SMELL THE STINKIN’ ROSES ALREADY!
I started my day off clearing debris and cutting down trees that were so kindly dropped by Hurricane Irene. As I was using my 20” Husqvarna chainsaw to cut branches off of my 60+ year old oak tree that crushed my prized 1993 Ford Ranger, bad turned to worse in just a moment…
This Ranger was about to roll over 250,000 miles after being totaled three times and still had plenty of life left in it. This thing is a beast! Just for the record, none of the three times were my fault…now four! 1st was a collision with a deer (front end), 2nd was a t-bone hit when a woman crossed into oncoming traffic to go to the tattoo shop (front end) and the 3rd was when I got hit by a drunk driver head-on at 55mph (front end). Side Note - the front end has a license plate with a soccer player kicking a ball that says, “God calls my shots”. The license plate wasn’t damaged in any of those incidents. I was able to repair the damage in all of those collisions with junk yard parts way cheaper than paying someone or buying something new. A salvaged title doesn’t bother me if it gets me from point A to point B! It was ugly… but it worked!
The old oak tree was one of two really old ones that were lost in the storm along with about ten other full trees (maples, oaks, dogwood, pecan…etc) and many tree tops, branches and debris. The old trees were a main factor in purchasing our old 1945 farm house with only 1,000 square foot of living space and no hallways. Anyone can buy a new house but this house had character like no other and the trees are a big part of it. This was quite a bummer for me to not only lose so many trees but I had to clean up all of the mess too.
So as I was cutting this oak tree off of my Ranger, I hit a knot in the tree and the chainsaw kicked back and made a nice fillet through my knee cap flesh. All progress was stopped as we wrapped my leg to stop the bleeding, called the ambulance and spent quality time at our local hospital getting stitches and hearing that I shouldn’t bend my knee for a really long time to avoid the stitches coming out and the to avoid the wound re-opening. That is not the kind of news I like to hear when I’m an extremely busy guy with lots of projects and activities that involve bending knees… and walking normal for that matter.
After whining a bit about all that occurred, I quickly recognized that it could have been much worse and I had a lot to be thankful for. Although it still stinketh when you go through something that isn’t an ideal situation, we sometimes have to step outside of our own little world and recognize how good we really have it compared to many others. What are you whining about today that could be turned into praise for the things you do have that are going well? We just have to deal with obstacles and roll on! If we marinate in the crap that happens, we will probably be too busy to recognize the flowers that are blooming directly around us!