Adventures in Thought-Provoking Disasters!

Brynn, in her boots, making a face in front of the wreckage! 

      Before I even tell ANYTHING about our journey over the last week, I would like to say a few things. I have struggled with my own attitude about this business for years and years. Since it's my baby, and I put the good old classic "Blood, Sweat & Tears" into it, I tend to take things personally, say thoughtless, foolhardy exclamations, and view my customers as people that I serve and need to make happy, but nothing beyond that. I really suck at making friends, and I think it may spring from the misconception that I have of what a "friend" even is. I fail to remember that we have friends to TEACH US TO SERVE OTHERS, not  to see how we can benefit from other people and what they can do for us! True friendship is the exact opposite of selfishness.  It is kind, loving, forgiving, caring, and doesn't stop to think about "inconveniences" or " so much time" in the process of serving.
        In this vein, I apparently have a HECK of a lot more friends than I ever thought I did. Not the "accept request" kind on facebook, but the actual "We-are-thinking-about-your-needs-instead-of-our-own" type. I spent the whole weekend at the Norman Medieval Faire accepting kind thoughtful gifts and treats, in between bouts of running to the porta-potties to throw up (DANG morning sickness will get to you...especially when you're trying to look pretty, be presentable, and serve customers!), but more than that, I had hoards of people coming in JUST to ask about me and how I was doing with my company and my family. People were sweet, kind, sympathetic, and supportive.  I can promise you guys, if you came past the booth when I wasn't there, it was probably because I was bawling my eyes out, overwhelmed and humbled by the love I was receiving. Now, granted, the last time I was pregnant, I absolutely wept through the entire 2 hours of Mary Poppins, so I AM emotional, but that doesn't negate how treasured I felt as a human being.

      And guess what! This was all BEFORE we got in a life-threatening/altering accident! The love that I have felt literally seeping into my physical and emotional wounds has been healing better than any medicine. We have had such an out-pouring of genuine concern and charity that my whole chest is absolutely on fire just THINKING about it. I can honestly say that THIS is the pinnacle of my career! It helps show my soul to me, and let me know that I DO have a noble, higher purpose for being here in this life, and particularly, in running this company. When I declare that my ultimate dream is to help women learn to  love and appreciate their bodies, it sounds so pre-packaged and gimmicky. I might as well be a lotion commercial.  The thing is-I believe in what I'm doing from down at my very core. I KNOW that our whole entire world could change if women were able stop focusing on their failures and flaws and start marveling at the wonderous gift that our physical forms are in this life. I feel that learning to have charity and love for ourselves is the start to loving others.  Yet, in showing love for others, we see the good and beauty in ourselves....thus the marvelous cycle continues.
        What I feel that I've learned this week......how do I even say it? I am aware that I have awesome, loyal customers and fans, none of which I feel that I deserve. I wasn't aware that my little/big dream to help change women was ALREADY working. The reason I can TELL that it's succeeding is that the way I've been treated could only come from women who have that love and passion within them! You ladies don't sound like selfish-small-minded women who focus on your flaws. You're vibrant and glorious....just exactly the way I've seen you the whole time!

I REALLY enjoy the box of anti-biotic ointment band-aids in the front dash..proudly displayed....defying everything. 

 Ahem. Day 1. Monday, April 8th
I will just start with the day that we left. We headed out of Joplin, MO, near where my parents live. We stopped at Wal-Mart and spent an absolute shameful amount on snacks of every manner. This is  not normally like me. I must have KNOWN something would occur.  
That night, Brynn got the same stomach bug that I had had the previous night. It hurt SOOOO much. Churning, bubbling, stabbing pains, with throwing up and extreme sensitivity. Brynn said, "Mom....it feels like someone is hitting me in the stomach with a baseball bat."  She was right.  I climbed into the back to lay down with her. She was so sick that she couldn't even stand the pressure of her dress, so off it went. She just lay there in her undies, while I stroked her head.

I think this almost makes me more sad than our dang car! I mean, I LOVE our trailer! The fact that it carries around our livelihood makes me feel like it's one of my employees. It works freaking hard, too! 

