Tuesday, November 27, 2007

My Car is Going to be Famous!!!

Okay... not that famous. But if you live in the state of Alabama, you can check out Discovering Alabama on Alabama Public Television on Wednesday night. I think it is on at 7 PM. The subject that night is White Tailed Deer and they called me about videoing my car after the deer jumped on it. I haven't seen it yet but supposedly my car will be on.

Just thought you might want to know. The guy that came to film it worked hard to make it dramatic. I think he was a bit disappointed with the lack of destruction on my car. :-)

Monday, November 26, 2007

Meet Nessie

In amongst all the animal killing that happened with my car a few weeks ago I never got a chance to blog about the craft fair that I went to with my mom that Saturday. It's a great arts and crafts show right outside of my hometown that always takes place on the first Saturday in November. Years ago, my parents had a booth and I would make a few things during the summer to sell. Last year, Amberly and I had a booth and had a great time. This year we just went to shop and although I didn't find much, I did find one item I particularly like. Meet Nessie.


Nessie is a four piece concrete sculpture that I picked out. The people that I bought him from said it was a worm... but I have declared it to be a Loch Ness Monster. :-) Nessie currently lives in my front flower bed... and at the moment is actually covered in colored Christmas lights. The picture above was taken before I rolled out the Christmas decorations. Here is what he looks like now:


I didn't find too much at the craft show this year other than Nessie... but I thought he was a pretty good find.

On a related note... my car is STILL at the shop. The damage done by the deer was not THAT bad (only about $2,200 worth) but they are still waiting on a side view mirror to come in and apparently they are never giving my car back.

Monday, November 12, 2007

How can you forget something like this...

Last week I was helping my roommate try to find music for her wedding. She is getting married in December and so there are lots of little tasks to be done. As she started talking about music for the wedding and the reception, I volunteered to help. I started digging out CD's and had a field day of my own.

I guess it was this summer when I stopped listening to music as much. It wasn't intentional but I was doing a lot of traveling and so I began listening to CNN on the XM satellite radio in the mornings and talk sports radio on the XM in the afternoon. Aside from that, I kept a couple of CD cases in my car and never really rotated any new CD's... so I listened to the same 20 or 30 CD's over and over again. I never really thought of this as a bad habit, but I forgot how much I miss music and I forgot how much I missed my old CD's.

I like most types of music... but I really love soundtracks and scores and old music. By old music, I mean music from the 40's, 50's and 60's... and music that sounds like it is from the era. I have about a bazillion CD's and I had forgotten about so many of them. I don't claim to have great musical taste but they are my taste and I like them. :-) I was so happy to rediscover so many CD's and add them to my ipod.

I guess we accomplished the original goal of finding the music she needed for the wedding... but more than that, I found lots of great CD's and didn't have to purchase a single thing!

Sunday, November 4, 2007

The weekend that went from dreaded to bad to worse... and isn't even over yet

So it is no secret I have not been looking forward to the lingerie shower tonight. I have been dreading it for weeks (that's where the dread part of my title comes in). Then yesterday, I hit an animal of some sort and messed up the front bumper of my car (that was definitely bad). Well tonight, I was headed back to the town where I live for my roommate's lingerie shower and I HIT A DEER (that was way worse)!!!!!!!!

This road is notorious for deer but I have never had a problem... until now. I saw the deer on the side of the road and I had time to slow down a little bit. Then it jumped and I swerved and there was nothing I could do. It hit square on my windshield and resulted in this.

Two teenagers were in a car behind me and stopped. They said that when I hit the deer it flew up in the air as high as the tree tops! They were impressed. They walked back and found the deer. Unfortunately it was suffering. :-(

I am nothing but an animal killer this weekend. My parents call the Conservation Department for me and they said that since it was deer season here in Alabama someone would probably pick it up for the meat. However, they were going to check it out. Note to self... I need to add that phone number to my cell phone.

