Date night....or not.

Saturday was one of the longest days of my life.

John and I planned on a date night Saturday night...which it always seems that when we purposely make time for a date, something tries to ruin our plans.

John asked me to come help him with one of his jobs in Chapel Hill, and told me it would take about 3 hrs. So Saturday morning at about 9am we start off the day. We had to make a little detour to drop off his trailer and pick up my father-in-law's trailer to haul some debris from the job site, which all this is in Buies Creek.

10:30am-We get to Chapel Hill and do our work. The work was as expected, around 3 hrs worth, and we head out of there around 1:30.

On our way back, we stop for a few drinks and gas, everything looking like we're going to make it back for a nice dinner, maybe a movie, and I might even get a little cleaning done before we head out for our date.

Boy, was I wrong.

2pm-As we're driving through Pittsboro on 64, the trailer blows a tire. And I mean, this trailer shred the tire, like a 18-wheeler truck tire...the entire tire came apart, tread and all. Seriously worst flat tire I have ever had.

So, we get out, check the tire to try to read what we're supposed to get, measure the bolt spacing, all that necessary stuff, and un-hook the trailer from the truck to go to a store.

Only problem, is Pittsboro is in the sticks. So, no one is open on a Saturday. We call one place and they say they don't even carry trailer tires but that we should call Lowe's, as they are the only place that might possibly have a tire. So we call, they say they have "some" trailer tires, so off we go.

2:30pm-We get to Lowe's and start looking. The tires on the trailer are 14" tires, the only ones Lowe's has is 13" and 15". After much deliberation and finally just a leap of I'm-tired-lets-get-of-here decision making we go with the 13" tires. We also measure the rims here, as Lowe's only sells the entire wheel, with tire and rim and all, and we have to make sure this fits. And back out to the side of the Hwy we go.

3:00pm-We are back on the side of 64, taking off the bum tire, and line up the new tire, and what do you think happens? The rims don't line up properly. We measure again, everything is measuring like this should be perfect. Ok, try again...nope sorry, not going on.

So John gets this seriously genius idea, and gets out his drill and bores out the holes to widen a few of them to help make the bolts fit. Only problem...the battery on the drill dies. Seriously.

We are both getting pretty upset at this point. The rims are now closer to fitting properly..just not quite there to put the lugs on the bolts and keep this tire on.

We start calling John's family to figure out what is the best thing to do, I start calling my dad who used to sell trailers and knows all about this type problem.

My dad tells me "oh aren't trailer companies smart" and tells me that in order to keep the prices of trailers low, the companies buy the cheapest parts sometimes. Which also means that this rim which is "standard" will not fit on our non-standard trailer. This only upsets us more, because now we know that we were doing correctly and measured everything right, nothing should be happening like this.

John starts hammering the bolts to make them fit into the holes.

4:30pm - FINALLY!!! The tire makes it on the trailer. Now, we're missing a lug. Started off with 5, have 4, and one is somehow stripped and wont tighten, so we're really down to 3 working lugs. Not good for a tire that already has had some pressure put on it with the hammering and drilling. We drive half a mile down the road, and after watching the new tire wiggle and wobble, decide to take a lug from the "good" tire (if you can say that) and put it on the new tire side. This seems to help put the tire on tighter and down the road we go.

5:15pm We finally get to my father-in-laws. By this time, date night has turned into a veg night.

John starts to change over his trailer and realizes that since cleaning up the Chapel hill site, now has more tools than fit in his truck and trailer. So what does that mean? It means Now we have to organize his trailer to fit all the stuff in.

Seriously.

So, we organize his trailer. and I remind him that I have a Rx that we need to pick up in Garner, and that CVS closes probably at 9 or 10. It is 8:00 now and date night is completely cancelled, with a promise to reschedule when we are not as stressed and tired.

8:50pm-We make it to CVS to find out that the pharmacy in CVS is closed. and closed at 6pm. Oh we can buy anything in CVS...just not what we rushed over there to get.

9:20pm-We make it home, we're both ticked and tired and completely wishing that this day was over about 8 hrs before.



I'm still exhausted from Saturday. I need a recovery day from the weekend.


There are just a few things that I am glad about on Saturday:

1-I had the genius idea of hooking the trailer up to the truck before changing the tire. Think few/several hundred pounds all balancing on one tire and a jack....could spell serious issues for 64.

2-We put that extra lug on the bad tire side to help with the wobbling. Seriously saw a premonition of the trailer breaking an axel, causing us to end up in the ditch, possibly flipping over, and some serious injuries.

3-As a result of #2-Thank God for watching over us. I just felt this urgent need to pray for us for our safety.





