I Get The Van Now

WE are currently facing a serious car dilemma.  Since just before The Littlest One arrived, we found out that our three necessary safety seats will not all fit in my car simultaneously.  Before you assume I drive a MiniCooper or some such, let me tell you that I drive a nice, normal, crossover vehicle, made for the modern family.  More specifically, I drive a Mazda CX-7.  Google it.
I love my car.  With two girls, it was beyond fantastic for our family.  The problem isn't really that we have too large a family, now, its that the modern family car is based on a two child per family ratio.  I swear all things are based on two kids.  When someone wins a family based prize, like a trip somewhere fantastic, its always two adults and two children, or maybe you win four tickets to something.  You see, life now is based on a four person household maximum.  My car fits that idea perfectly.  That, however, is not the idea of our perfect family.  We went bigger. So, now we don't fit the norm, not that I have ever aspired to do so.
Currently, I must drive my husband's truck because it is bigger than the car, and will fit all three children simultaneously.  He has a really, really nice new truck.  It is lovely to look at, and even pretty easy to drive, but I have to tell you, I am not a big car person.  That would be why I selected that nice little Mazda last year.  It was plenty big enough at that time, without my thinking there would be a third, but not way too big.
Now, I really need to go bigger again.  I have no idea what to get.  I don't want to jump to a beast of a vehicle and I have always sworn off mini vans.  I have always loathed them, and the fact that driving one is seriously giving up every bit of sexy a car can give off.  I have to admit, though. that for the first time, I really got the appeal of a mini van during school pick up yesterday.  Right now, I get all the kids on one side of the street, open the door, and let them climb in one at a time, very slowly, before we can move on.  The Littlest One sits in the middle of the other two.  So, one child goes, then there is a long wait while I put her into her little carrier base thing.  After that, the other child gets to slowly climb in.  It takes us forever.  It hit me that if I had a mini van, I could hit a button on my remote, have the door open as we got there, and tell the girls who can currently walk to just jump in and get in their own seats at the same time.  I imagine that would cut 5 minutes off our morning routine.  That is a ton of time for us when we need every minute sometimes.
So, now we have to decide what to do.  I don't want to keep driving the beast of a truck and parking on the street because it won't fit in our garage.  I want to drive my car, that sits in the garage at night, and always has a nice, cozy place to park.  We are going to have to really think about our next vehicle purchase. I want to give my husband his truck back as soon as possible, And I'm sure he would be glad to give my mom mobile back to me. 

The Fight Of The Decade

Tonight, there was a fight in my house.  A big one.  Something that has been brewing for about a decade now finally came to blows.  It didn't end well for either party.

Since the day I moved from home to be with my husband, he has loathed a furniture set that my parents gave us to use.  It is gorgeous.  All real wood, and almost an antique.  At this point, though, it needs some restoration.  We haven't done it.  Not our thing.  Yet, I can't get rid of it.  I want to give it back to my parents so that they can have it restored.  The pieces i have are the small love seat, and the side chair to match.  My mom still has the coffee table and end tables that came with it.  She actually still uses them.  Unfortunately, the rocking chair that matched passed away to the rest place for old furniture, aka the dump, last year.

As I said, My Husband hates them.  He would love to see our pieces go to that old furniture resting place as well.  I won't let him, though.  Instead, we carry them from home to home, and he loathes them a little more each time.

We just finished moving to a new house tonight with four bedrooms for the new baby.  My husband has enjoyed some of the process.  He has been able to use our old truck.  He loves his old truck.  We recently got a new one, but the old one is sitting here, waiting until my brother comes to get it.  My husband didn't want to give up that truck, but he had no choice, as it needed more work that we can afford to get done.  Thankfully, my brother is a mechanic, and he can do it himself.  My Husband at least gets to pass the beloved truck on to someone he knows will take care of it, and using that truck, even just to take things from one house to another, has really been the highlight of this whole move for him.

In the process of this move, My husband  had to move that sofa and chair yet again.  There is sits in the garage, giving him the evil eye, every time he walks in there.

Our trash dump is closed for the weekend.  So, My Husband decided to load the old truck up that he has been using for the move one last time, park it in the garage, and take everything over when the trash area opens tomorrow.

Unfortunately, the garage is full of crap, and that is a big truck.  So, I had to guide him in as backed in so that he could fit the truck.

