Can it get worse??

Yes, it can always get worse.....but I'm sure hoping it doesn't. A few weeks ago, actually probably a couple of months by now, my GMC Envoy started making a strange noise. We could tell it wasn't the engine so we didn't rush to take it in. It is very inconvenient to do without my car even for a day since I use it in my job and also because I pick Jacob up from school most everyday. We had people say it sounded like a fan blade, a belt, but never anything real serious. Even when I got to the dealership to have the oil changed, tires rotated and "noise" checked out, the service writer didn't think it was very serious. Well $785.00 later, I am the proud owner of a new water pump.......just what I was dying for. But, in all seriousness, I have never had a vehicle that I liked as much as this one. Usually by 50 to 60 thousand miles, I am wanting to trade. Not this time......I do love my envoy. It is a 2004 and I've had it 5 years and 101,000 miles later, I really do not want to trade it. I've been thinking the last couple of days how much better it rides and drives since I'm not hauling around "a loose water pump". The bearing had gone out in the water pump and it was "loosely" riding around under my hood.

Now, the rest of the story! Today on my way to Jacob's baseball scrimage, which I was so anxious to see how he was doing, my car started "acting funny". I was almost there the first time I noticed it and I was hoping that when I left there, it would be just fine. Wrong......it was LOTS worse. At first, I could feel it "hanging" and not switching gears, then I couldn't get over 20-25 miles an hour.....then I actually got up to about 40, but the RPM's was very high. I manged to get back over to the town when we live and work to the dealership to leave my car. They are open for limited business on Saturday so they "looked" at my car and called to tell me that it is definitely my transmission and it is sounding like I may have to have a new one. I'm thinking if a water pump is $700.00, I don't even want to know how much this is going to cost me........and no, I'm not one of those people who bought the extended warranty. It was one of those cases where I will get it later......NOT......

Oh well, I still love my envoy and I guess I can look at it like when I fix this.....surely God will smile on me and not let anything go wrong for a while. I really don't want a new car, especially when while waiting on my daughter to pick me up, I walked to the showroom and saw a new Acadia, which by the way, I do love those, for $41,000.00.

Somehow, I'm loving my envoy even more tonight, everytime I think about that sticker on the window.

Have a great Sunday!

Vicki

I'm back!

I know I've been "gone" for a while. It's just kinda been nuts around here.

Some of you may know that our oldest daughter and her son live with us. They have been here for almost 2 years now. Right after she moved in with us, she went back to school to finish her degree to teach. She loves kids and is very good with them. Well, as soon as she finished her first semester back in May is when she was diagnosed with hodgkins so the two classes that she was going to take last summer were put on hold. Determined not to let that slow her down, she is carrying quite a load this semester. She goes to school on Monday from 3:00 - 9:00. Tuesday through Thursday she goes from 6:00-9:00. I'm not sure that it's not way too much for her as she is also "subbing" as a teacher assistant for 12 weeks. I don't think her stamina has built up enough yet.
I said all of that to say this........we have become "full time parents" again. She doesn't see him at all on Monday and just a couple of hours the other days. Of course he goes to his Dad's every other weekend so there's not alot of time for them. It sure has rocked our world, but it will be worth it when she gets her degree. I'm so proud of her for her determination.

Have a great rest of the day!

Vicki

HELP!!

See that sweet angel there??? Well, most of the time, I love her to death, she is the sweetest dog, but other times.......well, let's just say.......not so good when I go look in my flower beds at my shrubs.

Not sure if you can see the hole there, but she LOVES to dig around the shrubs and leave the roots showing. I'm afraid she is going to kill all our shrubs. When we bought this house 3 1/2 yrs ago, we pulled up everything that was here, except for a few crepe myrtles, and started over. It wasn't cheap to do it either. A little over a year ago, I felt sorry for her for having to stay in a pen so we put in an invisible fence around the whole 2 acres. Well, ok, it really wasn't her fault, my little sweet angel, also known as "demon dog", but whom I love dearly, wouldn't listen to me and would always run away. Anyway, now Sadie gets to run loose all the time. She is GREAT about not going out of the yard and it only took a couple of times getting shocked (she learns fast), but I am threatening to put her back in the pen if she doesn't stay out of the shrubs. We have worked so hard......ok, hubby has WORKED so hard, but I had the ideas and supervised, to make the flower beds look good and I am getting really disgusted that everytime I go out, I find a new "hole".

Does anyone have any suggestions? We've read that red pepper works, it didn't for us. We read to use moth balls, but I won't do that, I think they are poison. PLEASE HELP......I don't like being mad at my babies!


Vicki

Bless this Mess - literally

I know we've all heard that saying and probably even used it a few times, but I am begging and pleading this time! My house has gotten in such a mess, I don't seem to find time to clean, I mean really clean, or finish my laundry (I iron everything). I have laundry piled up in the spare bedroom, my kitchen has become a catchall on the breakfast table, and our bedroom just is.....what can I say.......just is. I thought about taking pictures because I don't let this happen very often, but I certainly decided against pics. I mean really, you people only know me from my blog and hopefully, I seem like a nice person who would keep their house presentable. Oh yea, our house is actually on the market right now, but that's another story. If they called to show it, I'd have to laugh in their face!

The best part of this story, well, the most unbelieveable part to me........Cindy and I are shopping today for a baby shower........that we are having next week........here at our house!

