Old Cars

We drive old cars. It’s one way to economize and squeeze just a little more out of each dollar. We haven’t bought a "new" new car since 1993, and that was a little Ford Escort that is still running because we took good care of it and we have an amazing mechanic! Unfortunately, that is not always the case with these older vehicles. 

Bossy's first car. The Escort is peaking out in front of it.  We gave the car to her after Burrito was born.  At the time we thought it was near death and wouldn't last 6 months.  Burrito turns four next week...

So today while I was getting ready for my amazingly cool and fun scout meeting, the Gym Rat called me on my cell. "Mom, can you call our mechanic? I’m at the bank and my car died in the drive up." Great, I thought as I pulled a cookie sheet full of sugar cookies from the oven. He drives a 1999 Ford. "Do you need me to come and get you?" I asked. "No, my coworker is coming for me. The guys from the bank pushed the car into the parking lot so it should be OK." I breathed a sigh of relief, told him to be careful, and hung up. I punched in the mechanic’s phone number and waited, but he didn’t answer. 

*Editor's Note* I told Mom last week that he was taking this week off.  I called him when my minivan was acting up and failed safety inspection. 

About an hour later my sweetie came in. His favorite thing to do while I have the girl scouts over is to take some of the boys and drive over to the car dealership. They look at it as sort of a car show and they actually test drive a few here and there. Today he took the Dog Walker and Baby Doll with him. They returned just after the last scout headed out the door with her sponge stamps, painted valentines, and frosted sugar cookies. 

As usual, I got to listen to their glowing reports on the latest cars, prices, and luxuries while I scraped frosting from the kitchen table. "The Element, Mom, that’s the one I fit in the best," gushed the Dog Walker. He always thinks we are actually planning to BUY one of the cars they drive. That’s about the time the Gym Rat walked in. "Dad, do you want to take me back over to the bank and see if we can get my car started?" he asked. So they headed outside. About a half-hour later they returned in our large van. "Any luck?" I said hopefully. "No. It still wouldn’t start." "Why did you take the big van?" I questioned. "I hate to tell you this, but now the minivan won’t start either," my sweetie said. "That’s what you get for test-driving new cars," I teased. "You know, Teach has had trouble with her car this week too." 

Later this evening we were having family prayer and getting the kids ready for bed when the Drama Queen called. My sweetie talked to her for a few minutes. "You’ll never believe it," he said, "her car is acting up." She drives a 1988 Toyota. "She can’t get it to go in reverse!" Maybe it is time to buy a car that was made during this century.

Me in our Hyundai during our "Starving-Student" days.

Friday Freebies: Local Library

I am constantly on the lookout for free (or nearly free) activities for my family. We thought it would be fun to make Friday our Friday Freebies and share one good cheap idea of things you can do with your family.  I told you already about Cow Appreciation Day, but the month of July seems like forever away with the super cold weather we’ve been having. This kind of weather just makes me want to curl up with a cup of hot chocolate and a good book. Not that I’ve read a real grownup book in over a year…but kid books are fun too. 

I can’t remember not loving to read. My mom was a reader and my dad was a teacher, so books were a huge part of my life. My mom always had a stack of romance novels in the bathroom. I felt funny about removing them since I never knew which one she was reading at that exact moment. Her favorite bookmark was three squares of unused toilet paper, but there were often several books stacked on the edge of the tub that had her trademark. There were many days when I monopolized our only bathroom for hours at a time. By then one of my seven siblings was often pounding on the door, doing the potty dance while I was trying to stand up because my feet had fallen asleep from sitting so long. And we won’t even talk about the ring…. 

My dad drove the Bookmobile every summer to all the small towns in our state. It was a travelling library in a bus. When we checked out books, we took a box the size of an orange crate and filled it so full we could hardly carry it home. I specifically remember one time when I was about 10. I had checked out nearly 100 chapter books, you know, Ramona the Brave, Little House on the Prairie, The Boxcar Children…stuff like that. I spread them out on my floor side by side like a carpet and I started reading them one after another. I spent many sunny summer days with a good book. My favorite place to read was on our roof. I would climb out of my bedroom window with a pillow and 2 or 3 books and just shut myself off from the world for a few hours. After I was married, my mom went to work as a librarian. 

