pretty warm this year--I think they announced on the boat that it was 71 degrees, and a cheer went up from the crowd of swimmers. Still, I was in a full wet suit and appreciated the extra buoyancy. I felt better prepared this year than 2 years ago, both because I knew what to expect and because I think I trained more. I still don't know how fast I swam (since I don't know what time I jumped in), but I feel like I did better than last time, and that was my main goal. I was in flight 14 and I passed some people in flight 8, so that was also an indication that I was doing well.

 

Here's Lee with Roy Webster. Lee was the first of our foursome out of the water. I passed him at one point when he stopped at a boat to adjust his goggles, but he must have then motored passed me. He has done Iron Man competitions, and was sure fun to get to know during the weekend.

Here's Ryan. I totally beat him. I was proud of that since Jody had pegged Lee or Ryan to come out first.

Jillaire and Brooke! I'm so glad she did this with me. I really wanted to do the swim again, but if I hadn't had a friend also doing it with me, I don't know if I would have signed up. I think she felt the same way. Throughout the summer we texted each other about our training efforts, giving tips like, "Don't eat a McMuffin before swimming," or "You must get a spandex swim cap! It won't pull your hair!" Important stuff, and even though we were far apart it made it a fun joint effort. Brooke is a great friend.

However speedy I may or may not have been, it was--once again--too fast for my family. They got there too late to see me come out of the water! They misjudged the timing of when we'd jump off and how long it would take us in the water. Jody feels bad, as her whole family also missed Lee coming out, and she had been with us in the morning and then returned to her house to direct everyone out the door.

It's okay with me. It just gives me another reason to go back next year. One of these times Damon will see me come out of the river!

On the way back from the swim, we stopped by our house on Green Street to check in with our renters, and we also visited our neighbors across the street. The whole weekend we took every opportunity to see old friends, even if it was just for a moment, and we were so happy to find most people at home & with time to chat.

After a nap (for me) back at the Goodriches' we spent our afternoon in the White Salmon park meeting up with more friends. We had made an open invitation to all our friends via Facebook and at church on Sunday to just come and hang out with us at the park. Lots of people showed up and my childhood friend Katie even came out from Vancouver! It was really a great way to finish our trip. We left from there for dinner at Beneventi's (local pizza joint) & then onto Bend for the night before the full-day drive to Sunnyvale on Tuesday.

It was a whirlwind weekend cramming in so many social calls and events, but we really did get to see so many people & favorite places; there's very little that we missed. It was a great visit to a place that was our home for seven years.

This Month Is Such a Special One

November is birthday month in the McMillan-Wangsgard family. Damon's dad, Jillaire, Damon's brother, Damon, and Jillaire's sister-in-law (in that order) all have birthdays during November. Now that we're in California, we were lucky enough to do some celebrating with all of the McMillans this year.

Damon's parents were still twiddling their thumbs waiting for their new house to pass inspection before they could move, so we invited them to come visit for the weekend of Grandpa's birthday, which was also the Primary (children's Sunday School) program at church. On Saturday we all visited the San Jose Flea Market and then Grandma and Grandpa had take-out Thai with the children while Damon and I headed out for a date.

On Sunday, after church (where Adah and Maggie played a piano-violin duet), we had a birthday lunch, complete with a GIANT Costco cheesecake. Yum!!

We didn't have 69 candles in the house, but Damon and the kids got around that by using our "6" candle and 9 singletons.

Grandpa politely shielded the cake from any germs. : )

A week later, it was my birthday! It was pretty much a normal Monday of running children to and from school and doing laundry, but I don't mind that as long as I can end the day with my triple-layer Darn Good Chocolate Cake with my Mom's Killer Chocolate Frosting. Oh yes, it's as good as it sounds.

Maggie was in charge of embellishments. She used a heart-shaped cookie cutter as a stencil for pink and yellow sugar sprinkles. The extra candles (other than the 34) were merely decorative.