 Day 2.  Tuesday, April 9th, EARLY morning, about 2 AM.
  I woke up to hear my husband, Tyler saying that there was so much ice on the windshield that the defrost couldn't even battle it, with the highest heat setting. Strange. I hadn't thought the roads were bad at all just an hour before. Everything seemed fine.  I laid there for about a half an hour, feeling very....I can't even DESCRIBE how. I just know that I didn't feel right. I called up to Tyler and told him to let me take over, since he was probably tired, then I laid my head back down by my kids.  A few moments later, Tyler yelled, "Son-of-a!  Brace Yourselves!" Suddenly, I could see the trailer weaving wildly out the back window, and suddenly, everthing in the world happened! I felt myself being violently chucked around the back, with an unearthly sound, akin to screeching dolphins, breaking, plates, and popping balloons.  Suddenly, I was laying on the roof of our car, and everything was upside down. I felt the wind immediately. The window beside me had broken out (or I had kicked it out...one of the two.).  I later found out that the wind gusts that night were 50 mph, with a temperature of 12 degrees and a windchill of -4 degrees. No wonder it was SOOOO freaking cold.

stuffed, animals, jumper cables, and a mattress covered in my blood and the back window. 

 I was VERY disoriented, and my whole entire body FELT the weight of disappointment, panic, anxiety, sadness, and bone-chilling fear. I could hear my kids crying, and as I climbed out, I didn't know what to do first.  I ran up to the front and frantically called to Tyler. He didn't answer, and of course, my mind ran a million miles per minute,  imagining him dead on the highway. My soul cracked.  He called to me. He was fine. Oh, how I LOVE that man! I called to my friends, Carly and Paige, and the answered.  Thank the Lord. My kids were still crying. I remembered that Brynn was only in underwear, and I reached in and wrapped and blanket around her, trying to steer clear of all the glass. I noticed that my leg was covered in little rivers of blood, but I didn't even feel anything. Thank you, adrenaline.

Over to the side, you can see Carly's guitar. It got some STRANGE puncture wounds. We were all deeply distressed. What is life without music!? 

 Right then, a few men came running up. They frantically asked questions, about how many people there were, if anyone was hurt, and so on. One of them yanked off his jacket and put it around me, and then he pulled both of my kids from the ground, wrapped them tightly in blankets, and held onto them, one in each arm, while he waited for his friend to back up the truck that they had been driving. These wonderful, beautiful, angels of human beings pulled us into the warmth of their truck, and let us know that they were all volunteer firefighers and EMTS! You can only imagine the relief I felt. The immediately started checking us for injuries, gently feeling up and down our necks and spines. They talked gently to us the whole time.  I realized that I was still wearing the jacket of one of the men out in the freezing, blasting cold, and I was able to give it back to him so that he, my husband, and a couple other men could go to the trailer and try to get some of our luggage into the back of their truck.

So....this is my trailer, looking into a fun-house mirror. 

 It seemed like the ambulances took a million years to get there, but heck, the roads were absolutely wretched, and that black ice happened soooo very quickly.  We had also had the problem of having a much lighter trailer than normal, seeing as we left most of our inventory back in Missouri, since we were headed back in 3 weeks to do the Oklahoma Renaissance Festival. I think our trailer just ended up acting like a sail for those high winds, and that's why it fish-tailed out of control.

Inside of trailer. Metal crumples beautifully. 

 Anyhow, we got to a very small little hospital in Hugo, Colorado, and were taken care of beautifully! We had a doctor that looked exactly like the kind of handsome doctor you would see on TV, and I was so deliriously happy to be ALIVE that I just kept cracking jokes, laughing, and grinning like an idiot, even while they dressed my wounds, which I DEFINITELY felt after the adrenaline started wearing off. They would have been able to just x-ray us, give us the okay, and release us, but the dang winds had knocked out their computer systems. After being there about 5 hours, we had to be transferred to the Denver hospital, which would be another 2.5 hour ride in an ambulance, again. Luckily, it was only me and Paige that had anything worse than bruises, so it was just us that got to make the arduous trip to a place with x-rays.

My PROUDEST wounds I have ever gotten! I mean, the fact that these purple bruises are the size and shape of my kid's heads? Priceless. I truly think that one of the reasons that my kids came out with so few injuries is because I grabbed both of them and held them against me while the car rolled, thus they were more stationary, and my body shielded them and took the brunt of the roll. 

