Ambition Arrives With the Daffodils

Well, Sunday seems to be my blogging day lately! Things have just been so busy the past couple of months...and yet not a lot of progress made on things that need to get done. This weekend we really had our first dose of spring (even felt a little like summer yesterday), and I think that kicked us into gear. Ambition arrived with the daffodils...

Aside from the usual spring clean-up of the yard (which is still in progress), it has hit me that there are a lot of things that need to happen before this baby of ours is born. I have a long list of items to accomplish around the house, A#1 being getting the nursery in order. I was just able to (finally) order the crib and dresser/changer that I wanted, and it will be here in the next week or two, so now I am faced with the reality of getting those boxes of "stuff" out of there...and getting the door and closet doors painted. I'm making some progress this weekend on those things as well as getting started on a couple of sewing projects. Not to mention we have guests coming next weekend, so there is cleaning that has slowly been getting done...

Husband and Brandon were not exempt from this spring fever. On Friday, Husband decided it was finally time to stain and seal the deck. Yesterday the sanding, staining, and sealing began. A good portion of it is done, and judging by the way it looks in the rain today, it's holding up nicely and looks pretty good. They both worked hard yesterday and are pretty pooped today. Once everything is dried out this week, they'll be finishing up.

Progress, however slow! The next couple of weeks are going to be very, very busy for me at work, and then it will be May. It's crazy how fast the time has flown. I think I've stayed ahead of the curve so far on this pregnancy, but I can feel it catching up to me now. A little slower to get up, and a lot more tired after doing just a little bit of physical work. Not to mention my ankles look like tree trunks and my feet rival those of Andre the Giant by the end of the day.

I think the hammock needs to come out soon, too. :)

All is Quiet

We spent a wonderful, relaxing Easter weekend in Iowa with my family, and have now been home for a few hours. Brandon is at his mom's and Buddy is still at the kennel...it's darn quiet around here! It's been nice having a quiet weekend with Husband, but it's a little strange without "the boys" here. I have to think that we should be enjoying this quiet; that in a couple of months life is never going to be the same, never going to be quite all ours again. At the same time though, it makes me know we are ready for a hustling, bustling house filled with love and laughter (and I know some crying and screaming too). I'll take it all!

Car Saga Continued...

After the abrupt end to my love affair with the K-Car (as it was so aptly put by Canadian rockers Bare Naked Ladies, If I had a million dollars...I would buy you a K-Car, a nice reliant automobile...), I really wanted to love my next car, a Dodge Spirit. Instead I grew to hate it, because something about this car definitely hated me.

I don't recall specifically when it all started, but a short time after that Easter 1999 incident, my dad found the Spirit for me and I once again had my own wheels. I think the first thing that happened was while driving between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, the tread on one of the back tires just completely peeled off, for no apparenty reason than it just felt like it. Within a couple of weeks, I sprung a flat on another tire.

Sometime that summer while driving to work, the fuel pump went out. I also had to replace the gas tank. In late July, I was in Council Bluffs, IA participating as a bridesmaid in the wedding of a friend. We had just finished the rehearsal dinner and re-entered the outside world to a torrential downpour. Streets were quickly becoming flooded, and I drove back to my hotel as carefully as I could, but something went awry. The next morning I had to get up at the buttcrack of dawn (yes that is a technical term) to get it towed and figure out what was wrong with it before all of the hair and makeup hoopla began. Turns out I had blown one of the front rotors. Not a cheap fix.

That fall, I was driving back from the gym to my apartment in Iowa City. I was just about to turn the corner onto my street, when I heard a clunk. I got out and peered underneath, and just started laughing. There, resting on the asphalt, was the main pipe serving my exhaust system. I jimmied it up with a wire coat hanger and proceeded to the nearest Exhaust Pros.

In 2000, I replaced the brakes, pads, and a couple other things on the car, and also blew the serpentine belt while on a trip to Des Moines visiting friends. I had to hitch a ride back to Iowa City with a friend's husband and come back a week later for the car because no part stores were open on Sunday. Since I seemed to have a knack for things going wrong with the car while I was out of town, I was actually surprised nothing happened to it during my summer in Minneapolis that year. Never fear though...that winter a 16-year-old with a new license smacked into me in a parking lot and left a nice divot.

