What A Day!

Yesterday was quite a day. I needed to go to the grocery store badly - the cupboards were bare - and I wanted to go to BJs. I didn't like the thought of going over that tall bridge, but not going because of that didn't seem to be right. That is definitely not having faith! Tom and Sam went with Andy and I because they didn't have to be at work until the afternoon. Tom was riding in the front seat and decided it was a bit stuffy in there and so was going to put his window down a little. I saw him push the button down and then we heard an awful grinding, crunching sound. The window came down a little, but there was the definite sound of broken glass somewhere down in the door. I told Tom to put the window back up, if possible, and we would look into it when we got home. He tried to put the window back up but it wouldn't go all the way. It stayed about a half inch down. We decided to just leave it alone so we didn't cause any further damage to whatever was malfunctioning.

We went to BJs, proceeded to spend a disgusting amount of money on food for this family, and headed home. As we were traveling we noticed that the window on Tom's side was dropping little by little all by itself. It got to about two inches and then stopped dropping.

We got off the main road onto the back road that Andy's school is on, now about two miles or so from home. We started hearing a funny noise that kept getting louder and louder, then we felt the truck start riding rough and we realized we were getting a flat tire - quickly. Tom's open window afforded us a prime opportunity to hear the GRRRRRRRRR sound at a deafening level as it was the right front tire. By now we were about one mile from home. I had approximately $350.00 worth of food in the back of the truck, a spare that was also flat (Jerry had just informed me of that about a month ago), and a decision to make. I had to decide whether to try to get home or stop. I decided to try to make it home. I didn't know how long I might be sitting on the side of the road with all that food waiting for either Jerry or a tow truck - and only a mile or so from home. I turned on my flashers and proceeded to do about 10 mph for the rest of the trip. By the time we pulled into the driveway we could smell the tire which had gotten very hot from riding on it flat. I had been afraid of damage to my rim, but had weighed the short distance I was going against that and had decided to risk it. When we pulled into the driveway, we saw that Jerry was home. I was afraid he'd be angry that I had ridden on the rim, but he wasn't, and thankfully there wasn't any damage to it. He had another tire for the truck in the shed so he took the flat one off the rim and put the new one on and pumped it up. Now I just need to have the tire balanced. I will never make a smart remark about him keeping odd tires again. The only thing he could find wrong with the flat tire is that the base of the valve stem looked like it had been cut but that could have happened while riding on the rim. We found nothing in the tire itself like a nail or something, nor any obvious defects that would have made it go flat the way it did. I am very, very thankful that it didn't happen farther from home or - heaven forbid - on that bridge! As for the window, Jerry managed to get it raised all the way up so that it would close, but now we need to have that fixed. They say that things come in threes - whoever they are. A while back my "Change Oil" light started coming on. We have always taken our truck to the same place to have the oil changes and tuneups done ever since we got it, and they always reset the light and put a little sticker on the windshield that tells us when we're due for another oil change. Well, we haven't reached that mileage yet and when Jerry checked the oil, it looked just fine and he couldn't find a reason why the light was coming on. I guess now we'll go ahead and take it in to have that checked, have the window fixed, and have the new tire balanced. That's three. Theoretically we should be done! I told Jerry that the reason these things happened wasn't because things happened in threes - it was because we paid the truck off a month ago!

A couple of weeks ago while we were at Safeway they were having a raffle to benefit breast cancer where you could win $350.00 worth of groceries. I bought a few tickets because it's for a good cause, and the groceries wouldn't hurt, either! (Never mind that I just spent that much at BJs.......!) Anyway, the drawing is today and Andy has just asked me if I had on my "lucky draws" as he says it - so that we would win. It seems he has told everyone in the family to wear their "lucky draws" today. I wonder about that kid.

Now I'd better get going and get Andy busy. We had originally planned to do his lessons when we got back from shopping yesterday, but then with the events the day got later and later. I gave him the choice of doing his lessons yesterday evening or today, and he chose today. Another advantage to homeschooling - not being limited to when you can make up your lessons!