Missing Manic Monday: Preview

Sorry I've not been giving a preview of these words on Fridays.  I keep forgetting.  I've been going out of town a lot and when do we leave?  On Fridays.  I was sorely tempted to pick a different word today when I saw preview... click on the next word until I found one I felt like writing about.  But that was the whole point of using the random word generator... randomness.  The thing I liked about Mo's Manic Monday was I had to figure out how to incorporate whatever word he came up with into my blog post.  Not pick a word I felt like writing about and go from there.  So, I kept preview.

Is it just me or does going out of town stress you out?  Here is my normal modus operandi when I'm preparing to go out of town:

• Think about all the packing I need to do. (even if "all the packing" is not very much packing)
• Think about it some more.
• Think about how I want my house clean because who wants to come home to a messy house?
• Friday morning rolls around and I think some more about how I want things clean and what I need to do.
• Do all the laundry I have piled up.  For some reason, I feel compelled to have completely empty laundry baskets when I leave town.  Although in recent weeks, this has changed because of our new bathroom in the basement.  You see, it's half bathroom, half laundry room, complete with a five foot folding countertop.  It's amazing!  I am suddenly the Laundress Queen Extraordinaire and I do my laundry, folded and put away ALL.  THE.  TIME.  It's simply amazing what a difference a beautiful space does to your desire, not to mention functionality, of keeping it in order.  
• Think about how I need to clean out the car before we leave, because who wants to travel in a messy car?  
• Get stressed out by all the things I need to.
• "Rest" from all the thinking via brain-check-out, courtesy of the internet.
• Waste too much time online and finally pull myself away. 
• Mentally kick myself because I've wasted so much time and I have so much to do.
• Run around like a crazy person trying to get ready.  This stage involves a lot of sweaty armpits and may or may not involve *actually* cleaning the car and my house, depending on just how much time got wasted on the internet.  (Yes, I just said sweaty armpits on my blog.  Uncensored.)
• Leave at least one hour later than I wanted to. 
• More metal butt-kicking.
• Fall asleep in car, conditions pending.  *This final step has temporarily been bumped from "pending" to "omitted" thanks to the recent addition of one Brynja Leigh to our family.  :o)

 Do you see why I get stressed out about leaving town? 

For those of you who may be shaking your head in disbelief at my self-sabotaging ways (myself included), I would like to report that, while this has been my *normal* M.O. for most of my life (except the internet part... that particular distraction only showed up in the last five years or less), I am slowly changing my ways.  The old Clancy was so dependably late.  It was just ridiculous.  And, thus, the old Clancy would mentally rip herself to ribbons.  The inner critic had a heyday between the time-wasting, messy house, messy car, piles of laundry, and extreme lateness to top it all off.  It was a Self-Deprecation Party of epics proportions. 

But.

The new Clancy (which is actually still the old Clancy, but a Clancy that is trying everyday to improve herself in small ways and learning to love herself unconditionally regardless of her apparent successes or failures) has, for the last few out-of-town excursions, been ready at a decent time with, at minimum, a partially clean house, or a house at a higher level of clean than she started the day with. 

This last Friday, I managed to be ready by about 4:00, which was the time we were slotted to leave.  We didn't leave until about 6:00, but this was, in fact, due to Big O Tires and not due to Clancy.  We took our car in for new tires, an alignment and a replacement of "sway bar bushings" (whatever those are) and ended up having to replace the "inner tie rods" as well.  So, an extra $200 and an additional two hours, we left feeling much safer on our journey to the City of Salt. 

I'm so proud of me.  :-)

A Farewell and A Homecoming

Dustin's has an aunt named Gloria. On the 16th of January her kids threw her and her husband a party for their birthdays.  Gloria turned 70 and Gale, her husband, turned 85.  I debated on whether or not to go to the party... it was in Salt Lake... and finally decided not to go.  I told Dustin he should drive our van (which is "my" car since I usually have the kids with me) because his car had been acting terrible.

