What’d I miss, guys?
…guys?
Where is everyone?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
by Lauren 7 Comments
Let’s play a game!
Guess how much it cost to fix the truck!
I’ll give you a couple of hints:
It’s more than $1,892,
but it’s less than $1,894.
Enter your guess below.
This thing had all kinds of stuff wrong with it. For years the interior lights haven’t worked, it revs out of control at stop signs and occasionally idles at 25 mph, I don’t have heat in the winter and then there was this whole shaking-on-and-off when I drove it last week.
The guy said the main problem was probably the suspension, and said he’d look into the other problems. When he called Lloyd to get the go-ahead for fixing things, he found out that we have done practically nothing to this vehicle in the 12 years we’ve owned it. (It’s just our old truck. I use it to drive back and forth to work and haul things when they need haulin’.)
Craig: “Well, it looks like the coolant has never been changed?”
Lloyd: “Nope. Go ahead.”
Craig: “And these seem to be the original spark plugs?”
Lloyd: “Yep, do what you have to.”
Craig: “Your suspension is going to need new sway bar links.”
Lloyd: “Yep.”
Craig: “My kids have really been pestering me for some of those new iPads….”
Lloyd: “Do what you have to, Craig. iPads all ’round.”
Merry Christmas, Craig’s family. Sorry for neglecting you for so long, little truck.
by Lauren 7 Comments
This new medicine I’m on has to be taken 30 minutes before breakfast and dinner. I had been remembering the morning dose very well during the week (I take it before I get in the shower), but when the weekend came my routine was off and I forgot until after I ate.
I have two new ideas to try: I’m going to put a sign in the shower so hopefully I’ll remember before I get in. This has a couple of things against it: the letters will have to be huge because I’m blind and also, I shower by the light of a nightlight. (It helps me feel like I’m still in bed and not really having to wake up so early.)
Should the sign not work, though, I have a backup plan to keep some pills in the shower. Food Sucker to the rescue! I made a skinny envelope and heat-sealed some waterproof pockets for the pills.
I couldn’t get it to seal after putting the pill inside. Turns out you have to roll up the end to get it inside the ‘vacuum’ area. Lesson learned.
Heh. All this talk about ‘rolling’ and pills – I wonder what kind of spam this post will will draw.
Food Sucker plastic is impossible to tear, so I’m attaching a clippers to it in case I actually have to take out a pill. Hey, as I write this, I think I have the sign figured out, too:
Does anyone know if that nail clipper is going to rust?
Today was a day of having to get stuff done, and nearly everything going wrong. Lloyd went to his auction, which was a total bust. He sat around grading until the things he wanted sold (not to him) at 2p.m., and it turned out that he was supposed to meet someone at his school at 2. We were late.
I had errands to run, and almost everywhere I went they didn’t have the things I needed, or it was way more than I wanted to pay. I gave up.
At Lloyd’s school, after we apologized to the guy who waited for Lloyd, then I ‘helped’ Lloyd do some stuff to some of the computers. I am as bad with computers as he is with recipes: I’m very, very literal. He tells me something, I write it down and then perform the functions like a very dumb robot. The rest of his school stuff took much, much longer than I wanted it to, and I couldn’t even nap in the library because someone was working in there. How rude.
The real excitement happened on the way home. I was driving, and out of the tall grass on the side of the road came charging a bull! There was a guy there trying to keep it on the side of the road, and also a lady who had pulled over. We pulled over so Lloyd could use his farmboy skills. That bull was mad. Thankfully it never actually made it out onto the highway. It went running into a field (wrecking the fence), then down the road and into the lane of the farmer who owned it. We drove the car down to see if Lloyd could still help, and I snapped some shots. See that space in the row of hay bales? There was a hay bale there seconds before, but a mad bull decided to show us all who was boss and tossed it around like a marshmallow.
Here, you can see the space better.
Feeling useless, I drove back to the highway to be the car with the hazard lights on so cars might slow down in case he ran for the road again. He didn’t, and while I walked around the owner drove by and I told him where his bull was, so I guess that was helpful.
Later, Lloyd said they got the bull into the fenced-in yard, and the people who lived there got it into the barn, so apparently all is well and the black cow will not be out on the highway at night.
Snip snap snout. My tale’s told out.
by Lauren 9 Comments
A while ago we started the Great Re-Pillowfication of 2011. We bought a couple of nicer pillows for the guest room and a super-expensive swanky pillow for Lloyd. Seriously, every time he goes to bed he calls to me (sleeping in the next room), “I love my pillow.” I call back, “Remember when you and I used to be married?”
He and I stopped in Target Thursday afternoon for my abbreviated shopping session. (I was aggravated that the truck was broken because I had some other stops to make, but Lloyd is only good for 30 minutes of non-auction shopping, and he was my ride.) I need some long-sleeved shirts, so he just zipped through the women’s section throwing shirts willy-nilly in the cart. At one point I said, “Stop. That’s from the maternity section.”
“How can you tell?” he asked.
Eventually we passed the pillow section, and they were having a sale. We called Brad to ask him what his pillow preference was, so we could continue to rid our house of the cheap Wal-Mart pillows I race to buy right before company comes. (They are good for 20 minutes of head support, then collapse.)
Brad said his preference was ‘dense’. Well, Lloyd and I couldn’t agree on what that meant. I thought that meant ‘firm’, Lloyd seems to think it would mean stuffing two pillows into one pillowcase.
So, for today’s comment, please explain your pillow preference. I’m probably only going to buy Brad’s, but I’m curious to hear everyone’s.
Me? I’m a mostly-on-my-back sleeper, so I like a medium-full down pillow that can puff up by my cheeks for minimum head-lolling. If it’s cold I also like a pillow I can put over my eyes & forehead.
You?
The Nebraska (Lutheran) District Educator’s conference is happening now, and I attended the Thursday afternoon sessions. ‘Yay!’ for not being at work for a little bit! ‘Booooooo’ for my truck having some serious hysterics on the way into Lincoln. I called Lloyd while I was on the road and said, “If I am not at the keynote, you drive out here and find me.” He called around for a shop where we could take it, we met there, and he drove me to the conference. (We’ll know what’s wrong with it tomorrow.)
We came in a little late for the keynote (by none other than Mark Rockenbach, an old college friend who did a great job), so we sat in the back.
I discovered something about Lloyd: Not only is he a Movie Talker, he is a Conference Talker – the lowest form of humanity in my opinion. We had a good argument about it in the car, as he thinks that he is well within his rights since we sat in the back. We’ve decided to hash it out here.
Lauren (Point): People who talk during conferences should be shot in the head. It is insanely rude and they always think they are talking quietly enough that no one notices. Guess what? People do notice, and I am always sitting by the talkers and get grouped into the offended party’s disapproving glances. I desperately want to mouth, “I’m not talking! I’m not a Conference Talker! Do you have a gun?”
Your counterpoint, sir?
Lloyd (Counterpoint): Shhhhhh… I’m watching the Cardinals now.
Lauren: I win.