We have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season. Every time we send one of our children off on their own, I say a silent prayer for their safety. It's a parent thing; you always wish you could be there to protect or comfort them but you have to let them go. They'll always be my baby girls.

Our middle daughter attends college about 50 minutes from home. She has a  job here in town and comes home every weekend to work. Yesterday morning she said goodbye as always and trudged out to her car with her laundry bag in tow, headed back to school. She always calls when she gets there but her call came about ten minutes early. She was hysterical and the phone service kept breaking up (Sprint, but not for long) and I was afraid I was going to lose the call before I found out if she was alright and where she was.

She was all alone, about 40 miles south of home, on a seldom traveled two lane road with her car upside down in the ditch. Between sobs she said she was okay, told me roughly where she was located and that she'd dialed 911 and I told her I was on my way. I was there in about 20 minutes. They had the road blocked and she was being loaded into an ambulance. That was a terrible feeling. I followed the ambulance to the hospital (boy do they drive slow ;) where she spent the rest of the day undergoing spine and head x-rays.

Shortly after the crash, a nice couple that were passing by stopped to help her. They gave her a coat, blankets and conversation to keep her alert until the paramedics arrived. If our daughter hadn't been by the side of the road, they may have never seen her car in the steep ditch and tall grass along the side of the road. Other than bruises from her seat belt, she checked out fine. Not even a cut or a scratch, although she's still a little sore. It was a miracle and a testament to the use of seat belts. I'm so glad she listened to us about religiously wearing one.

The story, as I understand it, is that she was going about 57 miles an hour and had just finished text messaging someone and was changing a CD in the stereo (text messaging??!). She went onto the right shoulder, over-corrected, over-corrected again, and ended up facing the opposite direction on the opposite side of the road - upside-down. This was multitasking at it's worst!

It'll be a while before she drives again since she doesn't have a car now. She can't afford one to replace it and her dad isn't prepared to help put her back behind the wheel of a motor vehicle anytime soon. The deputy sheriff noticed she had three red collision tags already hanging in her car as he put the forth and final one in place. This is and has always been our accident-prone child. She's had spatial awareness issues since she was a child. Even walking was brutal on her, with solid objects to run into everywhere.

Someone above was definitely watching out for her. Something like this makes you realize how quickly it all can change and to appreciate the things in life that really matter. Anyway, here's what was once a car named "JJ", may it rest in peace. Obviously it was JJ's time to go. The surrounding grass wasn't disturbed. The car apparently flew and was dropped into place.

Like I said, we have a lot to be thankful for.

As far as the project goes...

The transmission has been back from Jay Egge Automatic Transmission Service for about a week now and is still sitting next to the car. I need to con or bribe about three able bodies to come over to help hoist it in place. Egge's went over it again and dyno'ed it again to make sure it's perfect. Todd Egge, the owner, thinks the new B&M converter will make a big difference in the way it runs and drives. I'm optimistic that maybe the third time is "a charm" as they say.