Twelve Years Ago Today...

The other day, quite randomly, I thought to myself, "Self, wouldn't it be fun to do a blog entry on a random day in your life from years past?" I thought it would be fun but never did anything with it. Then today while sitting in church, we had our entire sacrament meeting dedicated to Joseph Smith because today, June 27, was the exact day 166 years ago that he and his brother Hyrum were martyred in Carthage Jail. That once again got me thinking about my life. Where was I on this day 10 or 15 years ago? Well, seeing as I most likely had it written down somewhere, I went through my journals and found an entry from 1998. This is a good one so you all better get ready to do some reading!

The location was Grand Junction, CO - Country Jam, USA - and I was with my sister Valerie and her friend Becky. I do have pictures of this experience somewhere, but was unable to find them at the time of posting.

June 27, 1998

Saturday. Woah! Today was no normal day. First of all I was awake until close to 3am due to obnoxious drunk parties going on in near proximities. Curfew is at 2am and that only means they shut off the lights. People still blast their obnoxious music (funny how we are at Country Jam and all but country is being played) and blast their crude obscenities. I was plain disgusted but it was kind of funny to listen to drunk people talk. It was a new experience for me, that's for sure! :D We got out of bed at 8:30am and somewhat got ready for the day. We took off in the car to go find some breakfast a little after 9am and that is where our adventurous day really begins.

We were driving east on I-70. The speed limit was 75 so we were going that if not maybe 80. We were driving along when all of a sudden there was this knocking noise. We didn't know what it was but we were a little nervous. I don't exactly remember what we decided it was, but all of a sudden Becky swerved into the left lane and said, "Oh my gosh!" We then went flying back into the right lane and her hands had no control of the steering. We did a couple 360's into the right shoulder of the road, then we were clear off the road and down a small decline near some trees. We were screaming so bad. Everything flashed before my eyes and I thought for sure we were dead. Once the car stopped I looked at the window and all I saw was dirt so I had thought we flipped the car. I let out a loud scream and Becky & Valerie both said, "Camille are you alright?" I looked at me. No blood, no broken anything, so I said yes. We pulled out to get back onto the road but decided to check out the damage. We got out and noticed we had 3 blown tires. We weren't going anywhere. Come to find out, what really happened was Becky had swerved to miss a squirrel. Can you believe we almost died because of a stupid squirrel? DUH!

A few people stopped to offer help and one couple even went into town to call a tow truck. About 10 minutes later we saw two patrol cars come flying down the freeway. We thought they were after someone but no, they were coming for us. Someone had called in on a cell phone and said there had been a roll over on the freeway. We had a Ranger, two patrol cars, a fire truck and an ambulance all pulled up on the side of the road. Quite the audience, huh? You should have seen them all once they found out what caused the accident. The Ranger was the nicest. He asked us if we were okay and made sure our necks weren't stiff or anything. The cop was kind of rude. He walked up and said, "Let me give you a piece of advice. If it's smaller than your car, hit it and if you're going to hit it, aim for the butt because it can't walk backwards."

After 10-15 minutes they all left us. The cop said he would check back in 15 minutes to make sure a tow truck came. In the meantime, the original couple came back and said they had made a phone call and a truck should be on the way. ONE hour passed - no tow truck and no cop. Nice to know you can rely on a cop when you need one, huh? About 5-6 other people stopped to offer assistance though which I thought was really nice of them. Well, Becky called the police dispatch and told the lady we needed a tow truck. The lady asked where we were located and then laughed. She said, "Oh, hold on". So, it sounds like they all went back to the station and had a coffee break and told everyone how we swerved to miss a squirrel. After another 45 minutes a tow truck finally arrived and towed us to Big-O tire. It was about time too because two hours in a hot car is not fun! It took about 1/2 hour at Big-O to put four new tires on the car. Talk about an expensive trip for Becky. It was such a scarey experience. We still don't know how we managed to not flip the car*. Talk about heaven's blessings! I am just grateful I am alive because I could very easily be dead....

...We are all now tucked in bed. We are a little stiff from the accident but we're okay. Our shakiness is gone and we are back to normal. I doubt we'll get much sleep but we'll try anyway. It was a very crazy day and I am so thankful for my life and for Heavenly Father watching over me all the time. Goodnight.


*Side note: Apparently I didn't record this in my journal, but I remember someone (one of the cops, maybe?) telling us that based on how we spun off of the asphalt and onto the gravel at such high speeds, the change in friction should have caused our car to roll. He was quite surprised that it didn't and said that we were extremely lucky. That would probably explain why the person who called 911 about a rollover thought we had actually rolled the car.

**Oh, and in case anyone is curious, we did make it back for the afternoon portion of the concert which was amazing!

Marbles, Museums and Crooked Backs...