I was doing my job, before anyone asks.  He was backing up.  I had him slow down.  I was yelling out distance increments to let him know how much room he had, in addition to motioning with my hands.
Two feet.
One foot.
Slow!
Six inches.
Stop!!

He didn't stop fast enough.
There was a crunch.
Directly behind him, right where he needed to stop, sat my beloved furniture.

He backed into it too fast, and cracked the chair back in half.

My heart dropped.

I hung my head and told him he broke it, too tired to be pissed. That, and in my heart I know he didn't do it on purpose.

He got out, all smiling, and laughed.  "I didn't mean to do it, you know."  He also let me know that he wasn't terribly upset.  The universe, though, was.  He had struck the first blow, but the furniture wasn't going down without a fight.

The truck wouldn't fit.  He adjusted the furniture, and tried again.  He still needed just a few inches to get the garage door to close.

He pulled up a couple of feet, and grabbed the chair, turned to carry it to the side of the garage, and it happened.  Another crunch.
My eyes must have been huge.  I just stood there staring.  He looked at me.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"What?"
"You broke your tail light."
"I did not."

I didn't respond, but tapped the spider web pattern in the tail light.

He looked, his face went red.  He made a fist, and  I swear he nearly hit the chair, until he realized it probably wouldn't do him any good to punch a piece of solid oak.

Tit for tat.  The chair fought back.

So, the first blows have been rendered.  I'm not sure yet of the outcome.  I do know that these won't be the last blows thrown by either party, though.

I also know that when I tell this story to my brother, who still wants the truck, it will be much less dramatic, and play down any damage that might prevent him from taking it.  After all, we need it moved as soon as possible least it be the victim of this senseless feud again.

My Mom Has The Right To Remain Silent, But Not The Ability

Let me preface this post by assuring you all the my mother did not get arrested and was not mirandized. However, as things go with my family, I wouldn't be surprised if she had been.

I am out of town right now. I left my car with my parents. My mom called once and ask if she could take my car somewhere. Apparently, that was a cart blanch approval for her to use it at will. Truth is I don't care that much, as long as she doesn't return it any worse than she found it. That includes getting me in trouble with the police.

Tonight, she was driving my car. I ask why, and she said something about taking ice to her shop, which must mean that my car hauls ice better than her car does. I think my car is just cleaner and has less crap in it. Anyway, she then told me it was a good thing that she was driving my car, because she was glad that she got the ticket instead of me.

Ticket? Oh yes.

As soon as she pulled out of her shop parking lot, she was pulled over. She got a ticket for having a tail light out and a brake light out.

You see, when I got there, I had an issue with my brake lights. The first thing I did was get my brother, who is an actual auto mechanic, and even manages an auto mechanic shop, to look at it. He checked my lights, and was supposed to buy my new lights. His shop, though, didn't carry the right very expensive lights to replace anything VW, and he was going to have to order them. I gave him the money and ask him to do so. That never happened. He actually took out one of my bulbs, and kept it to make sure he had the right thing. He still has it. However, I did try to fix my brake lights when we realized that all 3 of my lights couldn't have gone out at once. I ended up taking my car in to the dealer to have it fixed. It was fixed, mostly.

Which is why my mom was very surprised about the brake light, and mentioned that to the police officer. He told her the brake light was out, and she replied "Well, that is odd". He didn't respond to her fishing expedition as she hoped. So, she told him again "That is really odd that the light is out. I find that hard to believe." He just looked at her, not sure why she would find it so hard to believe. So, she just launched into a story.

"See, we just drove this car across country, and we didn't know that the entire trip the break lights were out. The whole way...."

I'm going to stop retelling her part of the story there.
It is true, we did drive across country not realizing that my break lights were out. At the very start of our drive across country to move from San Diego back to Tennessee, I had a little problem with my car. All the indicator lights came on. I lost power. This was all at the very start of our journey, as I began to pull out of my parking space. I simply cut the car off and back on, as a part of the computer generation that thinks everything can be solved with a reboot, and things seemed to be fine. The car did work, and so we came on, driving through storms and bad weather, with very low visibility some days. It wasn't until we got to Atlanta that we found out my brake lights were out. When we got back home, my brother looked at it, couldn't find the problem, but did note that two of my bulbs had blown, not both brake lights. I found out there was a recall on the brake light switched. That was what caused the odd power loss and indicator light thing at the beginning of the trip. The switch failed. It was replaced, and my brake lights worked again. Until apparently just recently, when a different bulb blew.

