Wrecked

Last Wednesday I had a wreck. I was on my way to have lunch with my sister. It had been raining earlier in the morning and the road was still wet, although it was not raining at the time. I hit a wet spot and started to slide, then lost control of the car. I crossed over three lanes of traffic, jumped the curb and crashed into the guardrail. The lady behind me stopped and called the police. She was very nice, stayed with me the whole time. It took almost 30 minutes for the police to arrive, but finally an officer showed up. He was really nice. Said it was not my fault, he'd seen this more times that he could count. The lady behind me said that it looked just like I hit a patch of ice and went sliding.

The wreck was bad and good, depending on how you look at it.

Good:
Emma was not in the car.
No other cars were involved. This was a miracle considering it was 11:30am on a busy South Austin highway.
I walked away without a scratch. Just a little neck pain the next day. The guardrail saved me from plunging over the side of the road onto the highway below.
The officer did not cite me, said it wasn't my fault.

Bad:
I totaled the Trailblazer. The total damage is just $800 shy of the value of the car.
We can't afford another car payment without giving up something else. Like Emma's Kid's Day Out.
We *JUST* bought a new car for Tony 4 weeks ago. This is what makes me the most sick.

We aren't sure what we are going do right now. The insurance company will pay us for the Trailblazer, so we have that. But it's not enough to buy another vehicle outright, even used. I don't want to empty out our savings to buy another car so that we only have one payment.

Today I went to the body shop to get all the rest of our stuff out of the vehicle. A few cd's of children's music (Emma has been asking for E-I-O (Old MacDonald)), spare change, miscellaneous papers out of the glove box. I even found an Elmo book under the seat. It was really sad, the poor Trailblazer sitting in a graveyard of wrecked cars. That was the nicest car we'd own until just last month when we got Tony's Accord. Anyway, I said goodbye and took a few pictures.

I have been feeling really bad about the accident. I feel like I screwed up our finances. I feel like I should take Emma out of her school to save money, but I can't bring myself to do that. I need to have that time, but then I feel guilty for that. I feel a big fat pity party starting so I'm going to sign off now.