Weekly Review May 15 '15

Well, this was a somewhat exciting week...not the nice kind of exciting, though.  The kind you'd rather not have.  Although it could have been so much worse, so we can't complain much.  When Frank was on his way home from work Wednesday afternoon, he was in a car wreck.  He was on I-270 and the traffic was flowing pretty well, then he got to one of those spots where the traffic slows down all of the sudden, and he had to come to a complete stop.  He stopped about 10-15 feet behind the car in front of him, but the driver in the car behind him was looking at his phone and didn't notice.  He never even stepped on his brakes...he just plowed into the back of Frank's car going about 60 mph.  He hit the car so hard that the car was pushed into the car in front, as well as into the guardrail on Frank's left (he was in the left lane).   

Frank was not seriously hurt...no broken bones or anything like that.  He was able to get out of the car and walk around  An ambulance came and they looked at him but he seemed to be okay.  The car was towed to a place near our house here in Frederick, and I met Frank there so I could bring him home.  By the time we got through the paperwork and such, Frank was starting to hurt.  His head, neck, back and sides were hurting.  So we decided to take him to the emergency room to get checked out.  However, we hadn't had dinner yet and the missionaries were coming for that, so we did get some food first.  The local Greek Festival had just opened that day, so after I took Frank home, Jared and I went and got some gyros for everyone.  By the time we got back to the house, Frank was experiencing blurred vision and dizziness, so he didn't really want to eat.  The missionaries ate quickly & I had time to eat part of my gyro.  Then the Elders gave Frank a blessing.  They stayed and gave a spiritual message to Jared and Seth (Tanner was gone) before they left.  I took Frank to the ER.  As usual, we had to wait a really long time...about 2 hours in the waiting room and then it was 3 hours before they did everything they wanted to do to check him out.  It was 11:30 before we were able to come home and collapse into bed.  

They did CT scans on Frank's head, neck, and abdomen, and everything looked okay.  He just has a really decent case of whiplash.  They gave him a pain reliever and a muscle relaxant and that helped him feel quite a bit better.  However, he has been very, very sore ever since.  He groans whenever he moves.  Not much fun.  Hopefully he will be feeling a lot better in a few more days.  

So what about the car?  Well, we don't have the official word from the insurance company yet (we got all of Frank's belongings out of the car yesterday and the insurance company was supposed to be picking it up today) but I think it's pretty safe to say that it will be ruled a total loss.  What do you think?:

You can see that both wheels on the passenger side of the car were popped.  The hood is bent out of shape in front, the driver's side headlight is smashed, and the back passenger side is a total mangled mess.  The whole back piece that is attached to the bumper came off.  It was pretty tricky getting all his belongings out because the back passenger door and the trunk won't open at all and the other three doors are hard to open and won't open all the way.  (Which means the frame of the car is all bent out of shape.)  We couldn't get the CDs out o the CD player either because the car wouldn't start at all and when we pried the hood open to try to jump the battery, the battery was completely mangled too.  So yes...I think we'll be car shopping this week.

Did I mention that we only had 3 payments left until this car would have been paid off?  History repeating itself...this car replaced the Prius that Scott totaled nearly 3 years ago, and when that one wrecked we only had 3 payments left on it!  (That one was a 5 year loan, so I feel like we've been paying for this car for 8 years now.)  We'll have to wait to see how much the insurance company is going to give us for this one.  Maybe we can get enough that we won't have to start over again on another loan?  I would be really grateful if that happened, but I'm pretty doubtful.

BUT...as the lady at the towing place said (speaking of Frank) "he's walking and talking; thank God for that".  I couldn't agree more.

Is there such a thing as sympathy pain?  Is that a real thing?  If so, then I've been having it!  On Wednesday when we were waiting at the ER, my head started hurting and it hurt all night.  My head's doing better now, but ever since Wednesday night my back has been sore.  I honestly keep thinking things like "wow, my back got hurt in that car wreck" and then I remember that I wasn't even in the car!!  Well, it's more likely my back hurts because of the stress.  Or sitting in the uncomfortable chairs at the ER for 5 hours...that certainly could have done it!!  But I'm not hurting anywhere near as much as Frank is.  I'm still functioning, just slightly uncomfortable.

