Again and again and again!

Not Again!  For the 10th time this year I have gone to start my car and the battery was dead.  Now you might think this is caused by a bad battery.  Wrong!  It is caused by my five little "ducks".  My little ducks are perfectly capable of opening a car door, but apparently closing the door is something they "forget" to do.  Please God, explain to me how you can open a door, still have your hand on it as you climb out of the car and "forget" that you are TOUCHING the door?! The problem is that I do not pass by their side of the car on my way to the house.  Then I might be able to alleviate this problem.
      Now with all this "experience" with dead batteries, I should be working for a car service and jumping cars for a living.  Uh, not quite.  I have a little too much of the "Scarlet Ohara" syndrome.  What is that?  Well, Scarlet is perfectly capable of doing anything she sets her mind to doing, but why do it yourself when you can get someone else to do it right?
     Hmm... right?
     Well of course!  I don't really want to get my hands dirty and stick them into the engine of a car, hoping that I don't electrocute myself or make the car explode.  I know how to set up the jumper cables but have never once done it.  I mean really, why?  Like I said about the flat tire, we have a car service with USAA, I have a Honey, and great neighbors.  But in this case, it was the unlikely but very lovable handyman who came by to give me an estimate for fixing the water infiltration problem in my house.  See what I mean about the Scarlet syndrome?  He barely knows me, yet got tasked with the job because he was "lucky" enough to stop by before my neighbors got home or I had a chance to call USAA.  And he was able to fix the water problem at the house also.   Yeah!

Back to reality

After yesterday's blown tire, I prioritized my life and went to get the stand mixer fixed. What?  the mixer?  Well, yeah!  It is annoying to not have waffles in the freezer for the kids when they don't want cereal for breakfast; or be able to make bagels for breakfast, or make a cake!  I really love that stand mixer and it makes cooking so much faster.  I did not grow up with one of these and I wonder why my mother didn't ever get one.  I never have to stand around whipping up eggs or cream. It always seems to take FOREVER to stiffen up egg whites with a hand mixer.   Did you ever wonder who actually figured it out in the first place?  I mean I have no patience to do it with an electric hand mixer, but think about how long it must take with just a fork, Ughhhhhh!!!!!    Anyway, with a full size spare on the car,  what is the rush with fixing the tire?  Well this is coming from the lady whose only care about the car is that it move and have operational A/C.  The sales men always hate me when I go to buy a car.  The first question they ask is what color do I want.  What color?  Who cares?! I just don't want to be living at the repair shop!
So the mixer is at the repair shop and the car will make it there another day.

Hisssssssss

I am trying to limit my trips out of the house so that Tybee can get some sleep and be on a somewhat regular schedule, but I am trying to get the rest of the kids out of the house so that they are not stir crazy.  So today we planned a library trip.  I prepared a list of books that I want the kids to read, and they gathered up books to return to the library. Upon arriving in the library parking lot and hopping out of the car, I heard a loud hiss coming from the back end of the car.  It sounded like it was coming from the tire.  As I looked at the tire, it seemed to be deflating.
Not good!!!
Not good at all!
 I told Elizabeth and Rolo to quickly get back in the car.  We needed to get home FAST!  The good Lord knows I DO NOT want to get stranded with a newborn and a feisty 3 year old!  So I safely drove home (notice how I do not say quickly!).  I have this general rule that I'd rather ruin a rim than get stranded or change a tire in traffic.  I parked in front of our house to make it easier for USAA's car service guy to change the tire.  It was pancake flat by the time I got home.   Can I tell you how much I would HATE to change a tire?  I know how to do it, but why would I want to?  I mean we have the motorist assistance, why not use it?  Besides,  I don't have a jack, my jack slipped and broke 2 years ago when my stepdad was changing a flat tire for me (thus the parking on the street and NOT on the sloped driveway).  I know that I can get a replacement jack but again, WHY?  I DO NOT want to change a tire!  Patience is a virtue, and I am willing to wait for the USAA guy.  I also know that it would take me longer to get out a jack, read the directions, jack up the car, get the bolts off and get the tire changed out; than it would for me to make a phone call and wait.  So 45 minutes later, I had my spare tire on and clean hands.  Much nicer!

One last Trial before the end.

I woke up today and didn't want to move. My back was and is killing me! But I have lots to do before Honey gets home TOMORRROW!!! I need to keep the house clean, find a dog sitter, pack for the beach and the most necessary - the car must be cleaned. It's waited too long. It's been sitting & festering in the hot summer sun too many days. All the kids melted madness in the backseat was started to smell.... The most disgusting thing is not the yuck that is unidentifiable, but the chicken nuggets and french fries that look not one day older. Makes you wonder what it's really made of?!

After quickly cleaning Honey's car. I started on the Suburban. First I had the kids get all their stuff out (while I cleaned Honey's car). Then I had to pick up all the sticky change($) that they seem to accumulate in the backseats and in crevices. I also try to get things put away during this phase and strip the car seats so they can be cleaned as well. Next it was onto the vacuuming. There is a LOT of space in the Suburban and I normally have to make a few passes with the vacuum because of all the fries, crackers, candy, stickers, crayons, you name it!. Yuck! Yuck! Yuck! Just when I was almost done with the vacuuming it started to pour down raining. Why does this always happen to me? So I of throw the rest of the vacuum in the car, go unplug it so I won't get electricuted (that would be my luck!), throw all the miscellaneous junk into the house and grab the keys so I can roll up the windows. I come back to the car, put the keys in the ignition, turn on the car, but it won't start! I know it's not the battery (I already replaced that while Honey was gone!). So, I called roadside assistance to come give me a jump. Apparently, I took an exceptionally long time cleaning the car! ... and I'm still not done! I still have to scrub the gunk off the seats and reinstall the car seats.