I called the state troopers and they were tied up and it was going to be awhile before they got there. It was getting dark and it is a pitch black road... so it's pretty scary. So with the suggestion of my parents and "permission" from the troopers to fill out an accident report later, I drove on home. I was only about halfway home... and within 10 miles of where I had the animal incident on Friday night. I could only see out of about 20-25% of the windshield and there were shards of glass all in my car. I cut my hand a little trying to wipe glass out of my seat, but it is nothing too serious.

All in all I was once again very lucky. The windshield is obviously shattered, the side view mirror got knocked off and there are a couple of dents... but that is it. If I had been going a little slower, it would have messed up the front of my car... if I had been going a little faster it would have likely hit the side or top of my car and could have done a lot more damage to the car and me.

Here are a couple more pictures of the car. In the first one, you can see the missing side view mirror and the dent on the front panel. It also appears there is a footprint on the passenger side door. In the second one, you can see the fun new angle of the rear view mirror from the inside along with the shards of glass.



What a weekend!! I don't think I will be going home via that route any more. There is another way that is longer... but it is all interstate and I will be going that way from now on.

I hope tomorrow is less eventful. By the way I did survive the lingerie shower (when I finally got there) and the bridal tea tomorrow should be much more my speed.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Poor Animal, Poor Car

I BROKE MY CAR AND I FEEL SURE I KILLED AN ANIMAL!!! On the way to my parent's house tonight, I hit an animal of some sort... and I'm afraid it was a dog. I didn't see it until I was right about to hit it and there was nothing I could do. It was darting across the country road and I was going about 60 mph. It was very dark on a two lane road... and there was a good bit of traffic at the time.

I didn't go back because there was nothing I could have done. I feel terrible and am still concerned about the animal. A little further down the road I stopped to look at my car. It fared better than the animal I'm afraid but it's pretty messed up. The bumper is pretty broken and dad thinks I knocked a duct off right behind the bumper.

I think I am going to take it in tomorrow morning and see if they can fix the duct (which could be important to it's existence) and give me an estimate on how much it will cost to fix it.

Poor car and poor dog/animal. :-(

Fun Thursday, Weekend So So

Thursday morning I did make it to my meeting and thanks to my mom saving the day, I did not have to wear my pajamas to the meeting. It was a fairly typical meeting for work... but it was one of those non-confrontational yet productive meetings... my favorite kind. I met with a group of law enforcement officers who are typically a lot of fun. They like what they do and they are making a difference in the state... so I enjoy meeting with them.

After the meeting I headed to lunch with one of the folks that we work with. By the time we were done with lunch it was still too early to head to Amberly's house. I'm sure they wouldn't have minded but I felt like I should get some work done before I played for the rest of the day. So I camped out in a conference room and worked for a few hours.

Then it was off to see Amberly and her crew. I always have so much with them! They fed me dinner and kept me entertained all afternoon and evening. No matter how tired or stressed I am, they always brighten my day. This is the second time I have gone to see them since they moved. Hopefully I haven't worn out my welcome quite yet and they won't get tired of me any time soon.

When I finally left them alone to let them try to return to a normal nighttime routine it was fairly late. I got back to my house after 10... and then the non-fun part of my day started. I had to finish cleaning the house for the lingerie shower some of the girls are throwing for my roommate tomorrow night. I am not looking forward to this shower but apparently I don't have much choice but to show up since she is my roommate and I am in the wedding. I have considered not showing up... but that would probably hurt my roommate's feelings. I'm still considering my options. :-) Call me prudish, but I am not a fan of that type of shower. At least it will all be over soon enough.

This week's somewhat crazy travel continues. Tonight I head back to my hometown to go to an annual arts and crafts fair in the morning. Last year Amberly and I had a booth but this year my mom and I are just going to browse and shop. The weather should be great and that should be lots of fun! After that it will be back to the town where I live for the lingerie shower. Sunday there is a bridal tea for my roommate... but somewhere in there I'm going to need a nap!