Terrible is an understatement.  This little Nissan that he drove has always had "issues".  We bought if from my sister and her husband a few years ago... maybe 3 years... and it came with issues.  Hence, the $500 price tag that they sold it to us for.  It was a cute little Nissan Sentra with some electrical problems.  When we bought the car, Josh warned us of a few known "issues":

• The wiper switch doesn't work.  It's been bypassed and there's a toggle switch that is down below the steering wheel for the wipers. 
• The wipers only have one speed.  Slow.  Not intermittent, but slow.  
• The wipers will turn off the moment you turn off the toggle switch, meaning, if the wipers are mid-windshield, they will stop there.  You have to time the "turning off" while the wipers are at the bottom of the windshield.  
• The blower for the heating/AC system only works on one setting: High.  If you have the AC on, put it on defrost and you won't freeze.  (unless you have backseat passengers... they WILL freeze, but the driver and passenger will be in good shape!)
• Oh yeah, and the dome light doesn't work.  
• And, sometimes the dash lights don't work but if you ball up your fist and hit the dash in a certain sweet spot, they will usually come back on. 
• And lastly we were warned very seriously, "DO NOT ADJUST THE TILT ON THE STEERING WHEEL.  IT WILL ARC."
• Arc?
• ARC.  AS IN MINI LIGHTENING BOLTS.
• Awesome.

So, a $500 check was written, warnings were heeded and we were happy customers.  The issues we were warned about became routine.  We got used to the quirks of the car.  When we bought the car it had about 116,000 miles on it.  I think Dustin drove it for about three years.  His trip to Salt Lake would have rolled it over the 180,000 mile mark.  $500 for three years and about 64,000 miles?  Not bad, I say.

But, as the years passed, the list of "issues" grew longer.

• The first time I drove the little car anywhere (which was when we had it about 2 weeks) the alternator died.  I love being a girl, who knows nothing about cars and getting stranded two hours away from home on a country road.  Thank goodness for cell phones.  This was an easy fix for my husband who DOES know about cars.  And it was nice because it broke down not too far from where my childhood friend, Beth, lived and she came and picked me up and we had a nice visit until Dustin arrived.  Bonus!
• After a while, the car started to burn more oil.  And we had to check it often. 
• Last summer the AC stopped working all together.  We never figured out why and my poor hubby just had a nice hot ride to and from work. (which is a 30 mile commute... poor, sweaty Dustin.)
• Also last summer the fan blower, which only worked on high, stopped working at all.  So, no air would move through the car.  It does have windows that (thankfully) are not electronic... the windows would roll down.  So, that wasn't such a problem until winter came.  As you might guess, heaters are important in a car in Idaho... not just heaters, but blowers for the heaters.  So, Dustin hard-wired the blower so it was on ALL THE TIME.  You couldn't turn it off if you wanted to.  
• The dash lights that used to work with that magic fist pounding stopped turning on, even when you hit the dash til your fist hurt.
• The oil, which we thought was burning, was actually coming out of the exhaust somewhere.  The back of his car would get BLACK with oil.  It was gross and made for some very interesting misadventures while trying to get into the trunk.
• Just recently, the ever-temperamental dash lights started working again... without any fist-intervention.  We don't know why.  But that was a nice feature for a little while.
• Oil consumption (or leakage, as the case may be) went through the roof during the last year we owned this little car.  I'm embarrassed to say how much oil had to be added on a regular basis.  Like every time you filled up the gas tank!  (it rhymes with "due ports")

We knew that the end was near for Dustin's trusty little car.  That was why I asked him to drive our van, which is much more reliable.  He wouldn't do it and he set out on his adventure to Salt Lake which I had a certain feeling would end with him on the side of the road and me loading up our three kids and driving down to rescue him.

My intuition proved correct.  He had been gone about an hour and a half when I got a call.


"Hi honey.  I don't know if I'm going to make it to Salt Lake... I'm hearing knocking noises from my engine."


Even I, a girl who knows nothing about cars, knows that knocking in your engine is not a good noise.


"Uh oh," I reply.


"Yeah," he continues.  "I think I'm going to turn around and see if I can limp along the old highway going slow and make it back home."


"Ok," I say.  "Do you think you can make it?"


"Maybe.  I'm not sure though.  I pulled over and added another quart of oil when I first heard the knocking.  We'll see if it does any.... OH CRAP!  NOPE!  THERE IT GOES!" he nearly shouted.


