Let's see... after Christmas in Blackwell, OK... I headed to Bobbie's house in Tulsa for the night (Sunday) as I was going to get the car serviced on Monday. Did that cost a bomb! eeeks!
I drove back after that and reached home at about 3:30 pm... can't remember what all else I did that day but I remember doing the laundry and cleaning the house.
Spottie was a good dog at the dealership and on the way home. She wasn't very nice to Fred at Bobbie's house.... hmph!
So that was pretty much my Monday....
Tuesday, I had to go get the hog we bought... I drove up to Missouri, about 1+ hour away and on the way home, after collecting the hog, I decided to stop and shop at the Wal-Mart in Ava... I have NO IDEA how the bill ended up being so huge, but it did... sigh... and I didn't even buy THAT much stuff!!
I came home at about 2-ish, unpacked everything and chilled for the rest of the day as I was going back to work on Wed...
Work was good... Friday, being New Year's Day, we still opened, but were opened only from 10 to 4. I was to work with Chelsey, the new girl, and Jay would stay up in West Plains.
I opened the store early, cos I knew there would be people who would come in early... and true enough, as soon as I opened at 9:40, there was someone already waiting in the parking lot.
Chelsey came in at about 9:55... she clocked in and walked up to the front of the store where I was working on someone's purchases. I turned and saw her and told her that there was work at the side counter that needed to be done... er... hello! use your eyes and brains! sigh....
I went to the back to put something away and when I came out, I saw her doubled over on the work table! I asked her if she was okay and she said not really. I told her then it would be best for her to go home to rest. It would do me no good to have someone who is ill working in the store. I thought to myself, I surely dun want her to collapse and then the owners would be liable for her...
After about a minute of hankering, I finally got her to leave. She was there for all of about 5 mins... After I had convinced her to go home, she suddenly blurted out "I think I'm pregnant"... good grief! Does this mean I have to go back to working 5 days a week. Its not bad actually... cos January to March are slow months... and I could use the extra $$.... we'll see... if she is really pregnant, she wouldn't be able to work the first trimester... I hope she doesn't abort the baby though... :o(
So, I worked alone on New Year's... not too bad... it was actually quite nice working alone.
I closed the store at about 5... went to deposit the money at the bank and came home...
Relaxed the rest of the night and Saturday... talked to my friends online... had lunch with Jeff, went to Wal-Mart to get some basic necessities - milk, eggs, etc... came home, unpacked, watched a movie with Jeff and then slept... all ready for church....
Woke up this morning, took a bath and got online and I see Bill's message that church has been cancelled. By then, my email had downloaded and I saw Pat's message saying church has been cancelled....
Okay... so, I've driven long distances by myself... but this one was different...
I was to leave after work to head to Blackwell, OK on Thursday evening. Jay kindly let me off a little earlier to get a head start. While I was heading home to get Spottie and other things together, Jeff called and told me that I could not drive down that night as most of the roads were closed in Tulsa and Blackwell. This was due to the bad snow storm they had...
So, I stayed home... and perhaps it was a good thing I could not drive down as I was tired... I actually took a 2 hour nap! Erm... would that be a nap? In any case, after that, I could not sleep and I ended up going to bed at about 2 am...
I got up close to 8 am on Christmas day... I looked out of the window and we, in Gassville did not even have 1/20th of what they had in Tulsa.... I bathed and changed and got my tea and got ready to leave.
I left the house at about 9 am and called Jeff and told him I was on the way.
The drive from Gassville to Springdale was not too bad considering we hardly had snow. The only thing I encountered was irritating drivers. I had one that wanted to race with me... sigh... I overtook them, they got upset and overtook me, they then slowed down and I overtook them and yes... it started all over again...
The roads in Springdale were horrible. At many times, we had to drove at 25 to 30 mph, compared to the normal 30 to 40 mph.
The roads from Springdale all the way to I-35 were bad. At times, we were driving at about 20 mph due to the road conditions. I saw many cars stranded by the roadside and some were even in the ditch in between the highways.
I was going so slow that I took pictures of several. I missed taking one cos I was concentrating on the road and also, by the time I saw it, it was too late. The colour of the snow was almost the same colour as the car... what car was in the ditch? A Ferrari!!!! *STUNNED*
The road was so bad that it sounded like I was driving on gravel most of the way! And even though the road conditions were so bad, people were whizzing by at horrendous speeds! It was insane!