We had to do our Happy Birthday-ing and candle blowing in Adah's bedroom. Poor girl was not feeling well at all and had gone to bed with a cold and no appetite for cake. : (

 

Her bedroom also provided the perfect venue for Damon to give me my gift. He had hidden it behind Adah's sliding closet doors and gave me the choice between Door #1 and Door #2. Since he had already asked me if I "would be mad" if he got me a wireless printer for my birthday, I was quite surprised to find a new set of pots and pans (which I really wanted) behind Door #1. I figured that the printer must be behind Door #2. When I opened up to find a BANANA, I was very pleased (and relieved) by my original choice.

The results of that little birthday gift game show made it very easy to choose Damon's birthday gift: a wireless printer!! His birthday, which is 8 days after mine, happened to fall on the day after Cyber Monday, so I waited for the good sales and ordered it then, meaning he didn't get it in time for his actual birthday. 

This is the only photo I got to document his day. It's not a good one at all. The funny thing about it, though, is that he didn't even notice that I'd hung up the banner after he'd gone to bed the night before so it would be there to greet him at breakfast time. Damon takes a pretty low-key view of his birthday--lucky for me.

And, just because the only photo I got of the birthday boy was a lousy one, here's a bonus shot of him, along with Holly, sleeping on the couch after church. I'm really not sure who fell asleep first. I do know that he had come home from after-church duties and cuddled up on the couch with his little girl. What happened next was inevitable.

 

ZUCCHINI !!!

We grew zucchini every summer in White Salmon. Since I moved to California last month, I actually had to buy some zucchini. (Gasp!) I don't think I've done that for at least seven years. Truly. Once you've faced the July (and August and September) onslaught of these ever-producing squash, you're good for the rest of the year. You don't need to buy any imported zucchini at the supermarket in the off-season. 

Still, I welcome the onslaught. I've always said that I like to plant just enough zucchini that I feel a little overwhelmed. (Usually that means 3 plants.) Otherwise it just doesn't feel like zucchini season. Because, really, what says summer more than leaving anonymous bags of zucchini on your neighbor's porch or shoving foot-long squash into the unsuspecting arms of anyone who walks through your door? Nothing.

For me, the arrival of zucchini season means chocolate zucchini cake with peanut butter frosting. Oh yes. I make it with some of the very first zucchini off the plant. Damon says it's the best cake that I make. It is moist and rich and oh-so-delicious. You have to eat it with a glass of milk.

We also love penne with courgettes. Courgette is the French word for zucchini, and it's the word the British use for it. I have an English cookbook that has a delicious recipe calling for shredded zucchini to be sauteed with garlic and then mixed with cooked penne, eggs (that have been scrambled and then cook in the hot pasta), parmesan cheese, and fresh basil. Because we got the recipe in England, we feel bound to call our zucchini "courgette" when we make this recipe.

Let us also remember grilled zucchini, sauteed zucchini, zucchini casserole, zucchini bread, and zucchini waffles! Yes, folks. Throw some shredded zucchini in your waffle batter next time. You can reduce the liquid, and add a little cinnamon, too. I invented that one all by myself. Delicious.

We left behind our garden while it was still producing zucchini. I hope the neighbors have been picking it, as we told them they could. Otherwise I'm sure there are zucchini hiding under some leaves that are as big as pumpkins! 

Here's Holly! She finally got the zucchini in the right place.

And may I just say: Man those suckers got heavy! I had trouble keeping my grin. If I remember correctly, they weighed in at about 6 lbs. each!!



Project Early Bird

After returning from my  trip to Arizona and giving myself a few days to adjust to the normal routine, I launched an experiment which I have now dubbed "Project Early Bird."

I started getting up at 5:30 in the morning.

Are you sure about this?

That is a big deal for me. Really big. I like to sleep in. For most of our marriage, Damon has risen earlier than me, getting up and having breakfast with the kids and sometimes only waking me up when it was absolutely necessary for me to take over while he got in the shower.

Still, I had this big idea to start getting up early enough that I could exercise and shower before the kids needed me. I had several motivators for embarking on such an ambitious new schedule. I'm more productive once I'm showered and dressed. Holly is at an age where she can get into mischief and danger if left unsupervised for too long, so I can really only shower when she's napping or someone older (other than Gunnar) is here to keep an eye on her.  Over the last several months she has dropped a nap, and now her only nap of the day is a little later in the morning. If I wait for her to go to sleep, I'm not able to shower until after 11:00, and so I just tend to waste the whole morning kind of puttering around waiting for her to nap. I figured that if I could be showered and dressed before the girls leave for school, that would help me start my day better.

Also, I tend to stay up too late, and wondered if getting up earlier would leave me tired out and inclined to go to bed earlier.  One of the reasons I believe that I stay up late is because I need some time to wind down and do my own thing after the kids are in bed. I thought that, maybe, by getting up earlier, I could "fill my cup" before the kids were awake rather than recharging at the end of the day. I was skeptical about this potential benefit of my early rising, but willing to try it out.

So, is it worth it?
Turns out, I'm not getting to bed any earlier most nights. Instead, I'm just getting less sleep. I don't actually notice it too much, except at about 5:30 and 1 second when I've realized that the alarm is going off and I wonder if I'm crazy and can really drag myself out of bed.  Honestly, some days I do bail and get back in bed. And, some nights I know that I just can't get up at 5:30 the next morning. (I also manage to sneak in a few afternoon catnaps throughout the week, which helps.)

However, I have learned that I really like being showered and dressed before the girls leave for school. Often I still tend to lounge about and waste some time on the Internet after they leave, but once I come to myself and decide I ought to get on with the housework or some other project. . . I'm already dressed! So, on the mornings when I decide I need to sleep in a little and don't get up at 5:30, I get up at 6:30 instead (still early for me) and hop right in the shower.

I'm also getting more exercise. Although I have to have the TV turned way down low and all the lights off (so that when Holly wakes up at about 6:00 she'll go in our bedroom and fall asleep with Damon instead of coming out to the family room with me), it's so much easier to exercise without kids climbing on me, asking for a drink of water, or needing a diaper change in the middle of the workout. I've even spent some of my early-morning hours going for solo walks or working on a landscaping project in the part of our yard that's right by the street--both things that I can't really do when I'm home alone with the kids.

So, I'd consider my Project a success.  Dare I go so far as to call it a new lifestyle? Maybe.  Ask me in a few more months.

P.S. I do plan to continue it during the summer, but I might allow myself a 30-minute delay since there won't be the pressure of having kids dressed and fed and lunches made by the time Damon leaves for work.

Mosier Tunnel Bike Ride

A few Saturdays ago I took Adah and Maggie on their first real bike ride.  We live in a neighborhood with no sidewalks and our house is at a T intersection one house away from a semi-busy street, meaning there are lots of turning cars coming and going on our street. Combine that with having two younger siblings and you get two good bike riders who don't have much opportunity for safe bicycling near our house.  We usually have to load up the bikes in the back of the truck and drive to our church parking lot in order to give the kids some good, safe bike-riding time.

Saturday afternoon Damon stayed home with Gunnar and Holly and the girls and I put our bikes in the back of the truck and headed east through the Gorge to the tiny town of Mosier.  There's a fantastic paved trail that climbs up to go along parallel to the Columbia River, and then it goes through two tunnels. I think the whole thing used to be the highway before the interstate was built.  I had only been there once before on a date with Damon where we had walked the path, but I was pretty excited to ride it with Adah and Maggie.
My hopes for an excellent ride were looking a bit dim shortly after we began.  It was a little steep at first, and Adah was saying she was already getting tired.  Mags was having real trouble with her shoes. The straps kept coming undone about every 5 yards and she'd have to stop to fix them.  Eventually I tried to secure them with the only thing in my backpack that seemed promising: Band-Aids from the first aid kit.

 

The Band-Aids didn't solve the problem, as I'd hoped, but it did keep the straps a little more secure.