Who knew that you could spend so much time cleaning the car that you could wear down the battery?

For some other of my bad luck before vacation stories, visit "Family Oldie," "Why to Not Travel with us!" or "The Rest of the Story."

Oh you figure it out!

The past two days have been very busy. Doing what, I do not know. Yesterday we left the house for church at 10:25 and didn't return until dinnertime. Yes, church is 10 minutes away and it does start at 10:30, but we were having one of THOSE mornings when everything would spill, clog, clump and hide itself. Luckily (I guess?) I am a bit of a speed demon and we made it to church by 10:32 and they were just starting the procession. I did manage to get all green lights on the way, so that helped. After church we ran a few errands and then I went to the gym. I am trying to get myself into some kind of shape to strengthen my back and relieve me of my pain. Who knew that a minor fender bender could mess me up this bad? It's hard to believe that it's been almost 8 months of pain. I thought I'd feel better in a week or two, wishful thinking apparently. I can't complain though. I will be better, I just need to have patience. One virtue that I am SERIOUSLY lacking.

Today was busy, but relaxing. We went to the Post Office to mail Honey some more snacks, then off to the gym so I could kill myself. My first day of running on the treadmill instead of speed walking. Oh my %$#^!, Did I really use to go running for fun? Man, am I out of shape! But "Yeah for me!", I ran for 30 minutes & walked the other 30 minutes. After the gym we went to our neighborhood pool, so I could relax (And I guess so the kids could have fun too.) Despite the fact that I know that the sun causes cancer, I really, really love spending time in the sun and getting a tan (as much as this little Irish girl can!). I could fall asleep in the sun if I didn't have the kids to watch. Makes me remember all the time I spent with my friend Alice up on her parents roof laying out and sunbathing. Makes me glad that I had such a great friend growing up. Makes me glad that I still have such great friends.

It comes in 3's

Isn't there a saying that trouble comes in 3's? Well I thought it was supposed to be spread out a little bit.  So here's my three: within 24 hours the dryer broke, the car died, and Rolo got an ear infection. My sister "broke" the dryer while drying 1 pair of undies for her child.  Okay, really it was the rollers and the belt, but literally that was all that was in it when it croaked!  I mean really, who knew that a 2 oz pair of underwear could break a dryer!

Here's a picture of the culprit. 

 I know you're asking, why would I put something as boring as a dryer onto the blog.  Well, because it's MY blog, not yours!  Okay, really it's because I actually really like this dryer and am willing to get it repaired until I no longer can.  Thankfully I got to see my appliance repair buddy, who fixed the dryer 4 years ago when the motor died and fixed the washer last year when I cracked the plastic cylinder that holds ALL the water for the washer.  Now THAT was a mess when that cracked!  

   The car died in the Krispy Kreme Drive through, thankfully I was at the window and already had my doughnuts!  I can think of worse places to have the car die.  Thank goodness we have USAA, it is so easy to get the car towed with them.  They got the car to my mechanic, my friend picked me up and all was well.  My mechanic told me today that it was the alternator that was broken.  Apparently it was the original one and the car is 16 years old and has over 200K miles on it.  I was especially lucky since the last trip in the car was to downtown Baltimore.  Thank God I did not break down there!  

     I love my mechanic because he tries to prevent things like this from happening to me and I had literally just gotten the car back from him last week.  We had a nice laugh today about how he missed this one!  Apparently my car did not create the typical signs of a failing alternator.  When he was recreating the situation  in the car by driving it (it was randomly starting and working in short bursts), he too had to call a tow truck because he got stuck when it died. He luckily figured out the problem in his time waiting for the tow truck.  I think I still had a better wait than he did though,  I got to eat fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts!

                 I like seeing my repairmen to catch up on their lives, but it sure is always quite an expensive conversation!  Maybe I should just start calling them once a month to prevent my seeing them.

   

Cars

Since Honey's been gone, I've been in charge of all the cars.  To make life easier I used that little power of attorney Honey gave me and sold one!  A man literally came and knocked on my door.  It had a flat and couldn't start, and I am pretty sure something had lived in it over the winter, so I was GRATEFUL to get rid of it.  I thought I was going to have to pay someone to take it!   Since I had rammed it into my sister's car a few years back, and it had had the frame bent and stretched; it was not going to be an easy sell.  It was also a dud year anyway and everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.  I was very glad to see it go.  All I can say is good riddance to the Volvo, and thank God for sending someone to my door to buy it!  

 

Driving thoughts

One day this month I would like to stay at home and be a "stay at home" mom. I think when Honey comes home, I am going to go on strike from driving. A month off sounds good to me, maybe a year! He should want to drive since he is "missing" the opportunity. Of course, nobody could possibly miss driving around here. It is probably statistically safer to drive around Afghanistan than drive around the Washington Beltway. By the way, it is statistically safer walking around in Afghanistan than in DC. Maybe our next war can be in DC. But who to fight....? the crooked politicians? the gangs? the lobbyist? the press? so many choices, not enough time!!!