New transmission anyone? August 26, 2009

Oh me, me! Pick me!

So last Thursday, as we were driving home after our first day of Classical Conversations, my car started acting all wonky! When I would push the gas pedal to accelerate, it would barely move and then all of a sudden it would “catch” and race forward. Then whenever it was changing gears, it felt like the bottom was going to fall out of the car! So Friday morning, I called Ford and made an appointment to bring it in. But first I had to go to my follow up eye appointment. And before that, I had to drop the kids off at Miriam’s. Well, that was an adventure in itself. Rick & Miriam’s driveway is a rather steep hill and I actually thought about parking at the top because I wasn’t sure if my car would shift well enough in reverse to get back up the hill. I should have gone with my intuition, because when I tried to back out of the driveway, that car wasn’t going anywhere! Luckily my brother was there and did about a 4 point turn with the car to get it up the hill. I made it to the doctor’s office and finally made it to the Ford place. I really wasn’t sure if I’d make it there or not.

So everything gets situated and the rental car people come to pick me up and take me back to their office to get a rental car. The guy takes my driver’s license and is filling stuff out in his computer, when he says, “Did you know that your driver’s license is expired?” What??! No I didn’t know that. And now I can’t rent a car. So he drives me to the nearest DMV office. Of course it’s packed with a 2 hour wait. I can’t do that, so I called my brother and he was going to pick me up. The rental car dude drives me to a gas station half way between Clermont and my brother’s house. When we stopped at the gas station, he called his boss back at the office to tell him what was going on. Well the boss says they’ll rent me a car anyway and give me a “new” expiration date on my license. So 2 hours after dropping off my car, I finally got the rental!

And I finally got a call from Ford yesterday saying that the transmission was completely broken and they were going to be repairing it. AND it’s all covered under the extended warranty that we got when we first purchased it only 3 1/2 years ago! Woohoo!

Picking Pineapples August 20, 2009

Ok, I have yet another renewed commitment to blogging. Who knows, maybe I’ll stick with this one.

 

Did I ever mention here that I’m homeschooling Amelia? We made that decision a few months ago and began doing the A Beka curriculum with her. It’s been amazing to see what she’s already learned. About that same time we also decided to enrol her in the Classical Conversations homeschool program. Today was our first day doing that program. It was interesting and we have a lot to learn before next week, so wish me luck… oh and wish Amelia luck too.

 

The first thing they did in class was to have each child come up in front of the class and introduce themselves and tell a little bit about them. So it was Amelia’s turn and she gave her full name. Then the tutor (that’s what they call them instead of a teacher) asked her what was her favorite thing ever. Since she’s been talking nonstop lately about her Cinderella party that she’s going to have on her November birthday (she’s apparently been planning this for a while because I had no idea about it), I figured she’d say her favorite thing is princesses or something like that. Oh no, not my Amelia. She stood there for a couple of seconds and finally said, “Picking pineapples.” I just burst out laughing as did the rest of the kids and moms. I think she has officially established herself as an odd duck!

 

One nice thing about the program is that it is currently meeting at our church. I had been planning to go to the one in Clermont and so I’m glad I only have a 7 minute drive now instead of 30 minutes! After classes, we all go outside and eat lunch at the picnic tables and the kids have a chance to play on the playground. I let my kids go over there without me since there were plenty of kids running around. At one point, I took a look over and there was 2 year old Jack climbing up the metal ladder thing all by himself. By the time I looked over, he was almost at the top (probably about 6 feet in the air), so I bit my lip and held my breath and just let him keep climbing. I wonder how long it will be before we’ll be calling 911 for him.