So Teach was in the library the other day and she ran across the Beehive Bingo Reading program. When you have blackout, you get one of the Beehive Award Nominee books for FREE! My kids also love to read so this one was perfect for them. We checked out a huge stack of books and Bossy brought her kids over and we had our own storytime. 

The library has all kinds of fun programs going on all the time. We attended a magic show one evening, and one of my all time favorites was held for the release of one of the Harry Potter books. They had a band that played Harry Potter songs and the county library system put on a free outdoor concert. People dressed up like the characters from the book and danced and sang along. The kids loved it! Our library also has a summer reading program where you can sign up for small prizes and coupons throughout the summer and then redeem your calendar for a free book. They also hold storytime for the little ones. So next time you are feeling particularly cheap but you want something fun, head to the library. It’s way more than just books.

Mother-of-the-Year

 Have you ever felt like the number one candidate for the Bad Parent of the Year award? I had a day like that yesterday.  My little five-year-old Scout and I both hate getting out of our nice warm beds.  She could sleep past noon any day of the week and be perfectly fine with it.  Usually this doesn't bother me that much, but sometimes...

So yesterday at about nine I called her down for breakfast. Preschool starts at ten and I wanted her to shower first. After the third call, I stomped my way up the stairs, turned on the water, and headed for the bed. I picked her up, stripped her down, and set her in the shower. She was NOT happy! After ten minutes of voicing her complaints rather loudly, I turned off the water and wrapped her in a towel. After telling her to get dressed, I headed back downstairs to find her coat and backpack. (I don’t know how her backpack gets lost every day.)

Fifteen minutes and plenty of reminders later, I finally got her downstairs. With Baby Doll not feeling well I was definitely more annoyed then usual so I continued to lecture her as I pulled on her clothes and boots. She sniffled and sobbed while I combed her hair. When her carpool arrived the tears were still flowing. Instead of running out on her own, I had to walk her to the car.  The whole time I complained about how the baby was getting cold and she didn’t care. I must confess I breathed a sigh of relief when she was finally strapped in and on her way. 

After school neither of us were much happier. She showed me her preschool work and I cussed her for not giving her tuition check to the teacher.  She complained about lunch and I got after her for not doing her job. She offered to hold the baby, but Baby Doll was almost as ornery as me so I refused. "You don’t need me!" she stormed at me. "You don’t even love me!" That one hurt. "Of course I need you…I need you to do your job!" This was not coming out right. "I’m just trying to teach you to be responsible and do the right thing!" Oh, the bad mom points were stacking up now. Why didn’t I just put my arms around her and tell her I loved her? At that moment I was just as stubborn as she was.

Later that night, things hadn’t gotten much better. The baby still had a tummy ache and I was out of patience. It was 12:30 and everyone was in bed, including me when she came into my room. "I’m scared and I want to sleep with you," she said. "You can’t sleep with me, you can sleep in the little racecar bed," I replied. So she climbed into the toddler bed we keep next to the crib for scared or sick little ones.

Thirty seconds later she asked, "Is the door locked?" I assured her it was. "Can robbers and kidnappers get in?" she questioned. I reassured her again. She climbed out of bed. "I want to sleep in your bed," she said. "No!" I was definitely not giving in on this point. "You can sleep on the bench," I said firmly. (We have a padded bench at the foot of our bed about three feet closer than the toddler bed.  She could reach out and touch my foot if she got scared.) "I want to sleep in your bed!" she insisted. "You can sleep on the floor by the side of my bed," I suggested. "No!" she wailed. This exchange went on for about 15 minutes. The more she whined, the more stubborn I became.

http://www.fanpop.com/spots/pon-zi/links/16397918

She finally made her way back to her room and climbed in bed with Crafty. I was riddled with guilt and regret. Was I just being mean?  The day had not gone well. It took me about two minutes to crawl back out of bed, find my bifocals, and head down the hall. I tripped over the dolls and toys strewn on the floor; she still hadn’t done her job.  Her eyes were closed and she appeared to be asleep.  I smoothed the hair back on that sweet little forehead. She didn’t look so stubborn now. I leaned in for a kiss and her eyes flickered open. "I love you, Honey," I whispered. "Goodnight." She sighed and rolled over. Maybe now we could both sleep.

