The Almost Head-On Collision

So I'm going to tell you a story because something exciting/dreadful happened to me the other night and as part of my recommitment I am going to share this story on my blog.Last friday night my roomies and I went to our stake activity- a barn dance in Elkridge, Utah. It was a lovely dance and we had tons of fun with our wardies. See pictures below.

During the end of the dance, the DJ kept telling us to drive careful because there had been freezing rain and snow while we were at the dance. My car has four-wheel drive so I brushed off the warning and we all headed to the car.

The first adventure came when I started trying to back out of a little hill I had decided to park on (genius!). I was backward on an incline trying to make it up onto the real road. After gunning it while in reverse and sliding the back of my car around for a little bit, a few kind boys offered to turn my car around at the bottom of the incline. I hesitated saying it would be a six point turn on ice and they could never just push my car in a full 180. Well, they did just that. They basically tapped on the back of my car and were able to turn it in a matter of seconds. Then I relied on my four-wheel, told everyone to get out of the way, and gunned my way to the top of the incline. All the boys were pretty impressed.

The real story came though when we started downhill on the road from the barn. So many people had already spun out that the people in charge were regulating when a car could start on the road so we were all spread out. They told us to put it in neutral and just tap our brakes on the way down. So many people had driven on the road that any snow providing traction had been cleared and now it was sheer ice. It resembled an ice skating rink but instead of skating on it we were trying to drive big cars down the icy one lane downhill road with fences lining both sides.

As we started down, the car in front of us spun out, but luckily I was able to quickly stop while some of the boys turned the car. We creeped forward again at about 10 MPH just rolling down in neutral. Suddenly the car ahead spun out again, but this time they were facing me in the middle of the road and my car wouldn't stop. I hit the brakes and held the car steady, but there was nothing to grip on the ice I was rolling down. The head-on collision seemed inevitable. Trish yelled a prayer, I screamed "PLEASE STOP MY CAR" multiple times with increasing urgency, a boy in my car jumped out to try and help.We picked up speed down the hill until at the last second when our car spun 90 degrees to the left and stopped a foot away from the car. We couldn't believe it. There was no reason for our car to slide left and stop still in the middle of the road. We all sat there with our cars in a "T" formation and made sure everyone was okay. When the car stopped, all the adrenaline left my body in the form of giant tears and then I just felt grateful.

I seriously felt like it was one of the most blatant "tender mercies" I've ever had in my life. All the boys running to help said they were sure we were going to hit them. Even the owner of the other car frantically ran and jumped a fence to get away from the seeming inevitable collision. It was a traumatic night but definitely a miracle. I drove an average of 20 MPH and rehashed the incident over and over with my passengers all the way back to Provo. The anxiety of the whole experience was still there and I was in desperate need of some comfort food. So, you guessed it, I drove straight to Taco Bell with the roomies and got a burrito. Somehow my comfort food from rough days at kindergarten still does the trick.

Recommit

Hi. So I've been terrible about blogging. This is my blog post of recommitment. I really do have the time because I am surfing the web during most of my classes anyway. SO I might as well blog while I'm blowing time on the lovely world wide web. Half the time I'm stalking your blogs anyway, so I figure it's only fair if I do my part in the blogging world.

So here's the 411 on my life as of late. I am in my LAST SEMESTER OF COLLEGE. Yes, that's right. I will graduate in April and then be a nurse! (after I pass the NCLEX test) I am now in my "Capstone" of nursing, which is basically an internship with one nurse on a unit. I am at the Cardiovascular ICU at UVRMC. If it sounds glamorous, it's not. I have mostly been dumping pee out of catheters and giving old men bed baths. Booyah! Welcome to nursing. I love my preceptor nurse and I'm feeling like a real nurse though, so it's good. I think that's the gist of what I'm up to. Now that I have officially recommitted, I guess I'll make some real posts.

ps Happy 2010! Look at this sweet photo Kimber took on New Year's Eve....

Guess what...

School started. Blog stopped.

Here's a brief synopsis of my life right now.... Critical care nursing, psych rotation, finishing my research project, loving my roommates, and hanging with family- they've been in town a ton.

Hopefully I'll be able to write a real update soon.

Laugh at yourself, before anyone else can!

Since I was young, my parents have always told me, "You just gotta laugh at yourself!" Yielding to this wise advice, I share the following story.