Thank you God, for being there to keep us safe when we were obviously tired, stressed, seriously ticked-off driving an un-safe trailer.

Changing Job Titles

Last night, John puts in one of the two loads of laundry in our *free* dryer, and our dryer stops working.

It already had the problem of not turning off on its own, but that was why we got it for free. Now it doesn't turn the clothes, so not really doing much good just throwing some heat in there on a big pile of wet clothes.

So I'm changing my title from the "Vacuum Repair Lady" to the "Dryer Repair Lady."

I'm thinking the belt is broken, and I have no idea how to fix the timer thing that was originally wrong.

We'll see...


Also, the vacuum is officially broken. The brushes don't even turn now.

Round 2 on the vacuum (Betty) may commence this weekend as well.



Hmm maybe I need to name this dryer too...I'm pretty sure the surgery on it will get pretty intense...it might need a name. Post some name suggestions if you're feeling creative.

Health

I have been really thinking about health today. Here are a few things that are running around in my mind, that maybe you care about too.

1-Is this sunburn on my face going to turn into cancer? Went to the beach this weekend, and put on tons of sunscreen. However, got in the ocean and boogied on a little board, ocean tried to drown me a few times, and washed off my sunscreen. Got to talking it up to some of the ladies and forgot to reapply. Hince my wonderful red face which is now peeling. I'm a fair skinned strawberry blonde, and get burnt pretty easily, and pretty often. I want to go to the Dermatologist to get them to look at my skin under that light thing; that looks pretty cool. Let me know if you've done this...because I want to know all about it. Also, tell me if you've been to the dermatologist and if they told you anything helpful.

2-Is taking vitamins going to help me combat this cold/flu bug John has? I forget to take my vitamins until somebody around me gets sick, and then I start popping them like candy to try to prevent.

3-Do I want to try to eat healthier? I probably don't, but would it really help? I hear all about eating healthier and taking better care of your body, but I don't do any of that, and I always get great reports from the doctor. I try to go once a year to keep an eye on my blood sugar, and there is never anything to report. No high cholesterol, no high or low blood pressure, just boring boring results. Don't get me wrong...I love getting boring results, but will eating healthy do me any good? I mean, what is the point of giving up sodas, caffeine, fried foods, and chocolate if it's not going to give me any better results.



So, I am also a little crazy in that I try to answer my own questions. So here is the dialog back to myself.

1- The sunburn probably will turn into cancer. Apply your "Silver dine burn cream" as Emily calls it, and reapply next time. Not much you can do now. Might be nice once I get health insurance to check out a dermatologist though. Could be cool to see my face all lit up with those lights!

2- Take your vitamins...but they're nasty, and I always forget.
SO!! and this is where I am excited!
I bought the gummy vitamins, FOR ADULTS!!
Yeah they make these now! and you know what? They actually taste pretty good! Not the vitachews or whatever they're called that are in that cardboard box and taste like chocolate...but these taste very similar to the fruit chews you find in the snack isle.

3-In light of #2, no I dont want to eat healthier. I think I eat somewhat healthy. Sure I eat out a couple times a week, and I still drink sodas and I drink some mixy-mixy drinks ;)
but I eat small meals often, we usually eat chicken baked or boiled in some fashion (casseroles, enchiladas with veggies, etc), I always cook veggies and love veggies and tons of fruit. I'm not an unhealthy weight and I try to pick out the healthier things on the menu when we eat out.




I think there is a healthy balance to all of it. You want to be precautious, but not so much that you end up being a worry-wart and make yourself (and everyone around you) have anxiety. You want to be mindful of where you currently stand and what could happen if you stray too far on either side of the "normal" line (if there is one), but it should not change how you think of yourself, nor should it impair your emotional state of being.


What do you think about your health? What things are you concerned about and what things do you refuse to give up?

"&#*$ !" did you say?

My husband's family has a running joke that if their mom curses while cooking, that it's going to be some good food. You'll hear the inevitable "&#*$" !!! from the kitchen and the chorus of "Oh!?! It's gonna be good!"

Somehow, I think when I signed those marriage papers and took on their last name, this curse (haha-corny I know) has affixed itself to me.

I don't mind the good food part, but it's the incident that causes the "&#*$" that bothers me.

I spilled boiling water once, smoked up the kitchen a couple of times...but I seem to always get burned.

Tonight I burned my thumb and index finger turning the oh-so-hot sheet some chicken was on. So, I'm sitting here, typing this little update, with a huge gauze bandage covering my entire thumb and hitting about every key around the space bar.



But dinner sure was good! :)