The last couple of weeks have been pretty interesting, as far as things go.  Most of it has been from car drama.  I will explain...

The belts in my car have been going out for some time now, so in October I purchased some new ones and enlisted my oldest brother, Bill, in changing them out.  I called him the day I bought them and asked him to let me know when that week he'd be available to help me.  Two months later...

What with it being so cold lately, and my using the heater in my car so much, I thought it was a pretty good idea to get the belts taken care of.  I finally called Bill again and scheduled some time on my day off to get it done.  We went to my grandparents house because they have a big shop to use. 

My day off rolled around, and it was COLD!!!  We embarked on the adventure at 2pm and it took us hours and HOURS!!!  The first belt took no time, came off like a charm.  The second one was the problem child.  It took at least three hours and buying a book at Napa Auto Parts with the appropriate diagram to get the [stupid] thing off.  Then we tried to put the new belt on and it was 2 inches too small, so we had to go to Checker where I originally purchased it and get it exchanged.  Then it took about an hour or so longer to get it back on.  Sigh!!  And the other belt, again, went on without a hitch.  It was dark, it was freezing, my hands, feet, and butt were numb, but the belts were on.  Finally!

So, Bill had me start her up to make sure everything was as it should be.  It was a very good thing that he did.  I turned the ignition over and suddenly there was all this smoke and Bill calling for me to turn it off.  Apparently, in all the rigamarole, my fuel line got broken!  There was this piece of plastic on top that snaps into the engine block that cracked.  Bill and I again hopped in his truck and went to Checker again...  And they didn't have it.  They told me I'd have to go to the dealership. 

So, Bill had to pull my car out of the shop and park it in my grandparent's driveway.  Luckily it's a nice big driveway - they used to have a farm - so there was plenty of room for it.  It was a good thing my sister, Sarah, had come over after work or I wouldn't have had a way to get home!

The next morning, I woke up at 5:45 to get ready for work and was feeling really gross.  I ended up throwing up.  Not fun.  So, I called in sick.  There was no way I was going to work if I was not feeling well and didn't have a way to get home.

Sarah and I ended up carpooling for the week, which was actually kind of nice.  My car finally got fixed almost a week after it got broken, which was a very happy thing.  And Sarah and I decided to continue to car pool to save gas, and to save Sarah's sanity since she hates driving in snow.

That's the other thing that happened!  It went from being bone-chillingly cold to snowing like crazy!  The roads were heinous.  Not fun. 

So on the Saturday when my car was broken Sarah had to take me to work in pretty nasty conditions.  The roads were covered in packed-down snow that had turned to ice, and there was a light layer of fresh snow on top with more snow falling.  Sarah was cautiously driving - going about 20 mph, if that.  We live on a foothill, so it can be pretty terrifying.  As we were going over a rise the car started to skid.  Sarah tried to steer out of it, but there was no hope.  She let the car take its course, and we went up over the rise and completely turned around.  As we were sliding backwards down the slope, we heard a crunch...

Sarah thought it was a fence.  I was afraid it was another car.  It was neither.  I hopped out of the car, ran behind, and what do you think I found?  A bank of mailboxes!!  There were six of them nailed down to a couple of two-by-fours.  I looked up the road, and I saw two metal pipes completely bent to the ground.  I hefted the mailboxes (and they were heavy!) and plopped them in the snow above where they would have gone.  Then I hopped in the car and we were off.  I even made it to work on time, with a minute to spare.  I found out later that it had broken out the tail light on the driver's side, which was quite easy to remedy.

Since that time all of the snow has melted off and the weather has gotten a lot warmer.  I'm talking maybe 40 degrees!  So no more bad roads.  I'm definitely ok with that, even if it does mean no snow for Christmas.  I still have to get to work!

That's all that I can think of to blog about.  I'll try to be better about keeping things up to date.  It will be so much easier now that I have the internet at home.  So, stay tuned!