It's Not All Sunshine and Happiness

It's been a little while since the last post, and I hate to be a downer, but to give you the true story of our adventure a little dose of reality isn't such a bad thing. So after all the great things we've been saying, and with how well our transition to the Midwest has been, we were bound to hit a speed bump eventually. Over the past week or so, that's exactly what has happened. Nothing serious, nothing that makes us want to run back home, but just enough to be annoying.

It all started with everyone's favorite fungus, ringworm. Somehow I developed two very attractive spots of ringworm on my low back. Again, it's nothing compared to tearing your ACL 2 months before your wedding like someone I know, but it's still just enough to get you irritated. But thanks to CVS and their overpriced antifugal cream it's all under control...I hope.

The next unfortunate occurrence was a little more of an issue. Last week I was involved in a car accident. Fortunately no one was hurt, but unfortunately bad drivers live in Olney. Long story short, I am coming up to a traffic light where a woman is in the middle of two lanes with no turn signal on. I pull up on her right as I prepare to make a right turn. The light turns green and she decides to turn right at the same time I do. Since two cars can't fit into one lane, her passenger side crashed into my driver side. Her only defense was that she claimed she never saw me. In case you haven't noticed, I drive a large SUV with a boat sized cargo box on top...HOW DO YOU NOT SEE THAT?!?!? Well apparently in Olney, IL that's a good enough defense for the police because the officer refused to assign fault at the scene and now we are forced to pay the deductible for the repairs. Incredibly lame. Our insurance company says the accident is "pending investigation" so hopefully we'll get our money back, but I'm not holding my breath.

Be careful, Olney drivers don't look when turning

Good as new, thank you Wood's Autobody

All things considered it could have been much worse, but it has been a huge inconvenience. Besides the monetary costs, I was on the phone non-stop for 2 days trying to get everything sorted out. We had to drive about an hour in our busted up car (into another time zone mind you) to get a rental vehicle. The only good thing about the rental car is that in it I've driven to and from the Indianapolis airport and Chicago (which was a great time, thanks Pat), as well as doing home visits for work. In a week I've put over 1200 miles on it, and we are taking it to St. Louis this weekend. So at least those are miles that aren't going on our car. However, I've been sweating bullets every time it storms because we'll have to pay for hail damage to the rental if it occurs. Of course, last weekend it was storming like crazy.

Here comes a storm, run for cover!

Heavy rain, high winds, and the aforementioned hail do occur here during particularly bad storms. With the land being so flat and open, you can see the storms coming from miles away, the lightning and thunder carry unlike anything I've ever experienced before, and the intensity of East Coast storms pales in comparison to these. I love watching a good storm, but the ones here can be intimidating. I can't begin to imagine what it is like in Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, etc.

The final insult to this week was the Richland Memorial Hospital Volleyball Tournament. Now a normal person would see this type of tournament as a chance to have fun with co-workers. Unfortunately I'm not normal, clearly. No matter how hard I try, my competitive side always wins out. We made it to the semi-finals on Wednesday night where we lost to a team with questionable tactics. They didn't rotate players, the one doctor on their team yelled and talked trash the ENTIRE game (he would put Katie Matonis' trash talking antics to shame), and they used players who weren't even hospital employees. Ridiculous. Well, we lost, the Flyers also lost their last playoff game that night too, so I was angry. Obviously I'm still not over it yet, as evidenced by my need to blog about it.

So there you go. Nothing life altering, but all those instances back-to-back combined for a pretty annoying week. I'm confident things will turn around as we have an awesome weekend planned in St. Louis. We'll be celebrating our 1 year wedding anniversary (how did that happen?) and have lots of good stuff planned.

To close this long post, I just want to wish a happy Mother's Day to all moms who read this blog, especially Mom O'Malley and Mom Funk. We wish we could be there with you, we miss you, but we send our love from the Midwest. Thank you for all that you do for us and always supporting us.