Making lemonade out of lemons..

It happens every year. Whether we like it or not - we can all expect to get older. Unfortunately, it's that time of year for me. If I'm still blogging next year you will get to hear (er, read) my whining, kicking, and screaming because it will be the year of the big 40! Holy cow - 40! (But I don't want to talk about that.)

At the risk of sounding doom and gloom - it seems like something bad happens every November. Seriously, every year in November there is an incident of some sort.

One year I hit a dog. Another year it was the Driver's Ed incident (which was really the last week of October, but I'm counting it). One year I was called to work the shift for a girl who was murdered the night before (this was a horrific experience for me). Last year was the mother load of multiple bad incidents. Go here to be truly entertained! (It was technically my first blog post).

It is seriously uncanny.

So every year I usually brace myself and just wait for the events to unfold. I tend to get pretty discouraged during the month of November. But this year I'm going to try to have a positive mindset through it all. Of course I can't control everything that happens, but I can control my responses to the events. I can be grateful.

So far this month, there have been a couple of incidents. Nothing major, and I really hope this is it! I can handle this.

Yesterday at 6:00 am I received a phone call from my husband and son, who were stranded in our season's first big snow storm. They couldn't make it up the hill that goes up our mountain. Cops were patrolling the hill and we were worried that they would close it to all traffic (as they often do in the winter). But hey - positive mindset, right? I drove down in a sturdier vehicle, picked them up, and brought them home! No roads were closed. It all turned out okay! They made it home safe and sound.

I was hoping that was going to be my only "November Incident" this year. But alas - I had another one this morning.

This morning, I was driving to pick up Connor from swim practice. I took a freeway exit and headed for the left turn lane when I heard a pop and a hissssss. 30 seconds later my back tire was completely flat. Fortunately, I made it through the light and I pulled into a parking lot, and just sat there trying to figure out what to do.

I really tried to find the good in this incident.

The Good News - I have a husband who can fix anything!
The Bad News - he left his cell phone at home.

So, I called his desk. No answer. I had him paged - Victory Was MINE! He would leave work to rescue his wife who was in distress.

While I waited, and while looking for the positive in this little issue - guess what I found?



My camera!! I soooo launched into blogging mode.

This is how I felt about having a flat tire:



Luckily, my dear husband came to my rescue. (Except that he wasn't too thrilled about me taking his picture doing manly things...) And luckily my son found another ride to school.




Todd messed around with the tire for a while before telling me the bad news - we didn't have the tool that he needed to get the spare.

But he had a great idea! Let's take the tire off of the car and drive it to Big O. They can patch the tire and then we can drive back and throw the tire on the vehicle.

Except that the tire had a gaping hole in the side and couldn't be 'patched'.

But as luck would have it - I had 4 snow tires in the back of the car.


I was actually going to have them installed on Saturday - but hey - there's no time like the present! So off we drove to Big O on this beautiful Thursday morning.

And here I am again - a happy camper!

I'm sooo hoping that this post is the end of my infamous bad November luck for 2008. But if not, I'm sure blog land will be the first to know!