Why I was thankful this thanksgiving...

Many of you may have heard that I was in a car accident over the Thanksgiving holidays. Despite an amazingly destroyed car, all of us (me & my parents) limped away in pretty good shape. Here's how it went down:
After hitting a wet spot on the road and our car's front passenger tire edging off the road, we spun back across the road, where we slammed into a tree (fortunately, we nailed the tree on my side. I say 'fortunately' because I think my bones took the shot better than theirs would have). The tree sent us spinning in the opposite direction, where the thick off-road mud caused us to stop. From here, we all acknowledged that we were ok. Dad was able to open his door and get out, but I had to crawl out through the window and then pull my mom out the same way. After being taken to the hospital and examined, here's how our injuries broke down:

Dad: 4 stitches in the right hand, black eye, bruised forehead, pulled back muscle, and minor cuts

Mom: Microscopic internal bleeding, bruised legs, minor cuts

Me: Sprained right shoulder, sprained right foot, sprained left knee, minor cuts

Yes, we're all still very sore, but doing MIRACULOUSLY well considering the damage to the car. These pictures of our car are from this morning at the wrecking yard. I highly endorse side curtain airbags, because they definitely saved me from head trauma!

That morning, my mom had read Psalm 3:3, which says "But you are a shield around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head." I say this sensitively, because even if we had been seriously injured, His goodness would be just as true. Life is a blessing, and I hope all reading this thanks the Lord for the breath you have and are reminded to make the most of every opportunity.

Hydrocodone is also a heavenly gift (when used according to the directions in which they were prescribed).

Dallas Weekend

Well Joel and I met up with Mike in Dallas this weekend to plan a men's retreat for Joel's church. It turns out the retreat won't happen until the first weekend in April, so we've got much longer to prepare for it than we'd planned. Mike and I are getting to (for lack of a better word) lead it, which is an opportunity we've been praying about for over a year. Needless to say, we're excited. Our goal for this past weekend was to sketch a model-or a big picture for how the weekend would go. And fortunately, we got a lot done and have a lot to work through over the next few months.

Joel and I also got to see Mike's daughter for the first time...


We weren't too sure about each other at first...


Then we settled our differences and were at peace, so I took a short nap...


And that's when she farted

Thanks For Voting

OK...

You've convinced me. I'll be mailing the UPC code in this week. Who knew holding an online vote would increase the traffic to my site so much? Anyway, thanks for humoring me by paying attention to such a silly question.

Total Recall

...was told yesterday about the recall that Totino's has put out on their pepperoni pizzas. The ironic thing is I haven't bought any of these since college (though I did steal a couple of Jason's when we lived together). Why I chose last week to break that streak, I'll never know. With the recall, Totino's is refunding everybody the price of their pizza. Since I only bought one pepperoni, I'll get a whopping one dollar plus my shipping fee if I mail in the UPC code. So my question is this: is the one dollar worth the trouble to mail it in? I think they'll give me a coupon for so many dollars worth of food too, so that's enticing.

To help with the decision, I'm leaving it up to you, my reading public. Vote "yes" if you think I should mail in the UPC code, "no" if you think its not worth it. I'm counting on you, so don't let me down.