With all of the stop-and-start caused by the shoe trouble and both girls struggling with the hill, I readjusted my expectations for the ride. Once you crest the hill you can leave the main path to go to a look-out for an awesome view up and down the Columbia Gorge. I decided that that would be our goal, and not the tunnels.  However, as we turned off the main path for the lookout, I could see that the tunnels weren't much further and that at least going to look at them would be realistic. Whether or not we would ride through them would be another matter, since they go downhill and returning to the car would require an uphill climb that I wasn't sure the girls could handle.

First, though, to the look-out.  (Fortunately there were some other bicyclists there to take a picture of the three of us; they were riding a tandem bike.)

The views of the river and Gorge were awesome.  It was a beautiful day and I was, once again, so grateful to live in such a gorgeous place.  (Adah was happy to be munching on her Saltines; she loves those crackers.)

 

Looking east:

Looking west:

 

We did decide to ride through the tunnels. The girls were so excited once they saw them.  There are two, and the second one immediately follows the first, but is constructed differently.  The photo below is looking down the second tunnel. Way at the bottom is one of the girls on her bike. You can look out on the river (through trees) to the right.

 

We turned around after going through the second tunnel.  There was a short downhill stretch before the path started to climb back up.  I instructed the girls to get up as much speed as they could and to just keep going. They actually did really well.  Adah kept on chugging and made it through both tunnels in great time.  Maggie chose to stop at the break between the two tunnels, which meant I could get this fun shot of her: (Isn't the tunnel cool? It looks like you're inside a giant barrel.)

 

And there's her silhouette at the mouth of the east end of the tunnel:

 

I was so proud of the girls for making it back through the tunnels. Once we got through there it was a short way to the crest of the hill and then it was all downhill from there.  They LOVED that part of it. We got going pretty fast and it was such a great reward of ease and speed after all the pedaling. I realized later that it was really the first time they'd ridden their bikes down a real hill!  That sounds so sad, but, as I explained, we do most of our bike riding in our church parking lot.  We definitely need to do more bike rides like this. Gunnar will even be able to join us pretty soon. He learned to ride a two-wheeler at the beginning of April.  Hooray for bike rides!

Desert Refreshment

I got a great present from my family and friends in early March: I flew to Tucson, Arizona for five days to visit one of my very best friends, Erika. I say it was a gift from family because Damon agreed to me using a bunch of frequent flyer miles for my ticket and to going solo with the kids for a loooong weekend. It was a gift from friends because when I first mused about the idea while amongst some girlfriends, they all piped up and said, "Go! We'll help with your kids!" Without Damon's acknowledgement of my need for a getaway and my friends' willingness to watch my kids while he was at work, my wonderful trip would not have been possible.

Jillaire & Erika all dressed up for the Viewmont High Christmas Dance in 1995.

Erika and I met in the seventh grade. Our friendship really hit its stride when we were in high school, and we've been close ever since, despite not living in the same state (except summers) since we were 18.  She's been my most loyal friend and has visited me in almost every home I've had since we met. (I think she never came to Arizona, but her parents did!) She even visited us when we lived in the UK. (Erika and her husband were en route to their new home in Germany.) AND, she once tracked us down in the middle of church when we were visiting a random ward in Reno (while back in the US for Damon's brother's wedding in Lake Tahoe) and she happened to also be visiting her parents there that weekend. That's dedication, I tell ya.

Erika has lived so many (and so many international) places that I have rarely been able to visit her in her home, so this trip was a real treat for us both. We got haircuts and pedicures, watched movies, ate lots of Mexican food, attended the symphony, hiked among saguaro cactus, and went shopping. It was fantastic and relaxing. I slept until 10:30 a.m. the first morning I was there. It was heavenly.

Just about the only tourist-y thing we did, other than eating tamales and ogling giant cactus, was visit San Xavier Mission on the outskirts of Tucson. This amazing church and complex is literally set in the middle of the desert and is the oldest European structure in Arizona. Construction of the church began in 1783 and was completed in 1797, almost a century after the mission was first founded.

I loved the sunshine and the companionship I found in Tucson that weekend. Monday night I returned home to rain and a happy family: home sweet home.