"What!?"


"There was a very bad noise.  I just threw a rod or sucked a valve or something bad.  I've got white smoke.  I hope I can make it to the gas station I just passed," he stated.  "I'll call you in a bit and let you know."


"Okay, love."  I reply dubiously.  "Shall I load up the kids in the van?"


"Yep... you better get ready to come and get me."


Sometimes I hate it when I'm right.  I jumped in the shower and got the kids ready.  Meanwhile, Dustin called back and forth to me with various plans.  Our mechanic/lawyer friend (funny combo, I know!) had offered to bring a tow dolly and tow Dustin back home.  That would be nice for me... not having to go down and pick him up or hire a tow truck to tow the car.  Complications arose with that plan and it didn't work out.  Other plans were discussed and discarded.  Finally it was decided. 

The car was not worth putting another engine in or even rebuilding it.  All the other "issues" made the car a headache that we were happy to unload.  Dustin called a wrecker and told him that he'd trade him the title of the car for the cost of towing it.  I drove down to Dustin, title in hand, suitcase packed and picked Dust up.  He signed the title, left it on the seat of the car where it awaited the wrecker.  We all proceeded to go to Salt Lake City and shop for a new-used car in the "big city".


And we found one.


And so I now say farewell to the little Nissan that served us so well for the meager $500 price tag.

And I say hello to an old-but-new-to-us 1996 Volvo 850.  My brother-in-law, Josh, works at a car dealership.  They had just gotten this one in on trade and it was one of those cars you hope you can buy if you're buying used and trying to keep it fairly cheap.  This car was very clean and meticulously maintained by a single owner throughout it's life.  The old man who owned it was obsessive in the care of this car.  Records were kept and kept well.  We had a 10 page printout of service records... oil changes every 2500 miles, new timing belt at 70,000 miles... if this car hiccuped, this old man brought it to the dealership for inspection.  There was only 90,000 miles on this car.  And, because my bro-in-law is the BEST, we got a screamin' deal on it, way under book value.

Thanks also to my in-laws who loaned a portion of the cost of the car so we could avoid financing.  We will pay them back this month when we get our tax refund and we will own this car without having to pay any interest!  :-)  Hooray!

And my favorite part about this car?  Dustin loves it.  He feels good in it.  It's an energy shift for him to drive something he feels good driving.  It's got a stock sound system, but apparently what comes stock in Volvo is pretty good because Dustin has been blown away that a radio can actually sound good!  He's made me laugh countless times with his marveling over the sound of his new car's radio. 

Our trip to Salt Lake ended happily (as happy as you can be spending a few thousand dollars on a car!).  I didn't want to drive home in separate cars, but we didn't have much choice.  But, my ever-loving and ever-adored husband gave his very pregnant wife a special treat... he let me drive the new(ish) Volvo and he took all the kids in the van.  Three hours of quiet, no arguing kids, no requests for water or food, no "Mom I need to pee!"... Just me and the Volvo's booming stereo....  Heaven!!!

 

Alien Abduction

A road trip to Phoenix makes me believe in alien life. I'm pretty sure there's some strange transporter that zaps you to another planet when you come down out of the mountains at Flagstaff. It's my favorite explanation for the strange world we dropped into... gigantic seguro cacti dotting the landscape, reaching skyward with their strange alien arms.

I have proof, you see. This is me screaming and cowering under the said abductors....

We actually figured out that these were just sentinels standing ready for when the real aliens came back. Once we figured that out, my mom and I were able to relax... even standing in the shadow of the alien guardians.

I even got brave enough to poke a little fun at this one... (No pun intended. Honest!)


These things are just SO big! I had no idea how tall they were. I've seen many pictures of these weird things, but seeing them in person was just plain crazy. OK, it creeped me out, to be totally honest.

Prickly pear dotted the landscape too. There were very large specimens of these too, but I didn't bother to get a better shot. One poke in the finger was enough!

I came to the conclusion that it's a crazy, crazy world out there with some strange, strange things to see. I'm grateful that I could get a glimpse of some of the weirdness this last weekend.