Three minutes to blog my day.  Hmm. 

Yesterday was horrible.  Reasa had a stomach flu...we never get the stomach flu around here.  We figured out it had been at least three years since anyone in this house had thrown up (and it was Reasa--poor kid), and Reasa broke our streak yesterday.  She woke up at 3:45, and stopped by about 3pm...long day.  We sat in front of the television the whole day.  When we woke up this morning, Lainie said to me, "Mommy, do we have to do two of everything today because we didn't do school yesterday?"  Can you tell we don't take a day off very often?  Actually, I don't know that we've ever taken a whole day off for sickness.  Another point to be thankful for--healthy children.

Today, we got all our school done, and I spent a few hours working on gift projects for Christmas.  I finished two of my nieces' gifts about 5 minutes ago (which explains the hour and the need to finish this quickly), with one niece and one nephew to go--their gifts are not nearly as involved as the books I made for the other two.  If I ever have a camera that will download pictures onto my computer, I'll post pictures of the projects.    I so love doing this kind of thing.  It makes Seth crazy--he just doesn't understand how I could possibly enjoy something that takes so much time.  I don't understand how he can fall asleep in his recliner every night.  We're even.

From this point forward, life gets completely insane (because, you know, it hasn't been to this point...).  Cookie baking during the day tomorrow (yes, after school, of course), rehearsal for Christmas Eve services tomorrow night, finish shopping on Friday afternoon, party for my sister-in-law Friday evening, shopping with the kids (for each other) on Saturday, Christmas Eve services on Saturday and Sunday, present wrapping, food preparation, general insanity...If you think of it, pray for Reasa--she's very nervous about her role in our Christmas Eve services--she has been asked to read the account of the birth of Christ out of Luke (my favorite account) for 2 of the 4 services at church, and she is VERY nervous.  She will do amazingly well, but she has to get over that shaky, butterflies-in-her-tummy feeling (or figure out how to work through it and not read like she's in a race to the end of the passage).  Pray for her.  Pray that I know how to encourage her.

Argh.  10 minutes instead of 3...well, you know.  That's the problem with people who love to write.  We just can't shut up.

Oh, one other thing (see what I mean?).  My friend Jeff's mom is 59--three years ago, she was diagnosed with cancer, and she has been dealing with it since then--better on and off, and worse more recently.  They honestly don't expect her to make it to Christmas.  I can't imagine how that would be at anytime, let alone Christmas-time.  Please pray for Jeff and his family.  Especially his Dad.  I know they would appreciate it. 

Many blessings to all of you--I hope you are revelling in the beauty of Christmas--and I'm not talking about the snow (or warm temps, for that matter, depending on where you are!). 

We have the most amazing construction project occurring in our town...we enjoy each new major change, we gawk at the heavy equipment that moves earth and machinery and pushes the river to new places, and we try to picture in our minds what it will look like when plans come to completion.  Changes happen every single week.  It has diverted traffic on and off for literally two years, sending it past our street as they build bridges, tear old ones down, lift huge iron bridgework over highways and construct fly-overs that remind me of the can of worms in Rochester.  Thankfully, we live a block and a half away from late-night tractor trailer noise and the inability to get out of our street, and they do the highway-blocking construction mostly after 9 at night.  Tonight, traffic is not detoured, or I should say, it was not scheduled to be detoured.  Tonight, we experienced the unfortunate consequences of our exciting "progress."

As we wrapped up our enormous family Christmas party at my Aunt Julie's house, two of my cousins, who had to leave early to go to a different party, called to let the relatives headed toward our town know that the highway was backed up for miles because of an accident at the newly constructed interchange.  They gave few details--a tractor trailer had crashed into a minivan filled with a family of 6, and so far, both parents had been pronounced dead, leaving the four children.  Devastating news--horrifying, to say the least.  "These things are not supposed to happen," I commented, shaking my head.  An aunt responded, "Min, you'll find in this life that there are many, many things that we think aren't supposed to happen that happen over and over and over.  We'll never understand it."

No kidding.