In January 2001, I moved permanently to Minneapolis. Incidentally sometime that year, the remainder of the exhaust system decided to crap out. After my first taste of a big-city repair estimate, I took a risk and drove it back to Storm Lake (thankfully without incident) to get it totally replaced.

In early 2002, I started shopping for a new car, and I mean new car. I was sick of all this repair BS. After negotiating a good deal (still one of my proudest moments), I was the owner of a 2002 Honda Civic, a FANTASTIC car that I still drive today.

The Spirit still had one last kick in the arse left for me, however. There was a period of time that I had both cars, until some exchange could take place to deliver it to my younger brother. I parked the Honda in the indoor garage space at my apartment, and the Spirit stayed parked in the street. During a time I was gone out of town for a few days, the city decided to sweep the street, and I had not seen the signs ahead of time (because I was parking inside). The car got towed, and it was a sweet $135 to retrieve it.

Man, I was glad to see that thing go! I'm not sure what happened to it when Justin took it over, or where it ended up after leaving our family. I just turned around and never looked back.

Tunes on 2s - Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Pat Benatar (1980)

Tunes on 2s returns! Just in time for the spring season…

Well you're the real tough cookie with the long history
Of breaking little hearts, like the one in me
That's O.K., lets see how you do it
Put up your dukes, lets get down to it
Hit me with your best shot
Why don't you hit me with your best shot...

Listen/watch here

My very first car was a trusty little used Plymouth Reliant K that I believe was acquired during my sophomore year of college (1995). It was a boxy little maroon/dark red; my friends dubbed it “The Little Red Box.”

The Friday before Easter 1999 (10 years ago?!) I was driving the K-car along a stretch of Interstate 80 between Iowa City and Des Moines, headed to my parents’ house. I was grooving along quite nicely, enjoying the drive. I turned up the radio, hearing the opening strains of a good song. I was just starting to sing along when I saw something in the middle of the road up ahead. It was coming up fast, some chunk of metal, and I had ditch on the left side, another car on the right, and no time to slow down. I swerved and braked as much as possible and CLUNK …I bounced but was still on the road, but was rapidly losing power… the speedometer was going off the charts as I pushed on the gas, but the car wasn’t going anywhere. Unsure of what to do, car slowly coasting along, I noticed the radio was still blasting that tune I was so eager to sing – “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.” How ironic.

I was luckily near an exit, so I coasted through and turned into an antique mall. This was pre-cell phone, so I went in and called the person who would know exactly what to do - my dad. I explain the situation, in tears of course, and he instructed me to get towed to Newton, get the car in the shop and call him back when I knew what was wrong with it. Turns out the “clunk” took out a corner of the transmission. Translation – would cost more to fix than the car was worth. Upon sharing this news with dear old Dad, he offered to drive down with a trailer and pull me and the car back to Storm Lake the following day, and he’d see what he could do to patch it up.

I spent the night in a Super 8 motel room that had recently been painted - likely a few of my brain cells were lost due to those fumes. Dad arrived as promised and after inspection of the car and a call to the State Patrol, we determined that what I hit had likely been a drive shaft that was dropped from a large truck or semi.

We picked up the car and hauled it home, and the transmission was able to be patched…but the car was not up for out-of-town driving. My first car was lost to me forever. Such a good little car – no problems with it whatsoever, and then I had to go and take out her transmission.

Apparently car karma was not done with me. I was given my mom’s car to drive back to Iowa City, and as I pulled into town, at a stoplight about 1 mile from my apartment, the fuel pump went out.

Thus began a long string of car issues that shall be reserved for another post (anyone remember the next car, the Dodge Spirit, aka “Christine?”)…but it all started, appropriately, with “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.”

Author's note: On a completely unrelated topic, I can totally rock this song on Guitar Hero.