Cruddy few days.

Ahhh where to start? Yesterday was such a rotten day. I guess I'll start at the beginning....

Sunday evening we got an ice storm... well, I think much of North America did LOL...

I woke up Monday morning, no school b/c of MLK Day. When the sun came up, I opened the blinds to the slider to find the HUGE tree in our back yard had fallen down, barely missing our house and deck. Nice. Everything was ice coated. We had a realtor coming to show our house at 10am, so I hurried and got P ready and cleaned up the house. I warmed up my car, as it was coated in about 1/2 an inch of ice. I got P in the car and was going to take him 3 blocks away to my moms house so I could come back and get the dogs and close up the house.

Here's where it all begins.

My window, the windshield and the passenger window were fine, but my back passenger windows and the rear window were a sheet of ice. I rolled down the window, the ice stayed a nice 1/2 inch thick sheet. I figured I was just running down the road, so no big deal. I started to back out of the driveway, my window rolled down, tapping my brakes often so I didn't get going too fast. I looked to the right, no cars. Looked to the left, and I couldn't see beyond the hill at the end of our driveway, or the enormous branches that had fallen from it. I crept slowly, so I could see if cars were coming from that way.

CRUNCH.

I immediately thought that the lady across the road had been backing out at the same time as me, as I had not seen any cars on our road (we live in a neighborhood and rarely have traffic on our road).

I park the car, get out and find a lady had been driving down the road and I hit her in the door. I felt sooo bad, but ticked in a way b/c I had been SOOO careful to look for cars. I'd have felt better if I had been being an idiot and not looking, but no, the time that I am cautious I really do hit someone.

Anyway, we exchanged info, I apologized profusely, she said its ok, it was an accident.

It gets worse.

She calls me later that evening and says she contacted her ins. company and they needed a police report. Neither of us had thought to call the police, I didn't think of it at the time and she said she figured there were better things/worse accidents from the ice storm for the police to deal with. She called an officer out and he got her statement. He called me and wanted to meet w/me, so he met me at the Walmart parking lot (I was going grocery shopping).

I gave him my side of the story, my license, registration and ins. info. My insurance paper had expired 12/30/06, but I explained to him that I noticed that when I gave her my info, but I didn't have time to go back in and get the new papers b/c the realtor was on her way and I hadn't been home since. He took my info and came back and gave me TWO citations! I got a ticket for "Failing to yield the right of way" and "Expired insurance".

UGHHHH. (it does get worse...)

I can't believe he couldn't cut me some slack. We had just had a FREAKING ICE STORM and everything was coated with ice. I didn't MEAN to back into her. A$$hole. I'm fighting the ticket.

Then I called the lady back to see how it had went w/her and the officer. She said she figured I'd get a ticket (wha??) and then she tried to give me a sob story about how she is financially strapped and asked me to help pay half of her $500 insurance deductible. I don't think so. MI has no fault insurance, so if something happens to your car, you're responsible for paying your deductible to get it fixed. Well, honey, sorry to tell you but I'm financially strapped to and I NOW have a ticket to pay on top of that. I feel bad b/c the accident was my fault, but ugh. I know, I'm mean. So much for my new years resolution.

Oh, I didn't even get the rest of the story. Our power went out yesterday just after I hit that lady's car. It was out until today at about 2pm. We had to stay at Ry's parents house (thank you guys!!) and boy I just hate being displaced... having to pack up things in the dark, try to remember everything for the next day. Luckily I didn't have school today so it wasn't too bad.

Thank goodness our power is back on and we can get back to normal again.

Lots of pictures from the last two days. Click on the picture to see them larger.