Almost two weeks ago on Saturday, August 15th, I headed to the University Mall just before closing to exchange a pair of shoes. I do not go to the mall often but this errand had to scratched off my post summer term finals "to do" list. I stopped by the shoe store and Forever 21 and headed on my way. Upon reaching my car I realized I did not have my keys. I thought I had put them in the side pocket of my purse like always. I began to panic and called my brother (who was on a date) to come rescue me. I saw the cops nearby and asked if they could maybe open the car to see if they were inside. They did so, but no keys were found. When my brother arrived, he searched my purse, knowing my past history of losing things in obvious places, but again no keys were found. I ran through the closing mall yelling at employees through the gates asking them if they had found any keys. In the end, everything closed and I had to give up for the time being and be taken home like a child by my brother and his girlfriend.

The next morning I found my spare! Hope was restored. I debated whether I should give it to my brother for safe keeping, but in the end my pride prevailed. I decided I was capable of not losing the key for a few hours. Ty and I planned to pick up my stranded car from the mall parking lot after we attended church. I walked out of my meetings, stuck my hand in the pocket of my purse, and felt nothing. This time I felt I was losing not only my keys at a disturbing rate, but also my mind. In my fit of frustration and close to tears, I called my little sister to wallow in self-pity.

The next three days were spent borrowing my brother's car to drive from one lost and found to the next. I went to the mall's customer service desk, the shoe store, and Forever 21 every day. I even slyly searched around the stores myself! I frequented the BYU lost and found since the church where I lost the spare was on campus. My precious days between school semesters were spent stressing over two sets of lost keys.

On Wednesday I left for NYC to see my sister, Kimber. I welcomed the chance to escape my key search. I had an absolutely wonderful trip (more on that later) but had to return home to the key issue. Tuesday morning I set out for my final check of the lost and founds. After BYU, the shoe store, and customer service, I gave up.

I called AAA to tow my car to the Nissan dealership. They said they could rekey my car over the next day or so. I hated to say I failed and pay large amounts of money all because I misplaced something. They did the job and I picked my car up this afternoon (Thursday).

I was paranoid about my keys. I kept them zipped up that little pocket so there was no way they could fall out. Bree, Lisa, and I decided to go see Star Trek at the dollar theater tonight and I volunteered to drive my newly rekeyed vehicle. As we walked to my car in the garage, I felt for my keys in the pocket. Again, nothing. I could have cried right there. However, I pulled it together and Bree drove instead. Although Star Trek seemed like a decent movie, I could hardly concentrate, nauseated with the thought that I might have lost my brand new keys. I seriously thought I was losing my mind one key at a time.

After getting home, I rushed to my room searching every surface. I dumped out the contents of my purse on my bed. While doing so, I felt something underneath the lining of my purse. I searched for an opening to this compartment. My stomach dropped. I pulled the lining of the side pocket completely out and saw a little hole in the corner. Absolute panic pervaded me. I reached my two fingers through the hole and felt around. I started pulling the loot out one piece at a time. Eventually my fingers graced the edges of keys- not only the new pair I had lost tonight but my original set, the spare, my parents' condo key, and my brother's spare. Five sets of keys total. I called my parents tearfully reporting everything I pulled out of the hole and beating myself up over the whole ordeal. There are many reasons why I should have cracked this case sooner (before spending the money to rekey my car would have been especially nice) but instead of focusing on that I am going to laugh at myself.

It is all quite hilarious so it's hard not to. For the last week and a half I have been running to lost and founds, stressing over this while the keys sat right in the very purse I was still carrying around. Brilliant.

In this lovely unknown black hole I found eight chapsticks (didn't even know I owned that many!), a blush brush, mascara, an eyelash curler, eyeliner, two pens, pearl earrings, a bracelet, way too many bobbypins, and five sets of keys. Holy cow. Here's some photos of the purse, the hole, and the contents.

A while ago I found this quote, which wittily conveys what my parents have tried to teach me.

"Laugh at yourself, before anyone else can." Elsa Maxwell, September 28th, 1958

Now that I've amused myself, feel free to laugh until your heart's content.

As of late...

I'm allergic to these:

Good at losing these:

Can't wait for this:

Loving this place:

And Missing her:

More on NYC later. Start school in a week. Oh my goodness.

Kids will love you

Here's one secret I learned while babysitting. Make this rainbow cake and it's an automatic ticket onto the "cool" list. The kiddos weren't sure about me at first but after concocting this goodness it was smooth sailing. I'll post some pictures and then the link to the recipe....

You think it's just a boring white cake and then BAAAMMM!

Sorry about the terrible photography. I promise it looks super cool if I do say so myself. Here's the link to the cake. Just a warning: this recipe contains expletives. Who knew happy rainbow cake was something to curse about? Oh and another weird thing- you use soda in the cake! I guess it is a diet cake (what a paradox) so you use diet soda and a white cake mix! Crazy huh? We tried to make it as not diet as possible by using really yummy fluffy frosting instead of diet whip cream. Golden.