Expecting the Unexpected?? BAM!!

During my student teaching, I worked with the yearbook staff for one period each day. At the beginning of the semester, we discussed possible themes for the yearbook. One suggestion was "Expect the Unexpected." The girls wanted to have that title on the cover and on the first page, have BAM in huge letters (pop-up book style if possible). BAM became a long-running inside joke in our class. It was funny but true: life hits us with that giant, pop-up (in your face) BAM from time to time and it's often unexpected.

A friend emailed me yesterday to vent about an unforseen car trouble that has hit her wallet recently. She and her husband are in the process of buying a townhouse so they are trying to save as much as they can. Becca was a bit stressed over the unexpected expenses. Becca wrote, "I'm not sure anything but experience can prepare you to 'expect the unexpected'." The more I thought about this, the more it became clear to me. After your perfect plans fall through a time or two, you come to expect things to not go just as planned. However, even experience can never prepare you adequately. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense why:

Things would not be unexpected if we expected them. By definition, we cannot expect the unexpected. Duh. I say Kay Sera Sera and Carpe Diem.

We only cringe when the unexpected is something negative. Finding an unexpected $20 in an old pocketbook is something that we do not expect but we don't get stressed over that! We love it. We are pleasantly suprised when things like that happen. So, sometimes the unexpected is wonderful! I do love suprises ;)

I am not a total optimist by any means. I know that things never go perfectly. However, I don't PLAN for them to go wrong. I don't plan for car trouble, sickness, death, heartache, etc. I'm enough a realist (and have had enough experiences) to know that these things are perpetual parts of life. Every good and perfect thing will probably be tainted in some way at some point. I don't want to sound like a pessimist because I am not; I'm just being a realist.

Becca & Chris were not expecting the car trouble so it took them by suprise and stressed their lives and their wallets. Will Becca expect to have car trouble again? No, she probably won't; but in the back of her mind, she will know that it's possible for something unexpected to happen like that again. Hopefully, they will have a small "expect the unexpected" fund set up for stuff like this in the future. Preparing for unexpected stuff is the only way to soften the blow.

We don't plan for bad things to happen to us. We don't sit around and expectantly wait for them. From my own experience, you better realize that if things have been going good in your life for a while, you better look out because a trial is probably on the way. That's just life. Again, let me stress, that I'm not being pessimistic; I'm being realistic.

Right now my Papa is in and out of the hospital. I don't plan for this to happen; I don't expect it. I hate it every time he has to go in. I refuse to sit around and wait for the next hospital stay though. He will probably be in and out of there for a while. That's the fact. But I won't expect it.

Why we don't "expect the unexpected," I'll never know. The "unexpected" is part of life. The remedy is to be prepared; not physically, but mentally. I will not physically prepare myself for another hospital visit by keeping a bag of clothes in my car. I will deal with the ordeal if and when it happens. I want to think positively and hope that we don't have to go back to the hospital. However, mentally I can prepare myself by expecting unexpected things. They are inevitable. My little girl scout self will be prepared to face any situation.

If we sit around and plan life down to the very second, we are going to be greatly disappointed because 1) it will never work out exactly how we want it to and 2) we will sell ourselves short. Sometimes the unexpected can be great. Who doesn't need a spontaneous, suprising break sometimes?! It's the unexpected things--good and bad--that keep life exciting. I could tell you some stories of all of the crazy things I have done through the unexpected events that have presented themselves in my life but that would take up too much space in my blog. Maybe I'll write a book some day! I'm telling you the truth: It would be something that a soap opera would envy!

Braking for Turtles

Over the past couple of weeks, I have spotted quite a few turtles trying to cross the road. I don't know why they are trying to cross the road. Maybe they are trying to get to the other side or maybe they are looking for the shell station. I am not sure about their intention but my intention is not to hit them.

For those of you who know me best, I fully intend to brake for animals but I have had little success. So far I have hit and killed two birds, the Easter bunny, a snake (hopefully), a possum (maybe it lived?), and a dog (and of course billions of bugs have lost their life on my front bumper). One of the birds I killed stayed in my grill for a couple of days. I told my friend Susan that I was going to try to sell it to MiCasita. Ironically, when I came out of the restaurant, the birdie was missing....hmmmm?!?!?!

Getting back to the turtles.....I really do feel so sorry for them. I think they are so cute! A couple of times I have managed to straddle the turtles and sometimes I see them in the middle of the road or on the side or in the other lane and when I get close to them, they crouch into their shell hoping to survive the passing traffic. I am sure that many turtles haven't been so lucky with other drivers. :(

I can't imagine why there are suddenly so many turtles crossing the roads in Sampson county; but I am going to do my very best to spare the lives of as many of them as I can. This is obviously a difficult task for me even when I have the best of intentions for the sweet turtles. I would like to ask each of you to protect the turtles also. You never know, they could be teenage mutant ninja turtles who need their turtle power to save the world!!!!

ps--just a few hours after writing this blog I was driving home and the car in front of me hit a turtle and it went spinning across the lane like a break dancer. Seriously. I almost hit it but I didn't! It was a close call though.