Being grateful for the little things....

Hi everyone :)

Normally I keep this blog pretty much related to crafting and don't usually chat very much about my life in outside of crafty blog world.  Something happened this Friday to me that took me the whole weekend to digest and figure out how I was feeling....

After a terrible week at work I was SO looking forward to Friday rolling around (it sure took it's sweet time!).  It looked like a fairly typical day....we might even finish early and I could take my lunch at the end of the day and get home by 2!!!!  oh I was so HOPING this would happen - all I wanted to do was be home with my family....my job is NOT my life....life is when I'm at home :)

That was  not going to happen this Friday......nor any other day this week-sigh.

It turns out I had to fly again (which is a big part of my job) about 40 mins north and do a pick up and return flight and complete a drop off....ok I think....not TOO bad...I should still get home by 3.......

I get to the airport with my partner and we get on our plane.  This particular plane is not the one we usually fly in- our company has a dedicated plane but was already booked and other arrangements were made to fly with this company.

We hop on board - totally psyched that there is coffee and snacks - woo hoo!!!  We buckle up and the pilots ask if we are good to go...we say "sure!! we have coffee and donuts - what more could we ask for?"  We even joked that as long as we had our coffee who cares if the plane goes down?  This is all of course in jest and the pilots remind us they will be doing some panel instrument change-outs mid flight. So in other words-don't panic when they start taking all the gauges off :)

The Pilot starts the plane, it starts humming, it's powering up.....he starts taxi-ing towards the runway for take off.....pilot 1 looks out the left window, checks again....says something to pilot 2 in his headset....they look out the left window again.... I take a look out the left window........ I see smoke!!!  It's coming out of the left engine!!!

Then the Left Engine Fire gauge blinks on - I look out the window and I see flames!!!!  Pilot 1 shuts down the plane, we are all calmly saying yeah engine 1 is on fire....I say;  I think it would be a good idea to get off the plane now....pilot 2 (who I think is in shock right now) goes: uh yeah...good idea.

Pilot 1 is trying to get the fire extinguisher out from under his seat....it's STUCK....he's yanking on it and it's not budging.......we scramble out off the plane.....amazingly my partner and I BOTH still have a cup of coffee in our hands....AS IF!!!!

We go running towards our vehicle to grab our fire extinguisher before the engine and jet fuel decide to blow......and pilot 1 is now out of the plane and is running towards the terminal....

We get an extinguisher and the fire gets put out.....we stand mouths agape looking at the charred engine.

I make some phone calls and advised we were going to be behind schedule....I nonchalantly say - yeah our plane's engine caught on fire and we are going to be late.  How odd to be so very calm and yet still know to make the necessary calls and then on to the next task....

We head back to the office while another plane is flying in from about 2 hours away....great, let's try this flying thing again.....woop woop.

I end up flying out around 2, successfully do the pick up and drop off and scurry my lucky little butt home.

When I say it took a whole weekend for the gravity of the situation and the potential catastrophe that could have so easily happened.....it really did take that long.

I was blessed that day.....someone was looking out for me- that's for sure.  Crappy week at work?  You BET I had one (I could easily say it was the worst week I have had since I've ben there)........Perspective?  Yep, I gained a whole lot of that.....maybe my week wasn't so absolutely terrible after all.  I mean, I got to go home to my family, my life.