By the way, you hear the craziest things when you are waiting in the ER.  Like the guy across the hall from us who was being treated, and apparently he was going right to jail as soon as he got released from the ER.  He sounded drunk or on drugs or something.  Or the lady across the hall from us who was complaining that the ER doctor wouldn't prescribe more narcotics for her.  And so on.  You had to be there, but it was a wild night.

Well, so much for the excitement!  What else happened this week?  Friday night Frank and I went on a date.  We took another couple to dinner with us.  They watched Snickers for us for our spring break trip, so this was our way of "paying" them for that.  It was fun and afterwards we did some shopping--got some badly needed dress pants for Frank (he's been down to one pair for quite some time) and some sandals for him and some boots (on sale, since it's off season) for me.

On Saturday, among other chores and errands, I took Jared to the store to get some things for his Eagle project.  We did some tests that day and earlier this week and I think we have figured out the best way to apply the pictures and letters to the wood signs.  We also ordered some vinyl letters from a place online because we need 8 very large letters...bigger than we can find anywhere in stores.  So now we know how to proceed with his project; we just have to find time to do it!!

Mother's Day was really nice.  I didn't have any meetings so I got to sleep in for once!  Frank and the boys made breakfast for me (I preferred to get out of bed to eat it) and gave me some cards, some chocolate covered strawberries, and some chocolates.  The talks in Sacrament Meeting were really excellent and focused more on the contributions all women make to righteousness (not just mothers).  For RS, they had arranged to have YW and men take over Primary so all the women in the ward, including the Primary and YW workers, could attend RS.  We had a really great lesson and it felt really nice to me to have everyone there together...just a sweet spirit!  After church I didn't have to help with dinner at all, just relaxed, and I got to talk to Mom and Scott called me too.  So it was a great day for a lot of reasons!

Monday morning I helped with a service project we had...we've decided to have a 'Mom's free time" every once in a while so that the moms with young children in the ward can drop them off at the church to be cared for for a few hours while the moms get errands done, or take a nap, or work on a project, or read scriptures, or whatever they want to do.  This was our first time doing this, and the moms who came really seemed to appreciate it.  One of my counselors and my secretary and I did the babysitting this time, but we will have other women help in the future.

Tanner worked on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings, so he had a pretty decent work week.  On Thursday I had to ask the family that carpools with us for Seminary if they could drive both ways because Tanner had to be at work at 7:00 am and that is the same time I need to pick up the Seminary kids.  Since we only have one car (and Frank is in no shape to drive anyway) I couldn't be two places at once!  Thursday was crazy anyway.  Remember I'd been up late with Frank at the ER, and then I had to be up early to get Tanner to work.  I got back home in time to shower, drop off Frank's prescriptions at the pharmacy, and get Seth to school.  I went straight from there to pick up Jared and take him to the orthodontist, where he got his bottom braces off so now he is braces free!  I'll have to get a picture of him soon.  I forgot to do it then and he is gone to a dance right now.   After I dropped Jared off back at school, I picked up Frank's prescriptions, dropped them off at home, and then went to pick up Tanner from work.  I still needed to get some groceries and put gas in the car so we did that on the way back home.  At that point I finally went home and took a short nap!  Then I ate lunch (at 2:30 in the afternoon) made some phone calls and answered emails, and then we all went to the towing place to get all the stuff out of Frank's car.  Then I picked Seth up from school (he had piano after school), made dinner, and barely had time to make it to a seminar I signed up for a few months ago.

