cars are expensive pets to keep.

So, I took the Aztek into the repair shop this afternoon. It had been acting funny, vibrating oddly at a specific speed, and we wanted to find out what was wrong with it before our next road trip. And, a turn signal light needed to be replaced. Little G and I arrived, talked to the customer service guy, and he said, "It'll need this and this, and this.." and wow! it would be under a hundred dollars (the Aztek's repairs are usually in the hundredS range, unfortunately. I don't know if it's all Azteks, or if we're just really rough on ours.)
The Little Girl and I went inside to the waiting room, to look at the fishies and watch TV. That was fun, she entertained the other customers just by being a cute little girl. She recieved two seperate comments of "What a good little girl!"
When I heard my name paged over the speakers, I knew it couldn't be good. When they can fix your car right away, they page you to go pay for it. It's only when there are New, Amazing, and Expensive problems that they call you to discuss it again. And yes, it was. Expensive, at least.
Did you know tires can break? I had never thought of it before, but, it made sense...the inner belts on 3 out of 4 of my tires were broken. That's what was causing the vibration. Thank goodness I hadn't had a blow-out with them. They didn't have a tire in stock to fit the Aztek, either, so they had to order it. And, the oil pan was leaking "badly", so I said to repair that too. The very nice customer service guy said that it wouldn't be done today, so they gave me and the Little Girl a ride home, and said they could come pick us up tomorrow. When it will hopefully be done. Hopefully EARLY, so that we can make it to swimming lessons...
So, I'm not going to make it to Panera's tonight for knitting. No car. Maybe I'll lock myself in the bedroom for an hour and insist that I'm going to knit by myself! LOL! and it five minutes there would be little people pounding on the door insisting they need mommy's help.
Big J keeps threatening to buy me a new car. I don't want to, I love my aztek, and I haven't seen anything I like that's big enough to cart our family (and the dog) around, but, when the yearly repair bills is larger than car payments, maybe he has a point.

not-so-fun swimming

Well, swim lessons have been a bit disappointing this week. We don't have lessons on Friday, and out of 4 days, two have been raining and lightning at swim lesson time. And the other two days have been cloudy and chill, so that when I get in the pool, I have to resist shrieking because the water is cold! and I don't want to scare Little J. The first 15 minutes of our 30 minute lessons have been spent holding Little J, who doesn't want to do anything except climb up mommy like a tree, because HE thinks the water is cold, too. The last five minutes, Little J hugs me and asks to get out, because he has gotten too cold to have any fun, while the ditzy tanned highschool lifeguard teacher tries to tell him "move around and you'll stay warm..." (it never worked for me. If you're below a certain percentage of body fat (and his teacher is nicely insulated.) once you're cold, it dosen't matter how active you are, you're still cold)

okay, enough grouchiness...the sun is out, there is a heat index warning so it should be warm for the rest of the day...we set up the little kids' wading pool in the back yard so in a little bit it should be warmed up nicely, and ready for them to play in. Me, I have some flowers to plant, so we all have things to do.

For all you Kansas people, we just heard Mark Lawson from KWCH on the weather channel! That's the cool part! but he was talking about sever weather in Kansas. Are y'all okay?

My newest skirt

new skirt, pic cropped
Originally uploaded by marigo

Okay, I took a very dark photo, indoors, in a mirror, and then I tinkered with it until it looks like this...and it's pretty accurate. I like it, it's light and cool, and dries quickly...I know, because I was chasing little kids through the water fountains at the zoo.

This afternoon we spent at the zoo, looking at the elephants and the butterflies and the botanical garden. We had much fun! i've uploaded pics to flickr if you want to see,

Tomorrow, Little J starts swimming lessons. He's not to sure about getting in the big pool, so we'll see how it goes. Mommy is going to be with him, and Little Sister and Little G will be in the baby pool. It'll be a fun family event! yay! :)

I'm Bacckk!!

Which is a cause for great rejoicing (at least by me!) because it means that my poor little laptop has a new power cord! Hallelujah!

It's been a busy hiatus for us. Dear Big J was here last weekend, and hung out with us. We went to the Hoosier Hills Fiber Arts, we saw a movie (sans children)(Terminator. That's why it was without the kiddos.) we went for lunch at Carrabba's (Yummy! Anyone have recipes for their Chicken Marsala or Pollo Rosa Maria?) and we drove Little Sister to camp.

She's been to this camp for the past two years, but this year she was doing a different program, "Adventure Camping". It sounds as if it would be lots of fun in good weather...they camp out every night, in tents, and they drive for off-location activities like rock-climbing, canoes down a river, and cave-exploring. However! While Little Sister was there, it rained into their tents 3 nights out of five. I think it makes me feel old, I would not have been able to move after nights like they had. But she said that they had a great time (actually, she said that SHE had a great time) and she talked about it the entire drive home. For an entire hour. Really.

Big J had to fly back for more supersecret classes on last Sunday, and since Little Sister was at camp, the little ones and I hung out, went to the grocery store (and the toy store) and spent lots of time together. One day we made popsicles (banana-strawberry) and it was a rousing success. I also took them up to the craft room with me. We cleaned and tidied, and I finished off a few projects while they were dumping magazines and buttons on the floor.

The first project, was two big floor pillows. I've had them sewed together for ages (Really! Since before I was married) and I finally stuffed them and sewed the openings closed. They look pretty good on our big beanbag. The other project I rescued from the craft room is a skirt for me. I maybe started it two years ago? and whoever labeled that darn pattern as a "2-hour" pattern, deserves to burn in a crafter's hell. It was a floor length skirt, with tiers of ruffles. I HATE ruffles. but i really wanted that skirt when I started it, so I had started at the bottom so that I would have less sewing to do as I went up. Good idea, right? Hah! I found the other pieces, and sewed them together from the top down, and decided that two ruffle tiers, stopping at just above the knee, was going to be the right length. If I had originally sewed from the top down, I could have stopped much sooner, and been done with it a long long time ago. It's a quick (reasonably) and dirty sewing job, but it's finished, and I can wear it to church tomorrow. I really hope I didn't miss any more pins...

Let's see...oh, I finished up a summer scarf for me, of a recycled sari silk-yarn. It's pretty, and fuzzy. Maybe I'll take a picture of it tomorrow before church...stay tuned, same bat channel, same bat time. ;)