I'm so thankful for safety and for Christmas break!

Well, we are officially out on Christmas break now! I know, you will remind me that we just had five days off. I had a personal leave day then a snow day and then a weekend and then another snow day. So what do I have to be excited about? For one thing, it didn't snow today and they are saying tonight's storm might actually go south of us. YEAH! For another thing, I am one of those weird people who likes to have things organized and scheduled. I would never make a good ER nurse or ambulance nurse. I like to know what to plan on. Ok, so being a school nurse isn't really all that predictable either when you have 1200 kids who have the potential of getting hurt or sick at any given time. But it is dependable usually in that I know Monday through Friday from approximately 7:45-3:45 I will be at work. And it is even dependable in that I can pretty much count on somebody throwing up, somebody having an accident in their pants, and several somebodies getting hurt. And there are my "frequent fliers" that I can depend on seeing every day for a headache or stomach ache or just needing a hug. I like to know when my days off are coming. I like to plan what to do on those days off. So throw some major snow days on me and I start getting nervous. Do I pack my stuff for tomorrow or wait to see if they call and tell me to stay home? Do I go to the store today or wait and hope I can get there tomorrow? Sounds like I'm back to worrying about tomorrow, doesn't it? But if you give me a snow day, I can't relax and enjoy it and wallow in it. I have to get as much done and be as productive as possible with this extra gift of hours. But if I know it is a scheduled vacation, I can be productive but I can also stop and read a book or work on a craft project or play a game with the kids and not feel as guilty since it is scheduled relaxation time. So, even though I just had a five day weekend, I will now celebrate that I am officially on Christmas break! YEAH!!! The shopping is done, the cards are sent, and there is more than enough baking done to make us all diabetic before the new year comes. So I can relax and maybe even sleep in tomorrow. See, I envy you stay at home moms. Well, kinda. I got to be a stay at home mom for a few years when each of my kids was little and mostly I loved it. I loved being able to set my schedule around my kids and husband. I loved being able to take the time to enjoy life. On the other hand, since I was home, I became my husband's hired hand and his "beck and call girl" as Richard Gere said in Pretty Woman. So my time was still not my own. Oh, I don't know, I am rambling here. I'm glad to be on break. There.

I'm tired tonight. Our son started driving from Colorado yesterday morning. In the evening he was only as far as North Platte, NE. So at 2:30 this morning I suddenly awoke and realized he was still not home. From then until 5:30 I laid awake and prayed for his safety. At 6:30 I suddenly felt peace and thought that meant he was home or close to home. He wasn't. In fact he didn't get here until 1PM. But when I shared this with him, he told me that at 2:30 AM another vehicle passed him and was about 1/4 a mile in front of him, when that driver lost control and rolled into the median. BJ stopped to help him. He said from Omaha to Des Moines it was 45mph travel due to the slick interstate and the sides of the road looked like a junkyard with vehicles everywhere. At 6:30 when I felt peace, he was sleeping in his truck at a rest area north of Des Moines. Isn't it weird how God wakes you up and tells you to pray? I remember thinking, "Why wake me up to pray? If you know the need, God, can't you just take care of it without me?" I guess God wants to know we care. He likes giving us good things. I will praise Him and thank Him for His protection over our son and over me too as I had to drive through all those big snowdrifts on the way to work this morning over unplowed country roads. I thank Him too that I only have 6 miles of those roads to get to work and no longer have to do the rural mail route with over 100 miles a day of those horribly snow-clogged roads. God is so good! All the time!