I'm still alive (barely)

Just popping in to let my whopping 8 followers you all know that I'm still alive!  Granted, I'm barely still alive, but alive nonetheless.  Where do I start?  I thought I knew what busy was, but the word busy has a whole new meaning after the last....I don't know, weeks? Month?  It's seemed like an eternity.  I finally understand the verse about 1,000 years being like a day and a day being like 1,000 years in heaven.  These days, an hour seems like a day and a day seems like an hour.  But somehow, it doesn't feel like heaven.  ANYWAYS.  I'm just rambling and probably not making any sense!  But trust me, if nothing intelligent is coming out of my mouth fingertips, I have good reason.  I'm currently slouching sitting on the couch wishing I had a cup of coffee, but I'm too tired to get up and make one.  This is what you call a crisis, folks.  Last night, I was blessed with 90 minutes (it sounds better than an hour and a half) of sleep, which seemed like 90 seconds.  The night before, I set a sleep record for the month: 6 hours.  The night before that, I didn't sleep at all.  I made coffee every two hours instead.  You should try it!  It's amazing how much you can accomplish when you don't sleep.  Or anyways, I'm sure you could accomplish a lot...I don't know if I actually did or not.  I did take a three hour nap that day, but you get the point.  The rest of the nights lately haven't been much better.  Death by sleep deprivation is in the back of my mind.  Oh, and in case you're wondering why I've been up, it's 'cause we had a litter of puppies and mama had some problems with mastitis (she's getting better now, thank God!) so we were bottling puppies, as well as intensely treating mama every 20 minutes.  So yes, I've had my fill of nursing puppies lately, round the clock!  #neveradullmoment

the puppies

This is what mom and I do in between taking care of puppies.  Call the Midwife is THE BEST.  EVER.  

Since I'm sitting here and won't be getting up for a while, I'll tell you about some of my adventures lately.  I have had several driving/car-related experiences lately that should encourage you all to stay off the roads if you live within 100 miles of me.  Many of you know I'm scared to death of cops.  I got pulled over last summer, and even though I just got a warning, it severely traumatized me.  Now I have a mild panic attack whenever I see a cop, even though I am SO good, there's no reason to get pulled over.  I never text and drive, I never exceed the speed limit by more than 5 mph, I always put on my blinker, and I desperately try to stay within the lines.  Well, I was making a last minute shopping trip before Mom's birthday the other day, when I had another traumatizing experience.  I was about 10 minutes away from my destination mall, cruise control on at 57, when I spotted the cop.  He was sitting on the opposite side waiting to catch unsuspecting people like me.  I freaked, even though I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong.  As I slowed down to the upcoming 35 zone, I watched my rear view mirrors.  There was two other cars right behind me, and sure enough, Mr. Police Officer whipped out behind us.  I was dying.  My knees started knocking together and I was shaking so bad I almost just pulled over to save him the bother of putting his lights on.  He put them on, though, and the truck in front of him pulled over.  I waited for him to go around and come pull me over, but thank goodness he didn't.  He pulled up behind the truck.  Whew.  I hadn't done anything, but  I was shaking so bad I was becoming a safety hazard.  I pulled over into a friendly looking church parking lot and texted a friend, who tried to comfort me.  I sat there shaking for about 15 minutes.  Then I calmed down.  Until it struck me that there were some other cars in the parking lot.  People were probably calling the cops, reporting a suspicious person in the parking lot.  However, my friend reassured me that no, they probably could see I was a wreck and were calling an ambulance to haul me off to a mental institution.  So comforting.  I pulled out and started driving, trying to remember where I was going in the first place - it took a minute, but I did remember, and had an uneventful trip after that, except for almost going through a red light because I was still so rattled.  '_'

Mom's birthday was so fun!  I made her breakfast in bed, and then we left to go shopping in St. Cloud, about a 45 minute drive.  We had a great shopping trip at the mall and both found what we were looking for.  Then we waltzed back out to my car to go get coffee.  I unlocked my door, got in, and pushed the unlock button for mom.  Nothing happened.  I thought that was strange, and reached over to unlock her door manually.  As I was doing that, it dawned on me.  I gasped and looked at my lights.  They were on.  Mom got in and I began moaning "I'm so sorry!  I'm so sorry!"  She knew what I had done because this isn't the first time.... hardly.  I have this thing with leaving my lights on.   So....I prayed for a miracle and turned the key.  The alarm started going off.  Lovely!  It screeched for about 10 minutes, making three or four different sounds that I'd never heard before, then it finally shut off.  I asked mom for my sunglasses.  This wasn't the time to be recognized.  A guy and his wife walked up to their vehicle a couple cars down. Mom opened her door, poked her head out, and got about one syllable out before she ducked back inside and slammed the door.  "He's swearing at his wife...let's find someone else!"  We held hands and she prayed for someone to come along to help us.  We opened our eyes and saw a guy standing down at the end of our row of cars.  "There's a GUY!"  my mom screeched.   We knew we had to find a guy, because any girl as helpless as us weren't going to help the situation.  Then mom looked again.... "and he has JUMPER CABLES!"  Sure enough, he had just fallen out of the sky and was standing down there with jumper cables.  We stepped out of our car, and politely walked down to where he was.  Just kidding.  We jumped up, slammed the doors, and went running down the parking lot to snag him before he vanished.  We ran up to the two cars.  There was a friendly black dude and his girlfriend.  Mom put on her most winning smile and said "do you think you could jump us when you're done?"  The black dude motioned to a very stern looking guy who owned the other car "Oh, I left my girlfriend's lights on and he's jumping us."  "Do you think he would do us too?" my mom asked.  "I dunno," said the black dude, "I don't even know him, I just axed him and seems like a really nice guy."  {Please read that with an accent!}  Mom and I kind of exchanged glances.  We stood there for a few more minutes watching.  Mr. Good Samaritan never spoke a word and looked, umm, rather unfriendly.  We decided to try our luck elsewhere.  We asked another guy and his wife, and he pulled up across the median.  However, the jumper cables didn't reach across.  Strike three.  So we did what all wise people should do in a time of crisis: we walked over to Caribou.  I ordered a turtle mocha and decide that getting stranded by a Caribou was about the best problem that could befall me.  