I passed a car that had overturned and it had to happen not too long before I came by... in any case, they were in the process of flipping the car over and towing it away. An ambulance was coming and it did not have its sirens on. It made me wonder if the person/people had already died, hence the sirens were not on.
I witnessed the tail-end of a solo accident. As I approached the area, I only saw the vehicle move perpendicular to the road (East-West) while I was driving on North-South, and he bumped into the center wire divider and bounced back onto the road. I immediately hit my hazard lights and slowed down and I pulled up next to him to see if he was okay and if he needed help.
His car was a mess. The front right side was totally gone and the exhaust pipe below had broken off and was dangling on the road and the tire was busted! I was talking to Jeff at that time and I spoke to him. He was going to Iowa... Jeff said for him to call 911 to let them know and they will send out a wrecker to tow him away.
I sat there for while with my hazard lights on... even though I was sitting in the lane with my hazard lights on, I still saw people driving till within 2 car lengths of my car and then signalling to move into the other lane!
On top of that, the patch right before me is slippery and after about half an hour waiting with him and "warning" on-coming vehicles, I told Jeff that perhaps, it was best that I move off as I was getting worried seeing cars sliding on the icy patch. I was afraid that they would do the same as he did and I would be in an accident... Also, the sun was setting...
I was very torn to leave him by himself, but Jeff's parents and several other people were worried about me being there... I wished we could invite him over to the house for the night, but since it was not my house, mom was not comfortable with having a stranger in the house...
I pray that he is okay...
Instead of a 6.5 hour drive, the drive took me 8 hours.... not too bad considering the road conditions. I stopped 3x to get gas and at the first stop, I got some fried chicken fillets from Route 66 opposite the Casino at the Oklahoma/Arkansas border and it was great stuff!!
A lot of slippery patches along the way, but overall, the drive was good... Spottie slept almost all the way. :o)
My first drive in this weather went really well, I think....
PS - I had a lot of people praying for me.... YEAH!!!!
I left off in Branson.... well, we came home and Jeff went to work on Monday. He came home in the afternoon and he and his dad went hunting. His mom went to Wal-Mart and I took the chance to not go anywhere and started cleaning the house.
I think they rested the whole of Tuesday and they went home on Wednesday, while I went back to work.
Needless to say, the rest of the week went by in a flash... On Friday, I think, I got in touch with Ewan and Lynn. Lynn is here on a holiday and to see Ewan, so I arranged to meet up with her. As she would only be available the following week, and I was only able to meet up with her on Monday, I drove down to Tulsa, OK on Sunday after church and spent the night at Bobbie's house (my sister-in-law).
I got up really early on Monday morning and got ready and left the house by 7:30 am. I arrived at Lawton to pick up Lynn at about 10:15 am and we headed to Oklahoma City for the day. We first went to Olive Garden to eat and after that, we went to Penn Square Mall and Ross.
We met the guys (Felix and Ewan who drove up from Lawton) for dinner at the Grand House China Bistro. We had a good time eating and talking and all too soon, it was time to bade farewell. Click here to see some photos
They returned to Lawton and I went back to Tulsa. We both reached out destinations at about the same time - 10:30 pm... it had been a long day. I finally went to bed at about midnight and got up the next morning and got ready for my journey home.
I left at about 9 and headed to get gas, after which I headed to the Oriental Mart before heading home. I left there about 10:15 and arrived home at about 2:30 pm... I did the laundry, cleaned the house a little and rested for a while before I headed out for bowling. I went to Wal-Mart after bowling to pick up some things and got home at about 10:30...
My 3-day work week started and that was when I realised, Christmas is NEXT WEEK!!! EEKS!!!
I started making my game plan. I was not prepared to get anything on Wednesday night at the store... so, Thursday night, I went to the store and got some stuff, I came home and I then "worked" till midnight writing ALL Christmas cards... I then got them ready for mailing out. I then KO-ed....
Friday after work, I made a bee-line for home and was fast asleep by 10:30 pm... I was T-I-R-E-D....
Saturday morning, I got up and had a SUPER SLOW start to my day. I finally finished baking all the 3 kinds of cookies and cleaning up and packaging; at about 12:30 am... I didn't get to bed till after 1 am. But I'm happy I delivered everything I wanted to and also made everything I wanted to make.
Today after church, we went for lunch with Mark and his son, Scott. They did a fantastic guitar playing at church, with Dave singing a solo - Mary Did You Know.
