A Story Of A Car.

 Some of you might remember that at the beginning of summer, Tim purchased a new to him Suburu Outback to replace our other car which had developed transmission problems. A couple weeks later, I was headed to my son's house to baby sit my granddaughters for the weekend while their parents went to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers. 

(side note: I do not believe that my granddaughters' parents see nearly enough weekend concerts. I had fun. They had fun. The girls had fun...there really was not a downside.)

Anyway, Tim insisted that I drive the new car because he thought (for whatever reason) that it was more roadworthy that my own trusty car, which had never given me a hint of problems. I finally gave in, because the man will push. 

In the end, it was a lucky thing because I got a call. A fellow from Pittsburgh had run the red light. William was in the car and gasped, "Grandpa!" as Tim was pulling into the intersection. He slammed on the brakes, but the front end of my car was neatly ripped off. Tim was so calm that I didn't believe him, initially, but I could hear William gabbling in the background. He was very excited and picked up a piece of my broken car as a souvenir. 

It was witnessed, and there was no doubt that the other guy (who was driving his brother's car) was at fault, but still it took like a month to get it all sorted. They totaled out my car. It's a 16 year old car, and based on its bluebook value, getting it repaired would cost more than it was worth. We received a check, but Tim is a mechanic, among his many other talents. He bought the car from the insurance company for $400, and went right to work. RockAuto had all the parts he needed and so for less than $1000, he had everything he needed, and he began to patiently put the car together again. 

The end result: 

It needed a special inspection to be declared sound enough to be driven on the road again, and we had quite a bit going on, so that kind of got put off for a while but we dropped it off last week. It passed. We jumped through the necessary hoops and today after a flurry of mad dashes, we made it back to the inspection station with all the necessary paperwork they needed to put the new sticker on it, about 15 minutes the place closed for Thanksgiving. 

I have my familiar, trusty car back and it is road ready, so that was exciting. 

Also exciting was that while Tim was running an errand this morning, he dropped me off at a thrift store. I found a puzzle for our Amish Christmas, and a book of horses to go with little David's Breyer horse. That baby adores horses. I also saw this:

Isn't that the most adorable thing? The tiny pink polka dots, the appliqued roses and ballet shoes. It won't fit my youngest granddaughter this winter, but it will be perfect next winter. Now my oldest granddaughter loves ballet, taking lessons twice a week. The youngest? Who knows. She's a fearless little thing, and when provoked, she will growl in frustration. Her father says, "She's that girl who will walk around with a brick in her purse," which makes me laugh every time that I think of it. 

So...she may well not be at all interested in ballet. She may end up passionate about karate, for all I know. But I fell completely in love with that little corduroy jumper. Being that I'm a grandma with no self control, it left the store with me. Along with a tiniest bangle bracelet with an etched floral design for the oldest granddaughter, a tee shirt made out of the dryweave material that William swears by, and the puzzle and the book for the Amish Christmas. 

I was pretty excited about my $5 adventure. 

We worked at the new house today. Well...not really the house. Tim's installing heat for the kittens in the garage. We have a large carpet that we used to both cover the cold concrete floor, but also nailed it to the board wall to block drafts. At the rehab there were, believe it or not, two damaged Coleman coolers, one in the attic, another in the garage.  We cut entrances in them with a sawzall, and tucked a blanket in each one of them, so that the kittens will have a well insulated nest. Once the heater is running on low, that will make a cozy place for them. 

So that was our project today. We'll finish it tomorrow, and those cats will be glad of it. They sure did not like all the noise today. 

So, yeah, that is exciting too. 

I listened to the video from the city council meeting on Monday, and the council unanimously voted to make a payout to us for the sewage debacle last spring. 

So, that's exciting too, although we have no word on when that check will actually be cut. 

I have to tell you though, my biggest excitement, I can't even tell you about. It should be here the first week of December. It is the perfect thing and I'm ridiculously excited to give it for Christmas. I can't wait.

There is another bit of excitement that I know of, but cannot tell of, because it is a gift to us from my daughter and son-in-law, and Tim does not know yet. That is their job to tell him.