I am not a religious person, but I am spiritual. I don't often describe events in my life as blessings. Maybe I've felt lucky or fortunate, and there are a few moments that I can describe as blessings. Today was a blessed day.

We have had many things go wrong with our new house since we moved in. We need new windows, sooner rather than later, a mysterious musty odor in a kitchen cabinet, mold, rats, dead skunk in front of our house, more musty mysterious smells (the list goes on...) And then today happened.

I was driving on a highway to take the kids to daycare and my husband was following behind me. He travels the same route for about half of the trip and then heads over the border to work. I was driving along, not doing anything in particular--just driving, when a deer flashed in front of our van. It happened just like that. You know when you watch those scary movies like, "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and a person just appears in front of the car? That's what it was like, except it was a deer (thankfully not a person!) So, I hit the deer going 60mph and all I remember was smashing and then pulling over to the side of the road. My husband, being behind us, saw the deer pop up from our van and fly across the passing lane into the grass. The kids, who were watching a Baby Einstein movie, didn't seem to notice anything. The highway guys down the road heard the crash and came over to see if we were ok.

I'm quite shaken, as is my husband, and I can feel the whiplash setting in. I'll happily take that rather than what could have happened. I feel very blessed that my family is all at home tonight, safe and sound. Even with the memory of the flash of that deer, the thought of "not with the kids in the car", and the worry of my husband worrying about us, I feel like today was a gift. Today, we were given a chance to make everything that has gone wrong with this new house, better. We were given our health and our lives. I could not possibly ask for anything better than that. Today, was a good day.