The Luck of The Draw

Recently a friend of mine, well, technically she's my cousin's best friend, but I've known her just as long, so she's mine too! Anyway, she posted a thing on Facebook saying to go to her blog to enter a contest to win a free pair of Gap Jeans. Here was the post (all you had to do was comment on the pair you would want to win and where you would wear them).

Ok, now some of you have known me a great deal of time, those of you that just read here, can probably still understand this statement. That is, I am an unlucky person. Really, if you can think of some pretty crazy, never happen to anyone kind of things, then they've probably happened to me. With the exception of being struck by lightning (knock on wood here), however you see that in movies often, so to me, it doesn't seem so strange. The things that have happened to me are more of an unusual nature.

I'll give you just a few examples:

When I was 11 and in Mexico with my family, my brother and I were playing on the beach, pretty sure he was "boogie boarding" I was just swimming. I was out there minding my own business, when a pelican swooped down and landed on the water a mere three feet away from me. If you've never seen a real pelican, I will just tell you that they are hideous, and HUGE, and I mean jurassic HUGE, and well I was quite small at the age of 11 (probably only 70 lbs or so), so this thing was quite a bit bigger than me, yet he still was threatened by me (from what I was told later), even though I was there first. He began circling me and sending his enormous beak through the air and snapping within inches of my face. I froze, because I wasn't sure what else to do, eventually though, my brother after being clued in to what was going on, and of course after he stopped laughing hysterically, was able to scare it off. I was able to escape unscathed but absolutely terrified and now am horribly afraid of any and all birds. Those that knew that, but didn't know why and made fun of me for it, well now you know. And probably, I think most people would be afraid of birds after that!

Merely a year and couple of months later, I was visiting my best friend's grandparent's farm in Idaho. The last day we were there some of my friend's siblings and cousins wanted to let "Wilbie" out of his cage. "Wilbie" was her uncle's Javelina Warthog. He was hunting one time, and accidentally had killed "Wilbie's" mom, and felt bad, so brought it home and was raising it with the dogs. Well "Wilbie" really only liked him, and apparently I was threatening again? Well, I did have on a brand-spankin new pair of jeans (which fashion is just emerging to be important at the age of 12) and the pig did have an awful goop all over his nose and was coming toward me, so I backed away (wouldn't you?), well apparently, this was not a good idea.
I don't remember much after, I do remember waltzing in the house and announcing that "the stupid pig had ripped my jeans!" To which my friend's sister exclaimed, "that doesn't look like the only thing he ripped" and then I looked down and saw the trail of blood behind me. I do not remember the long ride in the rurals of Idaho to get to the hospital, just that I was really cold. I remember bits and pieces at the hospital, like the doctors laughing, and incredulously asking over and over, "you were bit by a PIG??" and something about the next person better not have been pecked to death by a chicken......I'll just chalk it up to, I was the livelihood for a long time.
The reason I wasn't remembering much was due to being in shock. Shock so bad, that it caused hypothermia (temp of around 92 degrees). It took 21 stitches to close up the wound on my leg just near my knee. Two significant puncture wounds from the tusks (yes it had tusks, see pictures below), and several smaller ones from the bottom teeth. As it so has it, those very jeans that were destroyed, actually saved my leg from amputation. You see, one of the tusks (would have been his left) was a mere inch from coming out the other side of my leg. So, the toughness of the jeans made it harder to get in, so it would have been a lot worse, say if I had been in shorts. In fact, I might not have my left leg. But as it so happens, I just have the scars now.

My camera is not great for this, but the largest of the scars is easiest to see, it is just below my knee and use to resemble a smile, now just looks more like a circle. That would have been his right tusk, and it mostly just tore about an inch deep gap. Now the other, more severe one is even harder to see with this picture, but it is to the left of the other and pretty adjacent. It is much smaller, but required a couple layers of stitches. The other ones left by his "normal" teeth, are impossible to see, so I won't bother trying to point them out. I really wish I knew how to put arrows where I need them, but probably need a good editing software for that.

Now, here are some photographs of Javelinas. Neither of these are "Wilbie" who has since passed (so sad, I know ;P) These are pretty ugly animals as well

Scary teeth I know!


Ok, ok, so this post is already going on a lot longer than I wanted.......but one more quick one.
When I was living in Europe, we happened to visit Holland and go to the Tulip Festival. Of all the exotic and beautiful flowers there, I only touched one (out of millions), so happens, that I chose to touch the one and only poisonous flower there, a type of lillie, and it caused half of my finger to go numb and drain of color for an entire day. I did not allow my aunt to take me to the doctor for this :)


Ok, so now I've proved my point that I'm an unlucky person, or accident prone, whatever you want to call it. But, in reference to contests and such, I never win anything, with the exception of a cake one time at a school carnival. And our family members each won a door prize at the Vegas conference (for Ch18) last year. Funny story on that, that you can hear if you want, but I won't put it on the post. But, really, usually I don't win. 


Well, this contest I did win!! And I'm SO happy!! Last week was when I got the card in the mail, and inside was a certificate for a pair of Gap jeans, and a bonus $30 gift card as well. The next day is when I went shopping, and here's all I got. I know this was my winnings, but I couldn't pass up buying something for my little sweetie!

The jeans and long sleeved "sneaker" shirt for Em, I got at the Gap in the Orem mall. But we decided to take a little trip to the Park City outlets today, just Em and I, and that's where I got the cute yellow top (you have no idea how long I've been searching for that shade of yellow, everything in yellow this season has been a really yucky shade) and that pink zip-up sweater for Em (since she's grown out of her winter clothes finally, that she wore two years!). The shirt for me was at the Gap outlet, and Em's sweater was at the Old Navy outlet, both together were under $20! Which means, none of those clothes cost me ANYTHING, and that makes me REALLY happy!!


And what's shopping without a fashion show??

Steve went a little overboard with the taking of the pictures
Em's little fashion show will have to wait until she can actually wear her clothes!

Em in her wagon, shopping in Park City, she laughed the whole 3 hours we were there! And this was a challenge with this monstrous wagon, it was crow-ded! Back to school shopping I guess, but people were everywhere, but what really bugged me, is that most didn't bother to give us room on the sidewalk, which meant lots of waiting for people to move. With the exception of one nice lady, no one offered to help with doors, and looked at me with disgust when I took to long to get in or out. And the worst was people looking at me like I was crazy as they looked at the contraption to take Em around in, like we have another choice if you haven't noticed the lower half of her body! Yes, I think it's time to get a disability parking pass as well, because it is really hard to get that sweet little girl (who cannot bend at all) out of a car door when the car in the next space is less than a foot away. Twice now, Em and I have had to wait at the car in the scorching heat for someone to come move their car so that we can get in. Reminds me of when I was 8 and 1/2 months pregnant, and had just got done at the doctors and was trying to hurry back to work. Well, when I got to my car, I realized the car next to the driver's side was less than an inch from my car. Which meant, so as not to be late for my afternoon session, I had to get my whale of a body in the passenger side, up over the middle consul and into the driver's seat. Let's just say I left a "very nice" note on their car!


So a BIG thank you to Alyssa Coberly at "Monkey Chatter" for your oh so kind giveaway, and the chance that I won!