So my mom recalls part of this story for the police officer. Now, I may talk too much sometimes, but I do have the ability to realize when I am telling on myself, and not do it. My mom does not.

I can not believe that she told the officer that we did something so dangerous.

I ask if he responded to her story. He did not. He was probably thinking something along the same lines I did.

He let her go with the ticket, and thankfully didn't imprison her for something else she ended up tackling her self into committing, nor did he impound my car to keep it out of the hands of people who would admit their crimes as such.

My mom immediately called my little brother. She did not call to tell him that she needed the car light fixed, really, though that did come up. She called to tell him that he caused her to get a ticket.

I will say it is partially his fault, but let's be honest. If mom had just taken her own car, this would not have happened.
Maybe it was better that she got the ticket rather than me. I think I would have probably lost it, but I would have done so internally, at least until the officer left.

I hate to let you boys down...

I am about to post something that I think will be a bit of a let down to two young men out there somewhere.

To the two young men in the Army uniforms, driving a silver late model sedan around town, Fellas, I hate to break it to you, but I was not flirting with you today. No. I wasn't. In fact, I didn't even notice you until you rolled your windows down to say something to me.

Yes, I was smiling, laughing, and pointing in your direction. I see how you could have thought that I was saying something to you, or talking about you. However, what you may not have noticed is that I was actually smiling laughing and talking to two young ladies in car seats behind me. I know, my back windows are tinted pretty dark, and the girls can be hard to see. So, let me assure you, that they were there. Seeing as how I do not make a habit of flirting with men in cars I pass, not anymore, and I would never do anything like that with my children in the car, then you can believe that even if you were incredibly cute, and I don't know because I really didn't notice, I wouldn't make note of it with the girls present.

What you probably also failed to notice, is that there just happened to be a giant inflatable Sponge Bob Square Pants seated on top the of the Burger King at that red light we were stopped at. You probably didn't notice because it was just over your shoulders, where I was pointing. You may not have noticed, but my two year old daughter, who doesn't even watch the show, did. She thought it was hilarious, and wanted to know why Sponge Bob was a) so big, and b) sitting on Burger King. We happened to be have a very joyful conversation.

So, again, I know this is going to really break your hearts (haha, just trying to pump my own ego up a bit, there)but, that more than a little fluffy 29ish year old womyn, with the crazy hair, and the black car that hasn't been washed in forever, who was probably more than a little tired looking, really wasn't trying to get your attention. She didn't think you were cute stuff in your uniforms, nor did she want to talk to you all.

She was, however, truly enjoying the moments in life where your children just make you smile and laugh. I am glad, though, that you may have gotten some enjoyment out of that moment as well, even if it were for the wrong reasons.
I hope you guys had a fantastic rest of your day, and thank you for all you do for our country.

Feeling Free

Between two kids, being a military wife, having multiple volunteer positions, along with a job that I work from home, I rarely feel free anymore.
However, in recent weeks, I have found something that surprises me, by making me feel incredibly free.

Driving.

Remember how free you felt when you got your driver's license? How about when you got your first car, and you knew that you could go anywhere you wanted, any time you wanted.
Do you remember how much you loved to drive when you were young. The power rush as you would speed down the highway or interstate? Well, suddenly, that and more has all come back to me.

Somehow, in the day to day grind, our very large truck has become the family car, and that is what I generally drive. Mu husband has taken over my cute little sporty black car to commute in, because it is much better on gas. While he loves it, it isn't something that I like to drive, at all. It is huge, and definitely not the most maneuverable thing you have ever driven. The car seats stay in it now. So, the black car is for single driving only.

I don't get to go many places with out the kids, but in the last couple of weeks, I have been out without them at least 2 times. Sad, I know, but still, the moment that car merges onto the free way, my heart soars. I feel the power kick in, and the car jumps up to 80 miles an hour. I can slide over into the next lane easily, without fear of massive blind spots like in the big car. If there isn't any room for me to merge, it isn't a problem. The turbo has already kicked in, and that car can just fly up on to make it's own space.

I get to crank my music up. I get to sing along to anything I like. I can even repeat the bad words as loudly as I want, if I so choose. I am in control of it all. I have the power and the freedom to go where I want, and when I want again.

I can really see now, how some people get into racing, and cars in general. While I doubt I will ever be much of an gear head, I think I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the little black sporty cars that can make your spirits soar as high as the tachometer, or even higher.