I have a few minutes before we leave, so maybe I should get off the computer and go do something!

Have a great Saturday,

Vicki

Honest Scrap Award

One of my new "friends" in the blogging world tagged me for this award......MY FIRST! I can't say that I've been very good about keeping up with this, and it's been a few days since she did it, but here I am now and I promise I'm going to do better and start blogging about some of my interest such as decorating and "decorating" the outside of my home also. I can't wait for spring.

I am supposed to tell 10 honest things about myself and then tag 7 people to do the same..so here I go:

1. I got married 3 weeks after high school graduation.
2. I have been married to the same man for 37 years.
3. I started dating (or sneekin with) my hubby when I was 13.
4. I absolutely LOVE ice cream, mint chocolate is my favorite.
5. I will fly, but am scared to death everytime I do.
6. My oldest brother was killed in a plane crash, hence #5.
7. I cannot wear anything that has not been ironed (yes I iron everything)
8. I have always wished that I had a sister and am jealous of my friends who do.
9. I miss my daddy more everyday and cannot believe he's been gone 7 years.
10. I love the mountains and the beach, in that order.

Now for the 7 people I tag:

Susan at BETWEEN NAPS ON THE PORCH
Gloria at Happy to Be
Helen at Living Boldly
Susie at Digging in the Dirt
Becky at Looking Through the Eyes of Luv
Lynne at Lynne's Gifts from the Heart
God's Girl at Contentment Corner

Let me know when you post your 10 things so I can be sure and come see them!

It's cold here again and I'm SICK of it. Everyone here is getting sick from 70's one day and 30's the next. My daughter has strep and I'm just hoping that we all don't end up with it since she lives here and came in the den this morning before going to the dr., opened her mouth and said "look at my throat". Of course, I looked at her, turned away and told her that I wanted no part of it, and wasn't getting in her face to look in her throat. I did that enough when she was a little girl!! Actually, I seriously didn't want to get that close and chance getting sick. So far this winter, I haven't had the "crud" and I'm trying really hard not to.

Have a great Friday!

Vicki

Quiet Weekend

I hope you all had a great Valentine's Day. We did around although a little different this year. I do marketing for a Chick-fil-A here in town. We usually try to do something on Valentine's Day there for families. Last year, I promoted Valentine's with a "Who do you love more than your family" night. The idea behind it was to "save the date" night until the weekend and celebrate Valentines Day with Dora and your family at Chick-fil-A. That went over much better than we thought it would so this year we had "Breakfast with Dora" at Chick-fil-A. We even had heart shaped chicken biscuits! It was packed so Ronnie came up to the restaurant and after I was done, we went for "late lunch, early dinner". I hate fighting the crowds on holidays so this was perfect for me. We came back home afterwards and watched Uof M(Memphis) basketball game and just "chilled" the rest of the night. No, it wasn't anything glamorous or exciting, but great for us this year. Some of you know that our oldest daughter and grandson live with us and this was the weekend for him to be with his dad so it was quiet around here, and we savor the quiet days these days.
I hope you got to spend your day exactly the way you wanted!

Not So Bad Afterall

Well, I went to pay my dues for speeding this morning and I have to admit, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. Yes, it was still just a waste of time and yes, I did feel like a criminal, but all in all, not as bad as expected. I wanted to take a picture of the line, but of course, my battery was DEAD in my camera. You can tell I haven't been making sure I am ready at all times to capture those pics for the blog!

I got there, well, of course, the security thingie goes off with me. After the guard waves the wand all around me, he lets me go. After finding Div. 2 Traffic Court, I see this line across the hall, well no big deal, I'm here now, I'll just get in line and make friends with the people around me, after all, I'll talk to anybody. Well, I go across the hall, around the corner, down the hall, still down the hall, all the way down the hall, then start coming back up the hall.....to the end of the line. Which by the way, is next to the line for criminal court. I'm not feeling real good about this situation right now. Anyway, I get in line and of course, there's people already behind me in line that had followed me .......down the hall:). We chit chat all the way back down the hall in line, which by the way really didn't take that long. As we get in sight of the court room, we see two "clerks" sitting inside at desk......no judge. I'm assuming that everyone in that line got tickets, were told to come to court to get them dismissed. What a waste of time and taxpayers money. Well, as we got inside the court room, the girl in front of me, who had not been talking to us other girls, until they made her boyfriend or whatever leave the line, started talking a little bit. Well, we discovered that we got our tickets on the same street one week apart.....then the girl behind me, said she got her ticket on that street two a week after me. By this time, we are almost to the front of the line and 5 policemen are sitting there, I'm assuming they all wrote tickets to be in court today. She looks at one and tells him that he wrote her ticket. I turned around to look and he said "did I write your ticket too?" I said what is your name, then told him yes he did. One of the other guys asked him if he wrote every ticket there. Well, I couldn't miss my chance, so I looked at him and very nicely reminded him that I was the one who had just left their husband in the hospital with a heart attack. Immediately, the other guys started ragging him about giving me a ticket. He did end up very nice and asked about my husband, told me he was glad that I didn't pay it and came to get it dismissed. I know revenge is not a good thing, and I'm not looking at it like revenge, just God giving me a little justice on a not so bright day!

Oh, and on the way to court, they announced on the radio that Memphis is ranked 2nd in the list for most miserable cities. Way to go Memphis! I could tell them why if they asked!!