Side Note: As a bonus, I had a layover in Salt Lake City on my way home that was nearly 3 hours long. Peter's fiancee Adrienne and her son were visiting him that week, so I got to meet them when they all picked me up for dinner!

Safeway Not the Safest Way Today

This morning a nice gentleman in the Safeway parking lot and I backed into each other with our cars. My rear window was completely shattered and the whole hatchback door got pretty well dented.  Sigh.

I had dropped Gunnar at preschool and met my friend Andrea at the preschool so I could take her two-year-old with Holly and me on a few errands while Andrea went to the doctor.  We rendezvoused in the Safeway parking lot shortly after 10:00.  Andrea stood by, waiting for me to pull out before buckling in her daughter, and witnessed the collision that followed. I heard a large bang and it took me a minute to realize that my back window was missing.  I immediately rolled down my window and asked Andrea, "Was that my fault?"  She thought it might have been kind of mutual; she could see it happening but couldn't do anything to stop it.  The other driver actually said he saw her standing there aghast and wondering why she had that look on her face.

The other driver. . . . He was very nice. We approached each other with outstretched hands and the whole thing was very cordial. I've never been in this situation before and didn't know what to do.  We exchanged insurance information, names, license plate numbers, and then each called our own insurance companies. He waited patiently and answered some questions that my agent had.  He was driving a Toyota Tundra (big truck).

As Andrea and I examined the accident scene, she pointed out that the glass on the ground was much closer to his truck than mine. I paced it before I finally left and it was ten steps from my car and only about 5 from where his had been.  That shows me that I'd been pulled out much further than he and makes me think that maybe I was less to blame.  ???  We'll see what the insurance adjusters decide, right?

The worst of all this is that on Thursday morning I am flying off to Tucson, AZ to visit my friend Erika, leaving Damon and the kiddos here at home. Damon will need the van to shuttle everyone around to the homes of all of my nice friends who have offered to watch the kids while I'm gone and Damon's at work.  It's going to be such a pain. I hope it can be fixed quickly.

There are a few bright spots of the day on which I'm trying to focus:

1. Even though we woke up to a dusting of snow (and yesterday it poured rain most of the day), at the time of the accident and since then, the sun has been shining and the skies dry.

2. Andrea was there. She helped keep Holly happy in the initial moments after the crash, took her into Safeway for a cookie, and then offered to just keep her until preschool pick-up time so I could finish with the insurance company phone call, buy some fix-it supplies at Wal-Mart, and get my groceries.  Also, there was another preschool mom in the parking lot who also helped move Holly's carseat and offered help transporting kids, if necessary.

3. The shattered glass in the back of my car gave me a great reason to vacuum my whole car, which has needed it for quite some time with all this wet winter weather.  It's super clean now.

4. Holly fell asleep on the way home from preschool and stayed asleep in the car while I brought in groceries AND while I vacuumed the car! She didn't wake up until I'd already vacuumed all the seats and floor areas. Then she played happily in the yard while I finished up in the very back where the real mess was.

5. We have insurance and will be able to afford the deductible.  It's a bummer to have such an expense--who ever wants to pay out?--but at least we have that money in the bank.

When I picked up Gunnar from preschool and walked toward the van, I told him about what had happened. "Was it an accident?" he asked. When I told him that it was, he said, "You need to say 'sorry.'"

More photos of the damages:

Broken glass in the "trunk" space of the van:

My awesome temporary vinyl and duct tape fix-it job, completed after getting Adah and Maggie from school:

 

Oh, and I guess I should have said this before: Holly and I are fine. I have a little bit of lower back pain, but don't expect it to be problematic.  Still, I mentioned it in my official recorded statement to the insurance company, just in case....  SIGH. What a day!

Follow-up Note: The insurance companies both concluded it was a 50-50 at-fault siuation, so they'll be splitting the bill. It's in the shop today and the nice place (Apple City Auto Body) is even giving us a free loaner car since our insurance doesn't cover it. What a relief, since only four people fit in our truck.