 Probably my FAVORITE part of the whole entire ordeal was meeting the guy that was the EMT riding over with us on the second ambulance. I have never met anyone like  him, and if every single person in the medical world had the same attitude as Mark Morrison, the world would just be okay.  He was so caring, good-natured, giving, and kind.  He was probably in his late 50's, and had the face of someone who has been smiling and loving his fellow human-beings for his whole entire life.  He talked to me the whole entire ambulance ride, and told me what a privelage it was for him to have a job where he could help someone through the worst day of their entire life. He talked about how you have to truly love people to be in the medical world, because it's all about customer service.  I could tell he deeply loved  his job, and drew great satisfaction from it.  He had been a volunteer for 15 years before he ever actually got paid!!!!  I was so inspired by him that I felt like I could do anything and love anybody!

This reminds me of the kind of horror you see after a tornado. Metal just being sheared off like someone took gigantic scissors to it! 

 Phew! And thank heavens, we got checked out, nothing broken...I got a nice little ultrasound picture of my baby. Thank heavens there's only one in there.   We got picked up by my husband's brother (thank you soooo much, Nate) and got to go to their house in Denver, where my kids got to play with their triplet girls! ;)
Day 3: Wednesday, April 10th.  After some serious thought, I decided that we may as well just get a new diesel SUV right there in Colorado, rather than trying to do rentals and having to drive a rental car AND a U-haul truck home. None of us girls felt like driving, and my leg was so swollen, I'm not sure I could have physically done it. I couldn't walk worth jack either, with all the muscle tissue damage and cuts I had gotten.  Anyhow, after looking at several, we finally found one with the right price and mileage. We spent the rest of the day filling out paperwork and spending every  last penny that we had just made at our Norman show. At least we had the money. *sigh*.   P.S. We DO have full coverage on THIS vehicle, because not having it on the last one was the worst idea ever. Insurance companies don't give a dang if you wreck of your own accord and you have limited liability.
Day 4: Had to drive two hours BACK into the town where we wrecked, and go to the tow-yard to clean everything out. It was gross and messy and emotional. It's one of those "behind-the-scenes" things that you don't think about. It took us HOURS to transfer things, assess damage, and marvel at what had and hadn't broken!

Just when we thought we were safe out of horrible weather...this! Thanks, Colorado. It was beautiful, and terrifying. 

 That night, we were so exhausted, but we just wanted to go home!!!!  The GPS said that we could get home at 5 am on Friday, and it sounded just so beautiful!  Originally, we had hoped to get home Tuesday, so  Friday sounded acceptable.  However, as we climbed the steep mountains in Colorado, the snow started coming down, it was dark outside, and we saw people swerving off the road left and right. We slid around a little ourselves, and needless to say....we were a bit.....tense.  We found a hotel. We would drive home in the daylight.

HOly JUNK!! My leg looks so swollen and gross here! I PROMISE, my calf isn't normally that massive! 

Day 5, Friday, April, 12th. Yup, the whole morning, we drove very slowly on icy roads, and they actually closed the pass just an hour or so after we came down, because of a horrible accident.   When we crossed the Utah state line, I had never seen anything so vividly breathtaking in my life! I kept making jokes about how we weren't meant to ever leave Colorado, and how it would be like the bridge on the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and right as we were crossing the state lines, and headless horseman would come out of nowhere, throw a pumpkin at our car, and we would all die.  However, we made it just fine, with not much to speak about.....just the way I like it.

I have a LOT to do to try to prepare for our 5 weekend show starting in May. I'm going to have to sew the most incredible things anyone has ever seen and have the best show run of my entire life! The thing is, I'm SUPER energized, like I've never been! I feel like I can do anything, be anything, and sew anything! In many ways, this has been one of the best blessings of my whole life. I honestly needed some kind of re-charge, and man....did I get it! I know that I love this business fiercely, and I love my customers even more. Being able to see how much people care has really motivated me to be a better servant through my company. This life is precious, and I yearn to fill  it with moments and actions that I can be proud of. I have been preserved because there is a great path ahead of me, and I need to walk it.