forecast calls for partly cloudy skies-or is that mostly sunny?

my commute home from work everyday consists of a 37 mile trek i have subconsciously divided into 4 zones. first is the busy, 7-miles-in-25-minutes-bumper-to-bumper-through-road-construction-part from my office in downtown hot springs to just south of lake hamilton. this is followed by the 12 mile "dead zone" where i have absolutely no cell phone service all the way to the booming metropolis of bismarck. my drive along scenic highway 7 continues 13 miles through very beautiful landscape to lake degray, one of the few projects completed by the army corps of engineers that i really appreciate. the final 5 miles is a quick jump on I-30 into arkadelphia. the same drive 6 days a week for a year (we go to church in hot springs too) and i still find it to be quite a relaxing transition time from office to home and vice versa.

lately, i've felt this sorta "high-on-life" kind of attitude. it's been pretty easy actually. my wonderful husband and i just bought our first home, and we're arranging things just the way we want them. my precious puppy is finally housebroken after a year of training, and just in time to move into a new house. we're going on vacation in a couple of weeks and plan to do nothing but lay on the beach for 4 days straight. and recently, i've even been on the "pro" side of internship where i realize that being an intern architect is what i make of it. (this is opposed to the side where i think interning sucks-where i was at last week. this area of my life has its extremes). but lately, life is good.

so i'm drivin home yesterday in my new volkswagen, beltin out my karaoke version of some 80's song, and approaching the final zone between me and my happy bubble world at home. all of a sudden, it pops, literally. as i was pulling on to I-30, an 18 wheeler was passin me in the left lane and unknowingly chunked a loose rock right at me. i saw it hurling through the air at 80 mph toward my face and i helplessly swerved as much as possible without losing control, but obviously not enough to miss it. the rock hit the bottom left corner of my windshield and the cracks immediately crawled through my drivers side view and down into the depths of rubber sealant bracing the windshield itself. i had an instinct to speed up and flip off the oblivious trucker or to call "roadway" and complain, and the surge of dread of telling ryan, flowed through my body. this is our new car and he's constantly telling me not to follow too close to truckers. i knew he'd blame it all on me even though it really wasn't my fault.

then i stopped and thought to myself, ya know, it could be a lot worse. i may have to pay $300 for a new windshield, but after a year of driving 75 miles a day, i'm pretty fortunate nothing a whole lot worse than a cracked windshield has affected my commute. i mean, i guess ya never know when something will flip your world upside down and i know from experience that it's pretty hard to keep a happy-go-lucky attittude when the cards stack up against ya, but in the big scheme of things, i guess i just realize now that bad things happen, kinks are made to mess up my schedule, and everyday isn't a 6 year old's christmas morning. but ya roll with it. you make the best of it, thank the One who put you on this earth, and make due with what ya have. not the easiest bit of advice to digest when life seems full of misfortune and hardship, but when everything is put into perspective, i can't help but realize that the little stuff isn't worth fretting over, especially when there are people in the world who have things a lot worse than i personally have ever imagined. if life were analogous to weather, i guess i can handle a few small rainclouds and save my real worrying for the tornadoes.