One FULL Saturday!

I'm still in awe by how busy yesterday was, and the steady rain throughout the day didn't help.

Morning person that I am (it's 6:45 on a Sunday and I've already been up for an hour,) I was up early and moving furniture out of my sunroom to prepare for the carpet cleaner guy. He came at 9am, did a great job and stayed for an hour.

After that I ran to Macy's (we have a beautiful Macy's in Pasadena that is not attached to a mall that I really enjoy going to) and bought a few small Christmas gifts and some pajamas for me.

Between each errand I would come home and give Bailey a "potty opportunity" since he was cooped up in the house all day...

I was hungry for some lunch, so I decided to return to the Heirloom Bakery & Cafe' in South Pasadena that I went to last Saturday for a little elementary school reunion. It was darn chilly, but I sat outside and ordered the same thing as last week. It is on a corner with lots of cute shops and antique stores and you feel like you're in a small town. It is probably the most I relaxed all day until the evening.

From there I decided to drive the 15-20 miles to Covina to a wonderful store for teachers and parents called Thematic Attic. I get there about 1-2 times a year and right now I have 3 purchase orders from school that I need to use by Friday. If I don't use them, I lose them, so I had to go. Of the 3 places I need to get to, Thematic Attic is the farthest, so I wanted to get it over with. And, wow, for about 10 minutes while I was one the freeway it was raining SO hard I thought people were on the side of the road throwing buckets of water at my windows. And then, suddenly, it got lighter and lighter until it cleared completely. Once there, I found some great books and puzzles for my kids and drove home without incident.

By that time, I was pretty tired and decided to stay home for a while but still wanted to be productive. Throughout the day I had been working on cleaning out the drawers in my dresser and re-washing the things I was going to keep and bagging the things I wasn't. I was also washing and ironing the curtains in my bedroom. My house has A LOT of windows, so I have a lot of curtains, and since I spend more time in my bedroom than any other room, they get the most use.

Around 5pm when I was ironing I got a phone call. My mom was calling to say that my pregant sister-in-law and little nephew had been in a car accident but she didn't know the details. They seemed to be OK, but we needed to go to them. My brother was working until 7pm.

They were down a long street that has lights at every block, so it was a frustrating drive just getting to them, especially in the rain, but I did. They were OK. My mom was already there and a policeman was taking statements from the 3 parties involved. A 19-year-old girl was at fault, turning left when others had the right of way. She plowed into my sister-in-law's car and smashed up the front. Another car was also hit. The airbag even deployed and did its job well. And the baby car seat passed the test--Xander was fine, just a little shaken. He was a lot better by the time I got there, but apparently he had been screaming when it first happened and then went silent, like he was in a little bit of shock. An ambulance had checked everyone out, but there were no serious injuries, although Quyen's blood pressure did spike a bit at first. She also had a pot of soup in the car that her mother had given her to take home that had spilled everywhere.

Quyen talked to the policeman, I held Xander and tried to keep his hands warm, and my mom called AAA to tow the car. We were out in the nighttime rainy cold for a good hour at least. I drove Quyen and Xander back to their house (good thing they live so close! I think they are already realizing the benefits of being only half a mile away!) My mom met the AAA tow truck there. Then I went to a Vietnamese restaurant that we all like and picked up dinner for everyone. When I got back to their house, Quyen told me that my mom had to go and rescue my brother because he had 2 blowouts on his bike on the way home (he rides his bike to/from work daily.)

My mom and Jonathan came home and the dust from the day settled. We left Jonathan, Quyen, and Xander to be together as a family and my mom and I came back to my house to enjoy some yummy Vietnamese soup and rice noodle California rolls. By that time it was about 8:30pm. And the sad thing is that my mom had planned to take Xander to the church Christmas party so he could see Santa. Those plans got completely dashed.

But the important thing is that everyone was OK and safe and healthy after that scary incident. It really could've been so much worse.

By 9 I was in bed, pretty tired, and talking on the phone to my friend, Eric, as we often do. By 9:45 I was too sleepy to do anything but just crash.

Yep, it was a full day!