Friday Flex Time

The time when I blog short bits about stuff that's bugging me, or has delighted me, or is just plain what I want to write about. Anything goes...

Teaching a 15 year-old to drive really is fun.
I'd thought it would be this big, scary thing, but I guess I'm lucky. The Transporter is so good, mostly what we talk about is various routes to places. He's excellent at knowing where places are around town after spending most of his teen years using his bike for transportation with his buddy, SkinnyBoy. However, cutting across parks and driving the wrong way down alleys is generally frowned upon when in a motor vehicle, especially when it's the big, blue, prison van, which has been my mode of transport since my lovely lady (1994 Volvo 940, smoke grey, and the youngest in our fleet) died on me over a month ago.

I miss my girl, and her turbo, but I do feel rather tall in the van (something this 5'4” girl doesn't feel very often) and invincible since it seats 12 and is 8 cylinders and a 350. Parking that behemoth is another story. Of course, The Transporter is an excellent parker too, which he never fails to tell me...

Good news is, that after the all the fixes that DIDN'T solve the '94's problems (though they were quite necessary, just not enough) THE problem has been identified , and as soon as we have a Saturday without snow I'll have my new fuel pump installed and be all set. So in other words, not this weekend.

I get totally irritated when those signs where someone in the establishment has control over the letters and changes the signs SPELLS THINGS WRONG.

This irritates more than just the fact that the sign MAKER can't spell. It means NO ONE there, NOT EVEN THE OWNER, can spell, or they'd get that sign guy out there to fix it. Either that, or everyone is blind. Or they've looked at it so many times they don't notice. Whatever the reason, if you want to showcase your stupidity for weeks on end, be my guest. I'll eat/shop/give someone else my dollars who CAN spell. Does this bother other people or is it just former English teachers like me?

We Coloradans joke that if you don't like the weather, just wait 15 minutes.

That couldn't have been illustrated better than today. I was outside after lunch checking in my backyard in prep for spring, and it was sunny and warm and I realized I'd have to change to shorts from capris before I went for my walk. So I sunscreen, I change clothes, I fill a water bottle, put the bare essentials in my pocket, and leave the house.

It's now a grey, cloudy, extremely windy day, and I'm very glad I grabbed a long sleeved shirt on my way out. I'm not deterred though, because I'm feeling good enough to drive to the park to do laps, thereby getting to walk further without a big commitment. This is necessary when your lungs are healing and you never know when they're going to scream “done”. Well lo and behold, they are nowhere near done when it starts to rain! I still ended up walking 50% further than any walk since my slow recovery started, though. So though this is a weather story, it's also a contentment update. Go me! I walked for 35 minutes. That seemed impossible in August when I couldn't even do the stairs.

What bugs you? How did it go teaching your child/children to drive? Does your place have weird weather? What are you content about?

~Tina

P.S If you haven't heard about The Blog Blitz yet, click on the badge to the right to learn more about this totally cool way of spreading some bloggy love.  The idea is from DL Hammons of Cruising Altitude 2.0.  You have to be signed up as a blitzer if you want to GET blitzed, and trust me, you do :-)  Not talking drunk.  Go check it out!