The seminar was on strategies for helping a child with ADHD, and it was very interesting and there was a lot of good information.  I thought it was interesting that the guy doing the seminar said that in his opinion, a child with ADHD should be put on medication most of the time.  The analogy he used was if your child is nearsighted, you can do things to help him like having him sit in the front of the classroom to help him see the board.  But the things that is really going to help him the most is to get him glasses because that corrects the problem instead of just helping him cope with the problem.  ADHD meds boost the chemicals in the brain that are too low in kids with ADHD, so that is like correcting the problem instead of just trying to find ways to cope with it.  I can see what he's saying...and certainly putting Tanner on medication helped him a lot.  So we'll probably go that route with Seth eventually, and probably earlier than we did with Tanner.  But in the meantime, I'd like to try some of the other strategies that he suggested and see if they help.  The other interesting part of the seminar is that I discovered that there are a lot of behaviors that go along with ADHD besides just being unfocused, and I recognized Seth in a lot of the descriptions of those behaviors.  (Tanner in a number of them as well.)  Turns out most of his behaviors that drive me a little crazy are ADHD related!  Somehow, that helps me to be a little more patient with him.  He's not being difficult on purpose!

On Wednesday Tanner got word from our bishop that his mission assignment was made last Friday so his call should be arriving any day now.  Tanner has been checking the mail every day!  It didn't come today, but maybe it will be here tomorrow.  I hope so!  Tanner has been keeping fairly busy between work and going to appointments with the missionaries, as well as single adult activities like FHE and Institute.  (He's with the missionaries right now.)  He also did some service at the local United Way for several hours on Wednesday.

Speaking of missionaries, we had the other set who are serving in our ward over on Monday for dinner.  It was kind of last minute...I realized we had plenty of food and I was pretty sure no one had signed up to feed them, so I texted them and sure enough, they didn't have a dinner appointment.  We ended up inviting them to stay for family night, and we played a pretty exciting game of speed Uno.  It was fun!

Something kind of momentous happened on Tuesday.  One of my visiting teachers came to my house and visited me!  She gave a lesson and everything!  Why is this momentous?  Because I haven't had a visiting teacher come to see me in about 2 years.  (We haven't seen home teachers in the last two years plus either.)  I've had several sets of visiting teachers in the last couple of years and most of them haven't even contacted me, let alone visited me.  I changed my visiting teachers again a couple of months ago and these ones have been good about calling me and now one of them visited.  So I think I will enjoy them while it lasts!

Today we picked up Jared and Seth from their schools and we all went to turn in our passport applications.  (Tanner already has his.)  So hopefully in about 4 weeks, we'll all have passports.  We don't know if Alaska is going to happen this summer, but if it does, we are going to need to go through Canada to get there.  So now we're prepared for that.  Plus, if we get a sudden urge to go on a Caribbean cruise, we're all set! ;)

With all the stuff related to Frank's accident, a number of the household chores have not happened this week but that's okay...the house will still be dirty when I find the time to clean it! We've managed to eat every day and I did get the laundry done so we have clean clothes to wear.  I've also managed to exercise a bit, made some trips to the library, convinced Seth to practice the piano, and finished planning Seth's party.  I got the invitations sent out (thankfully before the wreck happened) and today I finally managed to order the supplies that I can't purchase in the stores, so that they'll get here in time for the party.  Turns out one of his best friends from school is having his party the same day and they were going to overlap a bit but when I talked to his friend's mom she said her son really wants Seth at his party so she moved the party time back a bit and I moved Seth's party time to a little earlier so that they don't overlap anymore and both boys can attend the other boy's party.  They are going to be partied out before the day is over though!  I have not received a whole lot of RSVPs yet, but all the ones we've received so far have been "yes".

Well, our realtor friend just called me.  He just saw the couple who looked at our house a few weeks ago and he asked them how they feel about our house and they are still very interested and gave him a dollar figure that they would be willing to pay for it  So that deal still may go through.  Part of me is excited about the idea and part of me is terrified!  It would certainly save us a lot of trouble to sell it this way (without having to put it on the market, even...who does that?!) although I know it will still be a whole lot of work.  And how are we really going to find time to find a new house and pack up and move?  Who knows!  But another big plus is that this couple doesn't really want to move until October or November.  So that gives us some time.

That is certainly enough excitement for one week!