The Adventures of Freckles....

I've decided that every time I have an adventure, the caption shall read "The Adventures of Freckles." I do not proclaim that my life is as adventurous as say, Nancy Drew or Jason Bourne, but I surely have my own adventures in my own special way. Like today.

Being a New Englandah, it is expected to receive several snow storms and nor'easters in the winter. This week is no exception and I love it, personally. But anyway, I was carefully driving on my way to work this morning because the roads were treacherous. Frightening. To my utter surprise, the plows had not yet been out at 7:15am. What the dickens?! It's New England! The plows are on standby the moment we hear of an incoming storm. Again, what the?!?! My mom later pointed out that it is a weekend and a holiday weekend and not as many people are out. Ok, ok, but what about the few of us that are!?! My life matters too ya know! Alas, I digress. I was perhaps under false pretenses that because I was in an SUV with my 4-wheel drive activated that I was somehow immune to the dangers and perils of driving in the snow. Ha. Fool that I am.

I was about 3 minutes from work driving (very carefully) down a hill. I was almost to the end of the hill where it levels out when all of the sudden my car locked and started sliding sharply to the left.

It was one of those moments where the seconds feel like hours; s l o w motion.

I remember briefly pumping my breaks and realizing that it wasn't helping. I had milliseconds to make a decision: turn the wheel hard to the right and risk over-correcting and swerving into a bunch of trees...ha NO...or try to straighten out. My attempts to straighten out were futile. So I continued to swerve to the left, picking up a little speed as I descended the rest of the hill. No thoughts just panic rising as my eyes widened and my heart felt like it had butterflies in it (in a very bad way my friends, butterflies belong in the stomach!)

::thunk::

My car thudded to halt. Thankfully the left side of the road is a hill and my car was slowed by the snow and grass and hill. Thankfully no cars were coming and thankfully this street isn't very busy. Thankfully it was a Saturday, a holiday weekend, and early in the morning (7:30am on a Saturday is early). Thankfully. By the time my car stopped I had completed an impressive (retrospect) 360. I straightened my car. It wasn't until I had straightened out that I realized I had stopped breathing and that I was shaking. Not fun. It wasn't that bad but yes it was scary. All I was thinking was Please, please don't let the car get smooshed. Please. Please don't let anything happen. Thankfully nothing happened. No damage to the car. Just a little shock to the nerves. I took a few deep breaths, tried to flex my musles so they would stop shaking (failure), and kept breathing. Nothing happened. It's ok. Nothing happened. It's ok. It's ok. It's. ok. ::deep breath:: ::deep breath::

I pulled into the parking lot of work still shaking a little. It took me a little while to calm my nerves and to stop shaking. Whoo. It also helped to blurt the whole experience out to my manager and co-worker. Whew. On the way home I drove like a 96-year old grandma and could have sworn I was fishtailing at every corner. I wasn't, in fact, but boy was I scared.

Thus concludes the end of Adventure #1.

Adventure #2 (humorous, trust me, just keep reading): Mom and Gabe brave the snow storm to visit Andover, MA.
Driver-mom. Passenger- Gabe (for obvious reasons I hope you realize; I was still a bit traumatized). Driving with my mom can be a tad frightening at times (which does NOT help my already-traumatized self!!!). Mostly it's because my mom is talking about something and is really into it or we passed a cute antique shop, or we passed an adorable house with a cool color, or she spotted something like a cool bird, either way, she is partially distracted. We are approaching a stop sign to a 4 way crossing. In this weather about 20-30 feet away, or more, you typically begin to brake. Oh and there's a car coming. 30 feet, no brake. She's still talking. 25 feet, no brake. Still talking and I start to get nervous. 20 feet. No brake. Oh gosh. I start to press the imaginary brake on the passenger side. 15 feet no brake. I grab the side of the car. 10 feet. My hands fly to my face. I'm going to die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then all of the sudden I hear her......giggling and exclaim, Oh!.

Yes, my mother is giggling at my terror and preparation for what appears to be a certain death.

The car slows just in time and the other car passes without an ounce of worry. I, however, remove my hands from my face and glare at my mom as she continues to giggle, cackle, and then just full on laugh at me. Funny? Funny?? NOT funny. And the best part of this is, this happens (what feels like) every 3rd time I drive with her. And she laughs. The nerve..... (and then of course I joined her in laughing because this happens FAR too often and she thinks it's funny! And it kind of is).

Well, we made it to Andover. STUNNING town. OH my gosh. Everytime my mom and I go on an adventure to explore New England, I find a new time I'm going to live in. Portsmouth, Arlington, Andover, so many choices!!!! Our destination was the Whole Foods store. Our first time! Oh boy was it fun. Totally organic and totally fun. Oh gosh the cheeses (I LOVE cheese), the oils, the nuts, the fun tasty treasures!!! I'm converted. My bank account isn't (yet...) but I totally am. I bought some scrumptous soaps (oh I cannot wait to use them: lavender, pumpin and white chocolate, patchouli, germanium, and vanilla and sugar....I am going to be one yummy-smelling chick!), hot chocolate (my mom and I have an addiciton to hot chocolate), cinnamon-raisin swirl peanut butter, and chocolate peanut butter (for my peanut butter party!). Oh it was just delightful!
We made it safely back home, despite the sketchy roads.
Thus concludes Adventure #2.

Adventure #3 will be fitting all of the goodies I have acquired over the break into my suitcases to bring back to school....

Hmmm.....