Why I believe in fate and destiny....

I honestly believe that all things happen for a reason, you might not know why when it's happening...but I believe it's all connected.
About a year after we move here...it was April 2003...we decided to go visit the friends of ours who moved to Greenville, SC. We bought our first "newer" vehicle...it was used , but it was new to us. It was a Jeep Grand Cheerokee Laredo, it was silver. We loved it. We signed the paperwork on a Wednesday night. Afterwards, we were in the parking lot at Wal-Mart and someone almost rear ended us, and I said..."geez watch us finally get a new vehicle and we wreck it within the first week", Jimmy said..."don't jinxs us". Well, we left to go to Greenville on Friday morning, just 2 days after buying the Jeep. We drove all day long in the pouring rain. We even stopped to wash it at a car wash. Jimmy had wanted to stop to get something to eat for supper, but I knew our friends were waiting for us, and they said they were cooking us supper and then we were all suppose to go to a Planetarium together afterwards, so I told Jimmy we weren't stopping, that we had to get there at a certain time. Just about 20 minutes before getting there it stopped raining. When we came upon the exit to get off to go to their house, I was holding the paper in my hands with the directions on it. I told Jordan to wake up, because he had been asleep on a pillow that was propt up against the door. We got off the exit, and we were stuck in rush hour traffic. We were completely stopped. All of a sudden Jimmy screams..."hang on to something, we are going to get hit"....He tried to move the Jeep...but there was a small car full of young teenagers in it, in front of us...so he sort of pulled up around it...I kept saying" where"?? I couldn't see anywhere in front of us that anything was coming at us. Right then, we got hit from behind by a Ryder service truck-Jimmy had seen it in the rear view mirror...it pushed us back out on to the freeway, where we twisted around, and a Chevy Tahoe t-boned us. I honestly thought that my husband and son were going to be killed, and that I would survive it, because I was on the other side. I saw Jordan slide to the middle of the Jeep. I saw the whole side of the Jeep cave in on Jimmy...I honestly thought we were the start of a chain reaction that was going to end in many people being killed. All of our windows exploded on impact. I saw Jimmy spitting out glass...and I thought that he had crushed himself against the steering wheel. I didn't know what to do. We came to a stop, but I didn't know if we should get out of the vehicle...I didn't know if the Jeep would explode...I thought what if we got out and we got run over.
We didn't have a cell phone, but within a minute there were people everywhere running over to us, saying they saw the whole thing, and they thought we were dead. They couldn't believe we survived it. I was sitting there in shock. Someone handed me their cell phone, and I called our friends-whose number was on the paper I was still holding in my hands ...I started crying and said we were in a wreck, and I was on the freeway...and my friend Sandy said..."Oh my god"...I am watching it on the news now....there were helicopters everywhere, and police and ambulances....Jimmy was trying to get out of the Jeep to tell the police that the Tahoe guy did not cause the wreck, because from the looks of everything ,it looked like he had. The service truck guy, was pulled off on the road. We had no idea how he hit us...it's like he was headed right for us on purpose. We never found out the cause of it...like if he had missed the exit or was on a cell phone or just wasn't paying attention, he never came over to check on us to see if we were ok. Jimmy kept trying to yell, but he was holding on to his side...and he was yelling at the police...to get the other guy.
They took us off the freeway...and they had to tow our Jeep, it was totalled on the scene. Alot of our stuff had been thrown out the window. There was a can of fix-a-flat thrown 20 feet away. The ambulance workers took me and Jordan up on a hill, and were examining us...I told them I felt really sore...they said if you think your sore now, wait until tomorrow. This is when I learned what whiplash was. I had a huge bruise on my hip from where the seat belt had dug in to my hip. Jordan had a cut on his leg from a piece of glass, but all he needed was 1 band-aid. Jimmy was trying to get our stuff out of the Jeep...and they wanted him to go by ambulance to the hospital...which he should have...but we weren't thinking. Our friend Jim showed up to pick us up. We took our stuff to their house, and then Jimmy went in to the bathroom, and totally collapsed...some was from pain, and some of it was from pure fright. It was so scary. I told him we had to take him to the hospital. When we got over there, the nurses said..."you guys are the reason we were all late getting to work today"- that's cause they shut the interstate down. He ended up with 4 herniated discs in his back, and 3-4 cracked ribs. They don't tape broken ribs any more, because they don't want you to get pneumonia, so he had to sleep that night in a recliner sitting up , and he had to breathe in a tube to keep his lungs cleared out. They gave him a shot of morphine. The next day...none of us could barely move. We were so stiff. It felt like someone holding you down. Jordan couldn't even turn on his side, I had to lift him up and position him, for him to sleep. We had to rent a van to get home. The ride home was horrible, because all I kept thinking about ,was what if the Chevy Tahoe had been a Tractor Trailor truck. The guy in the Chevy Tahoe, was a fireman. He said he saw my son's face, when we came across the road, and he said "I would have flipped my vehicle, before I would have killed you all". I couldn't believe he said that. I started bawling when he told me that. On the way home, we probably stopped 20 times at rest areas, to just regroup ourselves. Because it was Ryder who hit us, they owned their own insurance company, so they just asked us what we wanted for a settlement, we told them what was fair, and they said no problem. I kept thinking how weird it was that they were the same company that had messed up my moving truck, and had cost us about $500. When that had happened, I had said what a terrible company, and that I hoped they went out of business if that's how they treat people. So, for us to get a settlement from them...that to me is Fate. Because we were just grateful to be alive, we didn't care about money. I had seen so many people who have been in severe accidents and they never got a dime for it. So, I just was glad we were all alive. The first thing we did...was we bought presents for our family and friends, and/or gave them money. Because I felt like I was given that as a gift...it wasn't a huge amount, but it was enough for us to fix our Bed and Breakfast up exactly how we wanted to....and to get us started. I have always felt like this house was lucky for us...it's just been too bad that we have had such a rough time here with the firehall....or I never would even have considered selling my home ever. I feel bonded to it. I feel grateful for everything that has happened to us here. I have had the chance to meet people and do things I never would have had the opportunity to do, if it weren't for this house. I always have believed in "what comes around, goes around", and that if you do good things for people...that the saying you get back 10 times what you give- that's true.

