A Day in the Life of Me

Alex and I have been a one car family for over a month now. His escort has needed a new alternator and we have just been putting off the expense. Today was the day that we had made plans to try and get the battery charged enough to get it to our mechanic. I also had quite a bit of running around to do since I started my new job this week and have had no time to run errands. When I get home from work around 5:30, I meet my husband in the yard, give him a peck on lips, he hops into our only working vehicle and goes to work, leaving me stranded. So I have not been able to go to the grocery store all week, and since I am not the most organized person in the world, I didn't plan appropriately and make sure our cubbards were full last weekend before I started my job.

Alex had a physical therapy appointment scheduled at 11:30 (he hurt his back at work a few weeks ago), and then he had to be at work at 2:00. We thought we would jump start the car, let it charge for about 1/2 hour, take it to our mechanic, Alex would then drop me off at the grocery store, go to his appointment, pick me up from the grocery store, we would go home, and then he would go to work. Sounds busy, but very doable. Well, guess what I discovered this morning before dragging Alex out of bed. Our one and only working vehicle was parked nicely next to our broken down vehicle and what did I see?...a flat tire! And we don't carry a spare, just a little temporary doughnut.

I will try and make the rest of this story as short as I can. Needless to say we were frustrated. But our plan could still be carried out after Alex changes the tire. Well after charging his escort for about 20 minutes, he removed the jumper cables and his car didn't die...good sign, right? About 5 minutes later it was dead again. Before we started the process all over, Alex wanted to change the flat on the van. While doing so he noticed one of the lug nuts was stripped and he couldn't get it tightened like he should. He didn't like that discovery too much.

Well, we finally got the battery in his car to keep the charge so we raced to our mechanic even though we shouldn't have been racing with a temporary tire and a loose lug nut on one of our vehicles. By this time Alex had cancellled his PT appointment. And since our mechanic no longer "does tires," we had to take the van to someone else. Fortunately there is a little place just about a couple of miles from our house. I drop off Alex and Micah, who is snoozing, at home and then go try and get a new tire. They tell me it will take about an hour a half for the tire to get to them since they had to order it. I'm not making this a short story, am I?

I go home to get my grocery list, thinking I could do that while waiting for the tire to arrive. Alex doesn't feel at all comfortable with my driving the van in its "condition." So, I don't go to the grocery store. Oh, by the way, by this point Alex has called in "late" to work. Well, we wait and wait and wait and 3 hours later the tire finally arrives. I received this anticipated information within minutes after getting the phone call from our mechanic telling us it will cost $420 to repair the escort.

I go get the new tire put on and go directly to the grocery store. Its now around 4:00 pm. There is not a lick of food in the house and Alex and Jacob's therapist (who comes to our house 3 times a week) are trying to entertain 3 very hungry, very cranky little boys. I get home around 5:30 and boy did I get alot of help carrying the groceries in. Before I even turned off the ignition, it seemed as if people were coming out from nowhere to get these groceries in the house. And once that happened it was quite a sight. Alex and Jacob's therapist were obviously "fried," and 3 little boys were swarming over the grocery bags. Alex left for work, being 4 hours late, and I began opening string cheese, yogurt, and cheese-its. Have you ever had just a snack night for dinner?

Here I am now recording the day's "wonderful" events, not being able to figure out if the moral of my "story" is: 1. car trouble sucks!!!! or 2. don't ever run out of food with 4 boys in your home.