We left about an hour and a half after my cousins and didn't take an alternate route home, thinking that after that length of time, they would have the accident taken care of--nothing to worry about.  As we neared home, the sign on the highway stated that the highway was closed at exit 43...3 past our exit...not cleaned up yet, but still no problem.  As we approached the next exit, we noticed a car that had stopped just past the exit ramp and had begun to back up--and Seth commented, "They missed their exit," (sung to the tune of nah-na-nah-na-nah-naaaahhh).  Well, the joke was on us.  50 feet later, traffic stopped dead.  We spent the next 35 minutes travelling 3/4 of a mile to our house.  Bryson and Lainie both fell asleep (and Reasa sat between us (poor carsick kid) talking the entire time, which is actually very unlike her).  Seth got really ticked off (not at Reasa).  "Why on earth do they have traffic backed up all the way to here?  This is ridiculous.  Why do people have to be so stupid?  This is all about rubbernecking and stupid people who can't get the accidents cleaned up and off the road so that traffic can get going.  We just leave things in the way, and people can't just mind their own business and drive."  He even commented on the handling of accidents on the audobon (like he really knows ) and how we should do things to benefit the drivers in our state.  What do you say to that?  Seriously?  Anyway, we got home, got the kids something to eat (because, you know, you can't eat at a party where there is more food than anyone should possibly eat...too many distractions) and got them in bed.  As I came downstairs to start unburying the house from the rubble of our day, I walked next to the front window, bent down to pick up a toy, and as I stood up, I glanced out the window to see someone rap on the window I was looking out...my dad was there in his mountain bike gear...it scared me to death!!!  Why on earth would I see my father on his mountain bike at 8:30 at night in December in front of my house??  I had no idea who it was.  After I almost had a heart attack, I realized who it was, and went to the door.  He had ridden his bike over to check out what held up the traffic all around our city, and he stopped here to tell us about it (you might live in an incredibly small town if...).  As it turned out, it was very near our house--and it was more gruesome than we had imagined.  The tallest fly-over in the new interchange is about 70 feet off the main highway--it looks scary (and I haven't been on it yet, for which I'm just as glad)--and as the truck came around the corner, he must have just lost control, or the driver fell asleep or something.  The truck came right over the edge of the fly-over and fell all the way down to the highway below.  It forced a van off the highway into a retention pond, and the large majority of the van was under water.  Dad said all that was left of the tractor trailor was the frame and the wheels--debris was everywhere, strewn all over the place.  From other people who were there, he learned that the family in the van had actually survived--that they had been taken to local hospitals (at least one airlifted, but alive).  The driver of the tractor trailer had died, but Dad didn't know when.  Not that it mattered.  Seth talked dad into going back over with him (Dad rode, Seth walked) so he could see it himself. 

Seth drove tractor trailer.  He loved driving.  He hated the life (what's not to hate??).  When he got to the crash site, he said he actually teared up.  "I could feel it," he told me.  "That feeling of not judging a corner right, of almost falling asleep, of making the decision to take the curve as best I could, knowing that I had to swerve out of the way of that car that wasn't making good choices because it was a family in the car and I was just me.  I pictured myself in that situation because I have almost been there.  It's only by the grace of God that I didn't have the same thing or even worse happen to me.  Any truck driver would say the same."  (not his exact words, but what he said, all put together over the course of our conversation)  My stomach just turned.  My heart leapt into my throat.  I felt just a tiny fraction of the pain that driver's wife would feel when she received the news tonight, 7 days before Christmas. 

Seth no longer drives tractor trailer, but he still works a dangerous job.  On any given day, he could roll that D-6 off the side of a cliff into the forest below.  At any given moment, something could fly off the equipment he's in and back into the unenclosed cab of whatever he's operating, and I could lose him.  Yes, theoretically, any one of our husbands could be killed on his morning commute, but very realistically, they offer accident insurance at the jobs my husband works for a very important reason:  his life is seriously in danger.  He could make a stupid choice, or his equipment could fail, or some other operator could make a stupid choice at any time.  Period.  In the 12 weeks he has worked this new job, he has come home 3 times already and said, "I almost died today."

His near misses have meant that we have another day with him.  I have no idea why tonight, the driver on the fly-over didn't have just another near miss.  These things shouldn't happen, but they do.  And they will.  But the near misses are what I have to be thankful for.  Every single day.

I gave up on getting up with Seth for a while there...I do remember, now that I'm back to it, why it was such a relief to sleep a little longer.  You know, 6:00 seemed like a very normal time to rise (earlier, actually) when I went to school and while I taught, but now that I have small children, and they're typically with me all day, and the only time I get to sit still or think (or vegetate in front of the tv and knit) happens between 10 and 11 at night, 6 comes really, really early.  I should be thankful...Seth has been getting up between 4:30 and 4:45, so this is actually like a gift, but I didn't get up with him when he was getting up that early (I know, horrible me).  Honestly, I start my day out feeling like I've gotten something accomplished when I'm up at least an hour before my kids...and I spend the day knowing that I don't need to be running around like an idiot trying to get something accomplished while they finish their math or their writing...but with the exception of yesterday, I have crashed on the couch for 20 minutes before making lunch, and I've actually fallen asleep!  I need to go to bed earlier.  6 hours of sleep just doesn't cut it for me any more.

I'm getting old.  I used to live just fine on 4 or 5 hours of sleep.  Not any more.  Without 7 or 8 hours, I drag all day long.  I should definitely eat better.  And work out regularly.  Used to do that.  Not now.  Too many deadlines coming up before Christmas to drag my body out of the house and over to my parents' at 9 every night.  It's so easy to say, "I'll do that tomorrow, or next week, or after Christmas, or I'll make it a New Year's Resolution (yeah right)."  Have you been watching The Biggest Loser?  I haven't, but I've caught 2 or 3 episodes along the way, and I watched last night as the finalists went home for their couple of months of doing it themselves, and there was this overriding theme...it was time for them to change their lives, and they did it, and now they would not go back to their old ways for anything.  Period.  I'm sure it's much easier to make that decision when you have personal cooks and trainers breathing down your neck and a possible $250,000 payoff at the end, but it comes down to making a decision for your health and doing something about it.  I don't pretend that I need to lose serious weight, but you know, weight loss completely out of the picture, just the amount of junk I eat in a week...and the serious risk for diabetes in my family...even for thinnish folks...I like my vision.  And my limbs.  And I really would like to be around to snuggle with my children's children down the road.  And maybe even their kids too. At what point do you make the decision to change the way you live, just for your health and your future? 

And then, how do you stick to it?