Here are a couple more stories from my journal that I thought I'd share. I was on vaction with my parents visiting my sister's family in Arkansas at the time.

10-12-03: "Tanner (age 6) put some marbles down his underwear today. When Jeanine got mad and he tried to run from her we couldn't help but laugh - he was jangling all the way to his room as the marbles rattled together in his underpants! ... Then there's Travis. The poor guy threw his back out and can't even walk straight. He's in so much pain and is literally a crooked man. When he was trying to get up from the floor he could barely do it and Jeanine said, 'Maybe you should call in sick to work' and he said, 'I can't crawl in sick!'"

10-13-03: "Today I was trying to explain to Cameron (age 4) that his toy cars were SUV's. He was trying to tell me they were trucks. I said, 'S.U.V.' and he said, "Well, S.U.V. spells truck!'"

10-14-03: "We decided to go to the Wild Wilderness Safari. We drove our car through this zoo thing and the animals came right up to our windows... Cameron was trying to tell us it was a museum we went to, not a safari. He said, 'It's a museum because there were cows there. If there are cows it's a moo-seum!'"

The Year was 2003...

I have written a post once before about how I came to start a journal as well as the fact that I have continued to write in a journal every night and have done so for the past 15 or so years. To read that entry, you can click here. I am bringing this up again simply because over the past three days I have been reading back in one of my journals from 2003 and some of the things I have written down have made me laugh out loud. Here are a few snippets of things from 2003, things I never would have remembered had I not written them down:

4-16-03: I think the most classic moment today came when Joseph* got into work. I don't think he believes in deodorant or showering. He smells SO bad. The best way to describe his "stench" without being too graphic is to say he smelled like a stale sanitary pad. Yeah - disgusting! Anyway, Mandy* sits right next to him and couldn't take it anymore. She was so ready to puke. I told her there was some air freshner in the back room and she should get it and spray some on his desk when he leaves to the restroom. She didn't dare so she asked me to. The only freshner I could find was this gross citrus stuff. I decided that was better than nothing so I grabbed it and took it to my desk. As soon as Joseph went to the restroom Mandy yelled my name. I grabbed the citrus can, took off the lid and headed to his work station. I held the can at my side so as not to appear too obvious to my other co-workers. As I walked past his chair I gave the can a couple squirts and just kept on walking. No one had any idea I had done anything. Joseph eventually came back from the restroom and he said, while sniffing, "What's that orange smell?" Linda said "I don't know. I think someone ate an orange." Mandy and I were dying. At least we didn't end up hurting anyone's feelings!"

6-13-03: "I spent nearly 4 hours with Natalie, Tyler, Ben and Emily. The boys were adorable. At one time I had to blow my nose & Ben said "Okay, I get you tissue" and he ran into the bathroom. He then handed me some toilet paper & said "Here you go". I said "thank you" and took it from him. It was approximately 1 1/2 squares and barely fit around my nose but I used it anyway...for a two year old he is quite the helper!"

6-21-03: "The afternoon and evening were spent with the kids (Amber and Clayton). They were both so crazy and hyper but they were so cute...at one point during the night Amber told Tricia that she (Tricia) was "worned out" and went to get her new batteries. That had Tricia in tears she was laughing so hard. Those kids really do wear us all out. :)"

6-25-03: "Harry Potter has become this national icon in children's literature and people have been anticipating the next volume for two years. It finally came out Friday night and people stood in lines at midnight just to buy the dumb thing. I haven't read any of the books yet and I am actually refusing to do so...people talk about it like it's real life, 'Oh, poor Harry, he goes through so much and I feel so bad for him!'. Newsflash people - HE ISN'T REAL!"

6-26-03: "Doug* came over tonight and stayed until about 8pm. He had a very funny story to tell. He ran into a girl from one of his past classes on campus the other day. She had lost her keys so he offered her a ride home. He said she's a fairly quiet girl but very nice. When he got to her house she turned to him and said, 'Do you want to have sex?' He said 'What?!?' and then he said, 'uh...no'. Doug was like, 'Can you believe that?'. I said, 'Are you sure it wasn't a dream?' and he said 'No! I'm positive it wasn't!'. Then he said, 'You know how you kind of think up scenarios in your mind so you know how to respond to them?'. I said 'yes' and he said 'Well, that wasn't one I've ever thought up before!'. It was seriously so shocking - but so funny!"

6-29-03: "Mike* called to get directions to the party. We talked for 25 minutes...he asked me if I was dating anyone and I said no. He then proceeded to tell me about this girl that he's been dating for a month now. What caught my attention was when he said he might be getting married. I laughed and said "yeah right!" He said, "she plays the piano just like you...she's a good cook, just like you - I love your cooking'. He loves MY cooking? Perhaps he should have said he loves HER cooking if he is going to marry her!"

