Blessings

February 26th through March 1st I spent in CA with family. Nan was in the hospital for 5 days, and it was good that Mom and I were there when we were. Nan is doing much better now, and is going to be out of the nursing home and back to her assisted living apartment on Tuesday. Even at 93 she has an inner strength that amazes me, and I can only pray that I inherited it. I was also able to spend some time with Aunt J and Uncle B. Aunt J and I spent a day visiting little shops in Nevada City and talking about the same three things much of the day. We had a great time, but it is obvious that her memory problem is getting worse, and I was glad to get some good one-on-one time with her. We really had a wonderful time together, and she took me to Prospectors Nursery, which has made it onto my list of favorite places. It was hard to come home, especially since Nan was still in the hospital, but I had a sense of peace in my heart that things would be ok. From start to finish I felt that God had watched over me while on this trip. First off I was able to make my flights, even though my return flights were pretty full and I didn't make the first two, I was able to make the third and got home in time for J to pick me up before he had to go to work. Everything from the day we got there to the time I got home I know I was watched over. One day I was walking into a grocery store and a sheet of heavy wet snow about 2'x2' slid off the two plus story roof and landed on my outstretched foot. If it had been less than half a second later it would have landed right on me. I can only imagine how painful it would have been to have that weight, fall from that height up, land on my head and neck. I was happy to walk away with only a cold wet foot. That evening Mom and I went over to Nan's storage unit to try to do some cleaning. We spent several hours sorting, rearranging, and loading up Mom's car. It was cold and snowy and by the time we were done at 7:15pm we were ready for a hot dinner.... only to find out that the storage facility's gates lock down at 7:00pm. That's right, we got locked in. I have never seen a storage place that would not let you out after hours. The one I have used, you could not enter after closing, but you could leave any time. We were cold, wet, hungry, and  trapped. We looked for a phone number to call, but none were posted. We knew that if we called 411 they would just give us the number to the office that was obviously very dark and very closed. We really had no other choice but to call 911. The look Mom had on her face (and I am sure I did too) as she dialed 911 was something I will probably always remember. Mom talked to the dispatcher, who was not sure what to do and transferred her to the fire department. He wasn't sure what to do either and was talking about calling her back after he tried to get more information. While she talked I looked for a way out. When we came in I noticed that the gate was different than any I had seen before. It lifted up instead of swung open. Like the one in this picture I found online.

Not my image

I thought that it couldn't be the best gate, the physics of it just didn't make sense. It would have to be either a super light gate, or have an extremely powerful mechanism (which it obvious didn't have), but it was also kind of neat because it would save space since it neither had to slide or swing open. Just as I thought, it wasn't very good. As I looked closer there didn't appear to be anything stopping me from lifting it... so I did... much to mom's amazement. We drove out and the gate stayed up. We drove back by later that night and it never did come down on it's own. Even though it was easy to lift, I was worried I broke it. The next day Mom went back and talked to the manager, and he said it will stay wherever you put it. Humm, real secure! It was a very strange day for me, but I went to bed knowing I had been watched over. The rest of the trip went more smoothly, and I will do another post with pictures of the treasures I came home with.