We sat by the door and watched for any eligible male to come in.  I felt like a creepy stalker type person.  We gave up trying to find someone there and walked back to the car.  Then, Mom had an idea - we called mall security and this wonderful guy came and jumped us.  We got a little behind schedule, but, you know, a little adventure is always fun!

The boys and I headed to church, making our most serious, ridiculous quaker faces.

Incident #3, where Emily is an air head.  Again.

So then, last Saturday, I was heading to the cities to get together with friends.  I left early so I'd have time to get gas, and everything was going just according to plan - one of those days where I just had it all together!  Haha.  You know, before everything fell apart.  I pulled into the gas station, filled up my little beast, went inside and paid, and waltzed back out to continue my nice little trip.  I got in, turned the key, and my vehicle silently informed me that I had left the lights on, and the darn thing went dead in about 5 minutes.  I felt so. retarded.  How many times can I do this?  I went inside and told the gas station people what was wrong.  One of the workers came out and pulled his car up to jump me.  I managed to pop my hood and prop it open like an old pro - which really is impressive considering it took me about 15 minutes to figure it out at the mall incident, while my mom sat in the car and laughed at me.  But this time I got it, and just prayed that no one I knew would need gas.  The gas station guy was sooooo super nice and really tried his best, but....well, as he said, it had been a while since he had done it and we couldn't get it started.  So I told him I'd call my parents, he said I could come in for a free cup of coffee, and I resisted the urge to hug him.  My wonderful Dad came and jumped me, and then I transferred all my stuff to our Excursion, since Dad didn't think it would be a good idea to take the Pathfinder, it would probably go dead again.  So I was on my way, and my estimated arrival time was only 15 minutes late!  I cranked up the radio, slurped my coffee, and headed to the cities.  Time passed, and it got dark outside.  I began to realize that it had been a long time since I've driven the Excursion, and it was a whole lot bigger than I remembered.  I was starting to feel a little panicky....this is the first time I had driven in the cities by myself, and being in a huge, unfamiliar vehicle....well, it didn't make me feel any better.  I made it onto the freeway, and I think I stayed somewhere inside the lines of my lane.  My exit was approaching.  I moved over.  My exit came, and I kept going.  I looked down at my GPS and realized I'd missed the exit, and then I panicked.  Now my GPS was trying to re rout me, and it involved merging and more freeways, and I missed my exit again.  I finally just ignored my GPS, took the next exit, found a gas station, parked in front of the "customers only" sign, prayed I wouldn't get in trouble, and called my friends who I was going to meet.  I called Jem, no answer.  I called Joseph, no answer.  I called Andrew, no answer.  And I realized I was going to have to get out of this mess myself.  I was completely lost and had almost committed suicide by turning on a one way street, the wrong way.  I just hoped the other cars hadn't seen my blinker.  So I pep talked myself, told myself I had confidence in myself, and begged God for angels around my vehicle.  After about 15 more minutes of grueling driving and merging and craziness and praying so hard and being sure I was going to die and writing my obituary in my head (I really recommend that for stressful situations), I made it to Jem's house.  I felt like a retarded wreck, but I was there, and I was alive, and I was only really late.  I actually managed to drive home later that night in almost-blinding snow, and made it back in one piece, thank the Lord.  The good news is, we had such a blast that it was worth almost going loony!  We went to Skyzone, and it. was. awesome.  Even though I am so. not. skilled. in the area of trampolines and pretty much embarrassed myself. :P

Tim, Joseph, Jem, me, and Isabella

Now is the part where I think of some nice sentence to end this post with.  Only, remember, I got 90 minutes of sleep last night, and currently my brain is mush.  But I hope you enjoyed this post, because really, writing about all the stupid things I do is pointless.  Memories, though, memories!