Now do you see the benefits of writing in a journal regularly? It's cracking me up! If you guys find this humorous and would like me to share more funny stories from my past, let me know! I might make this a regular blog entry.

*I changed some names to protect identities.

Write it Down...

I went to my parent's again last night and the few of us that were there had a very interesting conversation. My brother-in-law has been reading a book called "John Adams" by David McCullough and last night he read part of the book where John Adams is writing to his son John Quincy and urging him and his two sons to keep a diary. I don't remember the exact quote, but it was something to the effect that if you don't write about your travels and experiences in life now then when you die it will be as if you never existed.

This started us in on a conversation about journal writing. My brother-in-law commented that he has left no record of his life, so far, and that when he dies he will have nothing to leave behind to prove that he even lived. I made a joke that I would write in my journal that he does, in fact, exist.

Not many in my family are consistent at keeping a journal. Therefore I cannot share their experiences of doing so. But I do have a story of my own that I thought I'd share.

One day in 1994 I was sitting in Brother Wilkinson's seminary class. We were having a lesson on journal writing. Bro. Wilkey (as we called him) basically told us about the importance of keeping a journal and he shared scriptures and quotes from prophets explaining why we should keep a written record of our life. I received a journal from my parents when I turned 8 and up to the time I turned 16 I had written a few brief words in my journal. Things such as "I hate so-and-so" or "we went to Disneyland and these are the rides I rode". And I believe I even poked myself with a pin once and actually smeared the blood across one of the pages of my journal. But this particular day as I was sitting in class I was struck by this lesson. At the end of the lesson my teacher challenged us to write in a journal every day for one month. He told us that it takes 21 days to make a habit and if we could stay with it for one month it would be easier for us to keep writing. I was up for the challenge so I tried it. Fourteen years and 34 journals later, I am still at it. That simple challenge has since become a nightly ritual. I don't think my 11th grade seminary teacher would have ever expected that. If I knew where to find him now, I'd write him a letter and thank him for that lesson.

I don't share this to boast over the fact that I have written every night, but to hopefully give some insight into what I have learned from the experience. I used to wonder if anyone is even going to want to read all these journals I keep filling up. There are so many of them, and often times I think that what I write will be of little importance to anyone. Because I write every night, a lot of my entries are basically outlines of what I did that day: "Went to work, did the usual, went home, ate dinner, read a book, went to bed".

It's boring and monotonous. Nobody really cares. At least I didn't think so. But then I began to wonder if maybe my grandkids or great-grandkids will like knowing that I hate salmon and last time I ate it I was trying so hard not to gag that I literally had tears coming out the corners of my eyes. When my dad finally noticed he said something like "Good grief. If you don't like it, don't eat it!" And maybe they'll find it hilarious that I was 25 years old when that happened. Maybe my grandkids will like knowing that I love to read. And maybe they'll like knowing about the 30 billion boys I've had crushes on; how I think $4.00 for gas is completely unacceptable; and how I think Hillary Clinton is a joke. And maybe they will also like to know how much I love my family and how much I appreciate my friends. All this may seem inconsequential to me, but it may be a wealth of knowledge to them.

I've also learned that writing in my journal isn't only for my posterity. I write for myself. I go back to my journals every few months and read them. It's amazing to see how much I have learned and grown from experiences I've had. It's fun to read about the funny moments and the sad moments; the moments of anger and frustration and moments of utter joy. It's fun to have all of this written down so I can remember. It's absolutely priceless.

Writing has also been a great form of therapy for me. I've never been one to completely open up and share my feelings with others, but I have a tendency to write them all down. Putting them on paper instead of keeping them bottled up inside is a great way for me to release those emotions and then move on with my life. Nothing stays inside me for very long.

I have absolutely loved writing in a journal. I still do it the old fashioned way, handwritten, rather than typed. Having a handwritten journal is more personal to me, and I think it also tells so much more about someone's personality than reading typed pages. And it's harder to make corrections. Once it's written down, there's no erasing it and making changes. Handwritten entries capture the true essence of what I am feeling, the moment I am feeling it.

As I continue to get older and fill more journals, I may need an entire room to store them all. But I wouldn't have it any other way. I hope I can instill in my own children the importance of keeping a journal. And I hope I can inspire all of you to start writing, if you don't already do so. It only takes 21 days to make a habit. Make this habit count for something. Give your posterity something that proves you really do exist. Allow them to get to know you. It doesn't have to take a lot of time. Sometimes I only write a paragraph and other times I write a couple pages. Just write something and before you know it, you won't be able to stop.

Everyone has a story. It's time for you to write yours down.