Well, I just had one of those weeks! It has been just awful. It started Sunday before last. I am in charge of the coffee at church. Our church services are held in the common room of a local elementary school. I arrive about 1 hour early to set up the tables to put the coffee on, another one for information, and 2 for people to sit at and visit before church starts. The pastor’s father always brings about 4 dozen Krispy Kreme donuts and I bring about 5 or 6 dozen homemade cookies. I also bring fresh flowers from my gardens, if they’re blooming, to put on the table with the coffee, donuts, and cookies. I arrived at the regular time on Sunday, to find that the trailer with the coffeemakers, the tables, the information booklets, cups, napkins, creamer, sugar, etc. wasn’t there and neither were the donuts. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal, but unbeknownst to me, we had special guests. The St. Charles County Youth Choir was performing. The choir members and their parents, numbering about 75 total, arrived before I did. I hadn’t made any extra cookies, brought any extra cups, and we hadn’t printed any extra programs. Fortunately, I always try to have extra coffee, and try to keep extra creamer and sugar on hand. But we didn’t have nearly enough cups. After frantically searching for someone to run to the store (and finding no one), the pastor’s wife happened to find some extra cups in with the Sunday school supplies. In the end everything turned out fine, but I think the guests were a bit shell shocked when they discovered that the guy with the jeans and t-shirt was the pastor, and no, he wasn’t going to change his clothes.
I noticed last Saturday that the rabbits had been in the vegetable garden and we had lost 2 cabbages and 1 banana pepper plant. So I headed out to the local Co-op to find something organic to use to keep the little critters out. When I got home from church, I needed to put it on the plants, and replace the plants that had been chewed off at the ground by the rabbits. So my sister, Montecat, and I planted more cabbages, some broccoli, more peppers, and some herbs. Then we mixed up the spray to keep the rabbits and deer out. Success, it works, but good golly lolly, does it stink and now, instead of rabbits and deer, we are attacked by flies everytime we enter the garden!!
On Monday, I decided that the lawn needed mowing. Our house sits on 3 acres. About 1 acre is woods, the rest is lawn and flower gardens. There are shrubs, a pool, decks, sidewalks, pump house, shed, trees, and did I mention flower gardens???? I decided that before I mowed, we needed to clean out the flower beds (actually the hubby does this for me as my Mother’s Day gift), and my son was planning to move the arbor arch and plant some clematis for me as my Mother’s Day gift from him. This is a tradition. Every year, since they were old enough to do so, my sons have planted a new garden for me for Mother’s Day. Hence, all the flower gardens. But before we started, we headed to the local Wal Mart, to run in and out, for the clematis. Now I am not sure what your Wal Mart is like, but when I say run in and out, I am speaking optimistically. I called ahead of time, was told, by the sales associate, ”Yes, we have clematis”, after the young lady went outside to make sure. I arrived at Wal Mart, parked right next to lawn and garden, and hurried in. I asked where the clematis was and was told, “I don’t know if we have any.” I assured the assistant manager that I had called, they had checked, and yes they did have clematis. WRONG!!!! The sales associate couldn’t find any when I called, so she just made it up. LOVELY! I called the local Orscheln’s and they had them. I went and picked them up, a quick in and out, and headed home.
CLEMATIS
(This was taken from my front walk, and is one of the plants, in one of my gardens)
After we got the arch moved, the clematis planted, the flower beds cleaned out, and all the debris toted to the burn pile, the day was over, so I decided to mow Tuesday.
I know it appears that I am rambling, but, trust me, it gets better (or worse depending on your point of view).
I got the lawn mower (a rider) out Tuesday morning, and started mowing. I had changed the oil and filter, the gas filter, cleaned out the gas tank and fuel line, and cleaned the air filters on Sunday, so she was ready to go. After about 30 minutes, she died. I waited a bit, opened the hood, and checked the oil and fuel. All good, so I started her up again. I noticed that my brother-in-law, who lives across the street, was attempting to cut up some trees that were taken down last summer, using a hand saw. I went over to give him a hard time about not borrowing the chain saw, and the mower died again. I finally got it going, and headed home, and it died again, and again, and yet again. I finally had to get the hubby to help push it home. After consulting with the lawn mower repair man, it became apparent that we were going to need a new mower. We ended up buying a nice little rider, but we had to dip into the emergency fund. I did get to try it out for about 30 minutes before it got dark, though. Very nice.
I got up Wednesday, climbed on the new mower and away I went. Meanwhile, my son was going to cut up some pines that were dead. He got out the chain saw, and it wouldn’t run, so I had to stop mowing and take it to the shop. I went to the local chainsaw repair shop, and was told he doesn’t work on the brand I have, but he would be glad to sell me a new one. Otherwise, I would need to go to the repair shop about 15 miles away. One more unexpected trip and an $18 deposit just for them to look at it. When I got home, I got out my weedeater, a walk behind, and started the weed whacking. About 3/4 of the way through, it suddenly got very, very loud. I looked down and the dad gummed muffler was burning it’s way through the plastic shield. I just kept going. By the time I was done, it was like my ears were packed full of cotton. I fixed the weed eater myself.
While I was mowing and weed eating, the hubby decided to open and fill the spa. I thought, “Ahh, after I am done, I can soak my aching bones.” MEEEEEEP. I got called back to the deck as the spa seemed to have a leak. Boy, howdy, I’ll say. Water was running out the air control valve, because the maufacturer had glued the pvc pipe into the threaded control valve. Luckily, the local hardware store had everything I need to fix it, picked it all up yesterday, and will do the repair tomorrow.
Yesterday, Thursday, was fairly uneventful. I finished up what I hadn’t done the previous days, and nothing broke!! Did the 5 hour oil change on the new mower, and it went just like it was supposed to. No surprises!!!
Woke up this morning to storms and torrential rain. Yay!!! I had gotten all my outside chores done yesterday, so the only thing I needed to do was clean the house. But (there is always a but), we were out of CLR and the shower needed to be cleaned with it, so off to town we went. We also needed salad stuff and cat food, so I got to go to Wally World again. YAY!!! Can you tell I’m ecstatic?? While on the way, the lawn mower repair guy called, and said he finally got the tiller taken apart (he has had it for almost 3 weeks) and the news is not good. They do not make the individual gears needed, so I will need to buy the whole assembly. ” Hmm, sounds expensive,” I think. “Probably going to cost me $150-$200 to get the darned tiller fixed.” THINK AGAIN, STEF! Parts, $600, yep, you saw right, $600. So I tell him to put it back together and I’ll come get it. He gets almost apoplectic, and informs me it will take him a full day just to put it back together. After telling him, “Sorry, I cannot afford to put $800 more into a machine that only cost $649 to begin with”, he tells me he will put it outside and I can come to pick it up when I have time. He also informs me that he already has a $45 charge for pick up and $100, maybe more for the labor to tear it apart, just so he can tell me it is going to be too expensive to fix it. About 5 minutes later he calles me back and tells me if I will come and get it “right now” he will only charge me $75. It is now in the back of my van, in about 15 pieces.
The day wasn’t quite done with me yet. Right after leaving the mower repair shop, with my now disassembled tiller in the rear of my conversion van, I got out my new reading glasses (got them last week) and looked up a phone number on my phone, dialed it, took my glasses off, went to fold them up and put them away, and THE EAR PIECE BROKE OFF at the lens. They literally FELL APART!!!!! Back to Wally World! LOL !!! They got them fixed in 5 minutes and it was…… FREE!!!!!!!!
And how was your week??????????
May your God bless, and keep, you and yours.
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