Simon Says Stamp & Saturated Canary

Yesterday morning, my sweet daughter got a phone call at 4:30 a.m. from her friend Missy letting her know that one of their best friends, Kaylee, had been in a serious car accident early in the morning.  Kaylee had driven to Connecticut from Massachusetts on Sunday, to see her boyfriend at his new college dorm.  On her way home early Monday morning, she was in an accident.  We don't know what happened, but we know that she flipped her car over and was ejected because she was not wearing a seat belt.  :(  She has serious injuries including a fractured skull, broken hand, and completely shattered hip (left side).  Cass and I cried all morning and talked about how similar her injuries are to grandpa Richard's... it brought back a lot of those awful memories and we spent the day feeling pretty shell-shocked and in a daze.  Her friends were saying they were going to the hospital to see her but Cass knew from experience that they wouldn't be allowed in.  She also knew that they probably had no idea how bad she was going to look, how serious something like this really is.  Unfortunately, my girl does.  :(

Terrible tragedies like this do bring opportunities to talk and we spent the day talking yesterday.  I have always worn my seat belt, always.  My kids grew up wearing seat belts, it was not optional.  But since Cass has been driving, she never wears it.  It's been something we argue about, and we don't argue about much.  So we talked about that yesterday, and she realized that Kaylee most likely would not have such serious injuries if she had that seat belt on.  She knows she needs to always be wearing her seat belt.  I think this has hit her hard and made her realize that things like seat belts aren't there just to annoy teenagers - they actually have a purpose.  They save lives.  I have been a mess for the past 24 hours, it's just ridiculous the things that run through your head when stuff like this happens.  I'm so thankful that my girl is here safe with me, but I'm so very sorry that she has to see her friend go through this.  We talked about how in an instant, Kaylee's life has completely changed.  She was about to start her senior year of high school.  She was working part-time at a good job, saving money to come visit us on February vacation.  She was planning her life, and now she has to fight to live.  Things can change, just like that.  In an instant.

OK - I could talk about this all day... it's all-consuming.  But today is also my 19th wedding anniversary!  So I'm going to try to pull myself out of this funk and enjoy my day.  We're going out to dinner tonight, just the 2 of us.  We haven't done that since we got here almost 4 months ago, so it should be nice.  I'll keep you posted on Kaylee.

I have a couple of cards to share today, first up I have 2 cards for the:

Simon Says Stamp - Back to School

My first card uses a sweet little girl from By Lori Designs, the 2nd card uses just scraps that I had in my bag of, well, scraps.  LOL

Next up is my card for the:

Saturated Canary Challenge (click to see inspiration photo)

I used Peace & Love Hipster, colored with Prismacolor markers, pencils, and mineral spirits.  I had fun adding girlie embellies on this one, from the rick rack to the butterfly to the flower.  

Say "I love you" to people who need to hear it today.  And be careful, please.  Peace.