Capriciality

I am a horrible judge of pita chip to hummus/chip to dip ratio. I underestimated how many pita chips I was going to need to finish the amount of hummus I have, so I just got the bag. It seems to be working out well. Now if I can only make my one little glass of wine last. Tiny sips, Jenster. Tiny baby sips.

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Katie’s car is in the shop. Last Wednesday as she was driving two other girls to school there was a pop and then smoke coming from the hood. Todd was, of course, out of town. Taylor was with him. I was in the shower as she tried to call me three times, back to back. One of her friend’s mother stopped by the house to tell me what had happened. Missy picked the girls up to take them to school and I was left to get the car picked up by a tow truck and to the shop.

It was 11 degrees when she left for school that morning. The mechanic told me later that day the radiator hoses were frozen and the “pop” was when one of them came off the radiator. The “smoke” was the fluid hitting the hot engine. He wasn’t going to be able to investigate further until the hoses had thawed out. We were hoping and praying with everything that it was only the radiator. New hoses and a radiator flush – while not cheap – is doable. Turns out there is actually something wrong with the engine. Poor Ruby.

The kid we bought the car from – a good friend of Taylor’s – is a mechanic and he’s going to price out parts and we’ll go from there. Hopefully having Nick do the repairs will still make it doable. Otherwise we’ll be scrapping Ruby for parts. Poor Ruby.

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Taylor left to go back to college today. Well, not actually college. He’s driving to Pittsburg first to hang out with some friends who moved out there a while back. As luck would have it, his girlfriend just so happens to live in the Pittsburg area as well. Wednesday, I think, he and Shelby will then drive from the Pitt (no derogatory meaning intended) down to Lynchburg.

As much as I love having him home – and I do – I’m okay with him going back to school. He does have 1.5 years of higher education under his belt which means he’s super smart. Much smarter than his father or me. We seem to be getting dumber in direct proportion with his amount of time in college. Funny. I don’t feel dumber. Still, I can’t wait until the next time we get to see him.

(Mom and Dad – please picture me groveling as I beg for your forgiveness. Again.)

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Todd has picked up a new hobby. He’s been making these really cool paracord bracelets for just about everybody. It gives him something to do during the evening. Kind of like Grandma and her knitting.

The bracelets are also called survivor bracelets because let’s just say you’re out hiking in the woods with your buddy and he/she goes over a cliff, barely landing on a narrow ledge 12 feet below. How will you ever pull him/her up? You have no cell service and it’s much too far to hike out – you’ll never make it back before dark, leaving your friend to suffer through the elements. If only you had a rope. But that’s much too heavy. Who would ever hike with 20 feet of rope? But wait! No need to fear! You just happen to be wearing a fashionable paracord bracelet engineered by Todd. You whip it off your wrist, clip the end with your handy Swiss Army knife (because you should never hike without a Swiss Army knife) and SHAPOW! Twenty feet of military grade paracord, able to hold 550 pounds! Crisis averted.

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And that’s what’s been happening in my neck of the woods. How about yours?