OH! Before I start, my latest model stitching job has finally gone public. May I introduce you to Dawn Awakening (click here to see it) Buy lots of copies... even if you don't stitch. I'll even sign the back page where my model credit is. Don't laugh, I've been asked this before. Now my sportswriter buddy can see what I was working on instead of working on his wedding present... which I *would* share a pic of here if I had one yet, but then I don't want him to see it either. So once I get a pic, I'll post it in the forum on the board for the designer that created it... and y'all who know me, know where *that* is.

Onward to today's topic...

This morning I woke up at 4:35am and couldn't get back to sleep. Before you start feeling sorry for me for all the lost sleep, you have to understand that the alarm is set for 5am. I'm usually in my office by 5:30am.

But not today.

I considered turning down the volume on the clock radio I use to wake me up and just heading into work. And after various things ran through my mind, my movements and my voice, I ended up not getting out of bed until 5:05 (which is normal, with the dual alarms I keep set on the clock). I even dragged my feet a little in deciding what to wear with the standard pair of jeans.

Good thing, too.

I didn't listen to the usual traffic reports this morning, so I didn't know what was about to hit me. *Figuratively, hit me... not literally* I was cruising along about 70 miles per hour on 880 - a normal speed at 5:25 in the morning, and about 3 miles from my office at the 101 interchange, traffic STOPS. I hit my brakes and prayed that the very large truck behind me noticed all the brake lights in front of me because I was driving the lower-to-the-ground Outback this morning and not my Jeep (which had already survived one accident with me, and that steel frame with the tow bar welded on probably saved me from worse damage). Thankfully, he stopped. He was very close to my back end (let's just say I still see the spots in my eyes from being blinded from his headlights in my rearview mirror), but he didn't hit me. And no one hit him.

The others ahead of us didn't fare so well.

After 15 minutes of stop and go, I finally passed the multiple vehicle accident that came on the news about 2 minutes after I stopped and couldn't negotiate around to another exit to get to work. 4 cars off to the side, 4 CHP units attending to them. Apparently I was cruising by when they had just started to reopen all the lanes fully - they were diverting 3 lanes of traffic onto the shoulder prior to this. A Rodeo was severely crunched; another car was so badly mangled on the passenger side that I couldn't tell what it was anymore. There were enough people on the side of the road that I think everyone in thier vehicles was able to walk away.

Thank goodness for them. They retained a little bit of luck. Or good fortune/fate. After all, it looks like none of them were taken away in an ambulance.

But I can't help but feel a little selfish and lucky today. I hear that the accident happened at 5:05 this morning - which would have been about the time that I would have been cruising by that area on my way to work, had I gotten up when I couldn't get back to sleep.

Narrow miss. Life didn't throw me a curve ball today. It threw me a nice easy grounder, so that I could make it to first.

*lifts her coffee cup filled with Assam tea and cream* Here's to rounding the bases for today. With a little bit of luck, maybe I'll hit a home run...

... that, and that lottery ticket someone bought me will come up golden for the both of us.