never did that before

Monday morning started out, well, ...Monday-ish. I got the kids off to school, then got a phone call from my mom. (I love those phone calls!) She was on her way up to have coffee with me. You have to understand that my mom is a pretty busy lady. She's kind of like me...just puts her head down and gets done what needs to be done. (Thanks Glenda, for the analysis...it's so accurate!) So, I always appreciate those spontaneous visits.

My mom arrived about 20 minutes after her call. She hadn't been at my house for a while, so I led her around, room to room, to show her all the things I had changed or projects I had started. Minutes later, I threw my jacket on and we hopped in her van.

We backed out of the driveway and started to head down the street, however, there was a loud, thumping noise. My mom and I exchanged confused, curious looks as she pulled the van over to the side of the road. We got out and discovered that the left rear tire was totally flat.

(Back up here...she lives about 25 minutes away from us and has to travel about 15 miles of interstate to get to our house. The tire was fine for the trip, but, in the 3 minutes she was in my house, her tire went completely flat. A huge "Praise God!" for that one.)

Because I have absolutely NO idea how to change a tire, I immediately started thinking about how we could use my van to do coffee, then I could get Jason's car and she could take my van home until we could get the tire fixed. But, because my mom is one of those "I'll figure out how to do this...it's possible...we just need to read the directions" people, she grabbed the van manual and started working. She actually did all of the physical stuff while I read her the manual. I tried to interject some humor where I could, which I'm not sure she wanted, but at least we laughed.

Once she got the flat tire off, I put it in the back of the van. I am no mechanic, but that baby was worn! I'm shocked she didn't have a blowout, but we know who gets the credit for that!

We got the spare tire on and headed for Super Wal-mart to get two new rear tires. While we waited, we had breakfast...well-deserved might I add...at a local hole-in-the-wall (that's what I call those local, secretly good restaurants that out-of-towners don't know about.) After about an hour and a half, we picked the van up and finished our errands, (well, really my mom's errands, but I just tagged along) laughing about how God has a way of planning your day without consulting you. And, there's always something to be thankful for in every inconvenience.

This concludes the story of my experience. An experience I can add to my experience book.