Tuesday, January 15, 2008

One of those weeks...

...and it's only Tuesday. Heavens to Murgatroid. As you read this keep in mind that I'm not sobbing, having a fit, or any other negative type behavior. I'm laughing and I'm not sure why. ~ Okay, Monday morning R comes in the house just before she leaves for school and informs me that I "have to" water the horses because the tank is empty and she doesn't have time to fill it. Well, la di da, and who forgot to fill the tank on Sunday? Twerp. So I get ready for work and drive the van down to the water spigot and when I got out the van sounded funny, like it was still trying to start. I thought, you crazy thing. The key is not even in you and you are not turned on. Straighten up and die right. So I started it again to see if it would start and it did. I let it run while I attempted to water the horses. R unhooked the hose the last time she watered them but failed to lay it out straight so all the water would run out, and it was frozen. Nope, no water was going to go through that hose. So I got in the car and called my mom because dad left early in the morning to go out of town. I asked her if she could water the horses once the hose thawed out. It was a morning full of passing the buck to momma. I told her that something screwy was going on with the van and when I got to the end of the driveway I saw smoke coming out from under the hood. I turned it off and it actually stopped running this time and I called T. He came back home and got me and took me to work. The girls were originally going to get off the bus where I work and take the van so they could drive it to play practice. I made plans for my mom to take them to play practice and called the school to leave messages for them to ride the bus home. T made arrangements with a guy from church to help him tow the van up the driveway and into dad's barn. Can we do anything within the realm of normal? Nope. They pulled the van up here and then got the tractor out of the barn to put the van in. When I walked out there they were lining up the tractor to push the van. What?!?! I made a few suggestions and they got over ruled so I "drove" the van while friend held a flashlight up to his hand so T could see the hand motions to know what he was supposed to do with the bucket of the tractor to push the van. We went straight forward with it and then let it roll back to where it was lined up to go straight into the barn. Then lined it up and pushed it again. It worked and there were no new scratches, dents, etc. on the van. They decided the starter was burned up and T took it off, went to town to get a new one, and got it put on the vehicle by about 9 p.m. The battery is still dead. We don't know if it was just drained or if it's burned up too. It is currently in the barn on life support (battery charger). We're hopeful that it will start this evening and all will be well, with the van anyway.

This morning right after T and the girls left for school/work I got a call from T that something burned up on the Jeep. I didn't believe him. He kept telling me he was serious and I kept saying, no way. He hung up to look at it. Then he made a phone call and called me back. He told me where he was, that "the neighbor" took the girls to school (I don't even know yet which neighbor) that someone was stopping to get him to take him to work, and that he'd call that nice friend from church back and see if he could help haul home another one of our broken down vehicles. You know what I say? Ha!! It's all so crazy that you just have to laugh. It's funny. He is suspecting the transmission on the Jeep. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to drive a car with less than 100K miles on it. Both of these vehicles have long since passed that mark. The Jeep has 208K and the van has 189K. Apart from the fact that neither one of them work, they are really good vehicles. Really. I hope the transmission isn't shot. If it is, it's probably not worth repairing. Time will tell. I'll keep you posted.

I drove my dad's huge truck to teach my Abstinence classes this morning. I feel very small in it. We have another friend who has offered their truck to us while they are out of town this weekend. I thought that was very brave of them to offer, considering our current track record. I think we can figure out how to juggle the rides tomorrow IF the van decides to run. Otherwise I'm not so sure. We have one vehicle left. It's T's '66 Chevy stepside that has yet to be on the road since we've owned it. It's very close to being on the road, but not there yet. I figure it's pretty safe though. The only thing that could happen to it is for a tree or the carport to fall on it. A friend told me this morning about a Chuck Swindoll quote that goes something like this; Some of life's greatest opportunities come to us cleverly disguised as impossible situations. To that I say, "Have at it, Lord!"

No comments: