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.

Two Weeks Ago

Two weeks ago tonight something pretty terrible but pretty miraculous happened. I was in my hometown for work and started to head back to the town where I live following church that Wednesday night. When I was about 10 miles out of town I got one of the worst phone calls you can get. It was my dad telling me that he and my mom had had a bad accident and that I needed to come back. Fortunately I could hear them both talking so I knew they were relatively okay.

I drove as safely and quickly as I could about 20 minutes back to where they were and came upon this:


That used to be a 2000 Honda Accord. There wasn't much left of it after they hit a pickup truck that my dad never saw. They were driving home on the interstate and ran up on the back of a pickup truck. We have yet to piece together all of the story but the truck was apparently traveling very slowly with either no tail lights or at best black out tail lights that looked like this:

Here is a better picture of the truck that they hit and another picture of their car (these pictures were taken the next day at the junk yard):

Anyways, back to that night... my parents were both taken via ambulance to the hospital and we spent the next five hours or so in the ER. Dad was released with only bumps and soreness but mom was kept for the next few days. She had a broken sternum (breast bone) and two broken ribs. She also has a herniated disc in her neck... but it doesn't hurt and they aren't even sure whether or not it might have been there prior to the accident.

The whole incident was terrible and scary but my parents were so lucky. All of their injuries were from their seat belts and the airbags. That in and of itself was a miracle. While they are still sore and mom won't be completely healed for at least three months, it could have been SOOO much worse.

Fortunately I was able to drop everything and stay in town for the next few days to try and help take care of things. I've been playing a bit of catch up ever since and I haven't had much time to blog but I feel very lucky to still have my parents here.

Just wanted to share with all of my "blog friends" and let you know why I had been MIA. I am still getting caught up and getting ready for a little vacation next week but hopefully I will be able to check in a little more.