Hot Potato

There’s never a day that goes by around here without some kind of excitement or another. I told you it was the Gym Rat’s birthday the other day. We have a tradition that on your birthday, you get to choose what you want to eat for dinner (within reason, of course). He chose steak and potatoes, an expensive but acceptable choice. He even offered to make the potatoes himself, commenting that he had a new recipe he wanted to try out.  That was great with me. I don’t really like cooking anyway and if he made the potatoes and my sweetie cooked the steaks on the grill, the only thing left for me to do was open a few cans of corn. 

We had planned dinner at 6:30, but he showed up late with a bag of potatoes. After looking at his recipe, he realized that he was supposed to bake the potatoes before he fried them. By then the steaks were almost done and all of the other food was just sitting. So he threw the potatoes into a skillet and with a little help from Bossy, soon they were steaming and about ready to go. 

Because we were already running behind schedule and we had friends coming over for cake, we put all the food on the table and quickly gathered the family. After a 10-second prayer, everybody dug in. (It didn’t help that there were about three minutes left in the Super Bowl and it was still anybody’s game. ‘Grats to the Packers – to my son-in-law, "You were right again, but don’t let it go to your head!") 

Anyway, my 14-year-old Princess took a big bite of those yummy steamy potatoes, not realizing how hot they were. She choked and breathed and tears streamed down her face as they burned all the way down. When cold water didn’t soothe the ache, I gave her a popsicle. That helped some and eventually she rejoined the party. Fast forward to the next morning. About 10:30 she texted me that her throat hurt. So I called the doctor’s office and waited impatiently for the next 20 minutes until they called me back. Yes, she could swallow, no, I didn’t ask about her pain scale (someday I’ll tell you how much I hate the pain scale!), and a half dozen other questions that I didn’t think to ask her. So I hung up the phone and after another 20 minutes of furious texting, I called the doctor’s office again. 

This time they must have been waiting for my call because they called right back. Her pain scale, which was 6, by the way, was acceptable, but if she didn’t feel better within about 24 hours, she needed to be seen. I settled down, sent her a message that she needed to eat ice cream and yogurt, and went back to my mountain of laundry. My kids come home from school in small groups; first high school, then middle school, and finally the elementary kids. When she and the Prima Donna came in I was relieved to hear that she was feeling better and no follow up appointment would likely be necessary. 

Stickers available Cafe Press

Less than an hour later, ten-year-old Crafty bursts through the front door. Blood and snot and tears are streaming down her face. "I fell off my scooter!" she wails. I grab a cool, wet rag to staunch the flow. As I gently wipe the road rash on her cheek and upper lip, I punch the number of the doctor’s office into my phone for the third time that day. Maybe I should have gone into medicine.

What about you Mom & Dad readers?  Have you ever had days like this on hold with the doctor's office all day?  Do you recognize your doctor's medical assistant's voice?  Has the receptionist ever joked about you setting up a tent in the waiting room?  Non-parents can enter too just leave your best story about your own childhood and how you drove your parents crazy with doctor visits.  Leave a comment telling me your experience and I will pick one lucky reader's story and send them one of Grandma's special quilts to help hug away those boo-boos.   The give-away ends on Friday, February 18th at 11:59PM Mountain Standard Time.  Share this with your friends and be sure to enable your e-mail in your profile so I can contact you if you are the winner. Contest is closed thanks for all the great entries.  Winner with be notified tomorrow and announced on the blog on Monday.

Grandma's Wonderful Quilt