How we got started....

We were living in Curwensville, PA...and I was working as an antique dealer, and worked at an antique co-op. We decided to go to Adamstown, PA- which is considered to be the antique capitol of the world to look for antiques, so I looked for a Bed and Breakfast for us to stay at, because I had never been to one. We stayed at the Barnyard Inn in their carriage house. They had alot of animals on their property, like llamas and deer, and I thought Jordan would like that. We loved staying there. The innkeepers were awesome, the food was great, and it was so different than staying at a hotel. It was much more personal. I had gone to school to be a travel agent, and I loved cooking and I love decorating, I love big old houses, and I really like people ...so I thought this was the perfect combination of everything for us. We sort of had been looking to move, for awhile...and were looking in the Pocono area. But, we could never find anything we really liked. When our best friends who lived in Curwensville up and told us one day that they were moving to Greenville, SC...we thought let's move now for sure, so on the day they told us they were moving...I went on the internet and started looking for houses within driving distance from where we were living, that could have the potiential for being a Bed and Breakfast. I must have looked at hundreds of house, there was only 1 I liked, and it happened to be in Reedsville, PA- which we had been going to for years....because we use to come down to the antique flea market every Wednesday to buy and sell antiques, so we knew a little about the area, and we thought it was a really quaint Amish/Mennonite area. So, I found this house, and went to show it to Jimmy, but it was gone...I couldn't find the listing for it...so I knew who the realtor was, so I called them, and they said they had just come off the contract with it, but they could still show it, if we were interested.
So, we made an appointment to come see it in March of 2002. I knew the moment I walked on the front porch that this was going to be my house. There was a letter E on the front screen door, and that's the letter my last name begins with...so I said..."this is my house". There was even the outline on the carport of where a letter E had been there at one time. I just loved this house...it definately needed alot of work, but I didn't care, I knew it had alot of potiential.
So, we put an offer on it, contingent upon us selling our current house. We sold our house, and were moved here in the middle of July 2002- it was about 100 degrees out on the day we moved here. Moving here was a nightmare...the moving company had goofed on the size truck we had reserved, and we had to drive about an hour away just to get the smaller one. Jimmy only had a couple days for us to get moved....we had to get an extension from the buyers of our old house, to be able to stay there until the closing was done here...but the people we bought this house from, would not let us come in ahead of time and do any cleaning at all, so imagine how dirty it was...having sat empty for 1 year. My bother-in-law and sister-in-law helped us move...it was such hard work. For the first month we lived here, I had no stove, because they had an old gas stove here that would have blown up, and I sold my stove with my old house...so I had to get a 220 line put in, and everyone was busy (electricians)...so we ate sandwiches for a month- because I couldn't cook anything that wasn't microwaveable. I remember my sister-in-law, was so freaked out over being here at night with me, while our husbands were moving...because in the beginning it was pretty creepy here, there were alot of doors coming in to the house, and it just felt old and kind of scary. Jimmy and his brother, Tommy, didn't get back with the last load of furniture until almost 2am...we had to take the rental truck back, which the company said for the trouble we had with them goofing up our reservation, we would be commensated for it at the end. We actually had to leave stuff behind at our old place that wouldn't fit on the truck. The truck had no air conditioning. They didn't adjust our bill, we ended up having to pay a refueling bill because we didn't take it back filled up...there was nothing open around here that night, but they didn't care. They were so mean about the whole process...that I remember thinking what a terrible company they were, and I was never going to use them again...so with that whole experience .....what happened to us a year later with that same company....is almost unbelieveable.

Getting Started on Blogging

This is my first post on my new Blog...which I know nothing about doing yet...so I am going to try posting some stories of things that have taken place here over the years, that I have found to be really interesting. I hope everyone enjoys reading it.