Saturday, March 24, 2012

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

To fix or not to fix: that is the question. I have an old truck with great bones that got a little sick this week. I had to decide whether to end our relationship (which I've been pretty good at lately) or whether to stay committed. The decision cost me a pretty penny. When I was a young girl dreaming about love......I always wanted my legacy to be one love and one man for one lifetime. Funny how with cars there's no cultural assumptions on the love life with your car. In fact, if you believed the commercials, society expects us to upgrade our wheels to appear successful and popular - driving something used and worn would never fly as a commercial on Super Bowl Sunday.

Speaking of flying, my first car crush was the jalopy in the movie, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Silly, eccentric Dick Van Dyke tinkered with an old car until he could get it to fly. Man, I wanted a flying car. Sure the Jetson's had rocket cars that flew in outer space but I wanted something that would take me from the East side of Richfield to the West side on a Saturday.

A girl's history of her cars is like her long list of boyfriends. We can remember our "first" like it was yesterday. And if we were frugal and moderate with our money we can list on one hand of all the cars we've "driven." If you need 2 hands or more for the list......well let's just say you've been around the block more than me.

I'd like to brag someday that I drove my truck past 200K miles and to get there I need to stay on my 3 year plan. Darn, no flying cars for me. I reluctantly paid the repair bill at Midas yesterday with a big sigh. As I walked over to my cute red truck dangling those familiar keys in my hand, I couldn't help but think.......maybe a fling with an Avis convertible now and again would be just the ticket!

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Bumper Sticker: I LOVE MATH














Are You Smarter Than A Fourth Grader? I thought I was but some nights I'm not sure, ha. Homework this year has gotten exponentially harder. Turns out September - December were basically a Third grade review the teacher said and real Fourth Grade work started in January. Ack, no wonder it's gotten so hard?

As I wait for my son's phone call at 4:15pm everyday I'm anxious to hear the answer to #12 and find out how many wrong "we" got on the assignment. I'm fist pumping the air when he announces an A or a B on a Math test! It wasn't always like that. I remember hating Math and all those word problems in school. You know the kind? The new ones are just as hard........

Mitchell is driving south at 55 MPH and Laura is driving north at 63 MPH. If both destinations are 1039 miles apart what time will Laura text Mitchell to say that she's lost? What time will Mitchell run out of gas since he left on a quarter of a tank? Stay tuned and maybe some Redneck will have the answers, LOL.

All I know is it takes 2 people to do the Math, check the Math, and get it to school the next morning. We have a dog and he certainly has taken a liking to pencils and homework assignments.

Today I installed a printer to my laptop and as I unpacked the directions I had that same momentary fear I used to have in Math class. Can I do it? Can I figure it out? Will I have to ask the cute guy in the next row for his answers? No worries mate! The directions were in English (& French) and VOILA I have my first Mapquest page of directions printed. I need to catch up with Mitchell and Laura - they called from the road with car troubles, ha.