My lottery/mystery solved (Part 2)

To preface this debate, and probably at the risk of making myself look even more foolish than I present normally, I’ll give you a little history on my car. Men have always been fascinated by my car. I’ve never quite understood why. It’s a 10 yr old, basic burgundy all-purpose Volvo that I bought used 3 yrs ago with 30K miles on it from a little old lady who felt she could no longer drive. It’s what my teen DDs claim looks like and is “an old lady car.” But it’s reliable and safe, which are the important factors to me. The car was also in exceptionally good condition. She had been well cared for, had not a scratch on her and had obviously been carefully stored in a garage. This car had obviously been this little old lady’s “baby.” (Now, knowing what I know, I'd really like to get to know that 81 yr old woman better! *LOL*)

But when I take my car in for tire rotations, service & maintenance or just to have something checked, or even when I stop for gas, I quite often have a male walk over, or one who has been under the hood or has started her up, comment, “DANG! This baby is sweeeeeeet!” It’s usually the under 50 males that have such reactions to the car. It’s a basic Volvo, I swear! No fancy paint job, no fancy interior, no glass packs or 4 barrels, just an “old lady Volvo.” I thank them for the compliment and drive off thinking, “I just don’t get it!”

The only unique thing about my car is that it has two extra buttons on it. One little silver toggle switch on the dash…I never did figure out what it was for and have played around with it, flipped it back and forth, multiple times. Nothing happens. (or so I THOUGHT) Never did figure it out but finally assumed that the original owner must have had a CD changer or something in it that was removed before I bought it. The other button is that “winter sport mode” switch that I mentioned earlier that took me almost a year to figure out. It’s kind of like a cross between 4 wheel drive and “low gear range” on a truck. I know it’s NOT really 4WD. But if I flip into this mode on a mountain in bad weather, it feels like it makes the roads clear up, level up, and straighten up; and the bad weather magically goes away. Really kewl button! I just never did figure out that little silver one.

The only other unique thing about my car is that it appears to be haunted. Or at least that’s to what I blamed it before this week. Let’s see, there was the time, a few months after I bought her, when I couldn’t find my keys and had to be at a meeting, so I took DH’s keys and headed out to work. A couple of miles down the road, I reached down to flip the fog lights on and must have hit the wrong switch or something and the car started beeping at me. I couldn’t figure out where the heck the beeping was even coming from. A minute or two later, the beeping got louder and faster. Then the emergency flashers came on. Then the door locks all went down. Then the car just shut down and died. It wouldn’t restart, wouldn’t even turn over. It wouldn’t unlock. And the darned thing wouldn’t even let me take the key out of the ignition! I had to call for help, and crawl into the backseat and into the trunk to pull the emergency release to get the doors open! Then the hood latch locked down and wouldn’t release to let me open the hood to attempt to jump the car. After the car was towed and “reset” by the dealer, my key would no longer work….wouldn’t even fit into the door or ignition. I had to order an entire new set of keys. REALLY WEIRD!

The car allows me to drive her during daylight with the doors unlocked. But if I get in her after dark, all the doors automatically lock down the minute I close the door. It used to creep me out. But I finally decided that it must be equipped with some kind of safety sensor? But it drives DH nuts. He unlocks the doors. The doors lock back down. He hits “unlock”; they relock. I just laugh and say “She doesn't know you and is trying to make sure I’m safe; so you have to leave the locks alone.” He would just growl at me and roll his eyes. (Yeah, let's see if he rolls his eyes at me anymore when I tell him that! *LOL*)

When I first bought it, I couldn’t get out of the car with it running because it would automatically lock down when I shut the doors. I tried EVERYTHING to prevent it….every danged button and setting on that car….nothing worked. I finally started carrying an extra key. But I stopped using it after about a month because I started noticing that as long as I was warming the car up at home between the hours of 5am and 9am, it wouldn’t lock me out. It was as if the car had figured out that it was ok to idle during those times because I was at home in my own driveway?

Then there was the event just last month when DH took the car to have the tires rotated. The car started beeping at him as he pulled into the tire store. DH stepped out of the car, leaving the key in the ignition and popped the hood. He then attempted to pull the cable off the battery to stop the beeping. As he did, the door closed and all the locks popped down. He then borrowed a “jimmy stick” to try to unlock the door and open it. (Geez, was that ever a mistake!) The horn started blowing, the lights started flashing (and the battery was supposedly unhooked). When he attempted again to open the hood, the hood was locked down and wouldn’t release. He finally called me at work and told me to come back home and see if I could unlock the car. When I put MY key in the car, everything stopped and went back to normal. I laughed it off as “This car and me, we’ve developed a relationship and understanding…..she KNOWS who she belongs to….DH, ya just gotta learn how to train a car right!”

Now, never did it occur to me that there might have been a perfectly logical reason for all this. Never did I think to ask anybody WHY my car did these things. And I sure didn’t want anyone to think I was delusional when they heard me trying to explain all this. And I guess along the way, mechanics never thought to tell me why these things kept happening to me because they assumed that if I bought the car and drive it regularly, I would KNOW about my own car. So this might shed some light into why I became so frustrated with my mechanic this week.


Frank: ….but it could be the “Street Toys” if you’re leaving them on for long periods of time and not driving the car, or maybe somebody is messing with your car and your Street Toys are reacting to it.
Me: Frank, what the heck are you talking about? So you think somebody is draining my battery or something?
Frank: No, I’m just saying that I can’t service your Street Toys. You’ll have to have them checked by whomever installed them. But you can check your remote or run a scan on your computer and see if anything looks abnormal. If not, take it back to the installer to check, just in case.
Me: What installer? Everything on that car is original except for the oil, filters, tires, battery and the axle you just put on it.
Frank: No, the Street Toys are not original.
Me: What the heck are Street Toys?!?!
Frank: Your remote system
Me: I don’t have a remote system!
Frank: Yes you do…the computer system on your car that you work from your remote control, you know….
Me: Frank! I don’t even have a FOB! You’re getting my car mixed up with someone else’s. I drive that one right there….that burgundy car, right there….(pointing out the window to my car)
(Frank’s wife walks in and comments): Oh wow, you’re the lady who owns that sweeeeeet thannnng?!? I LOVE that car! I’ve been trying to talk Frank into getting me one of those systems for my car!
Me: WHAT SYSTEM!?!?!
Mrs. Frank: Your Street Toys! You know…..that little button you pushed this morning in your house while you were drinking your coffee to de-ice the doors and windows, start your car, warm it up…heck without that, you would have been outside in the cold like the rest of us.
Me: I WAS outside, with a blow dryer, trying to open my frozen car door! I don’t have any flippin’ remotes or magic buttons!!

After several minutes of this confusion and frustration, I finally convinced Frank that I really was totally lost. So he took me around to the lift/bay and showed me this little black box that was attached over next to my engine, down in between a bunch of wires, barely visible between all those hoses and belts. Then he followed one of the wires and showed me where it led into my car to that mysterious silver switch on the dash……now known as the “Emergency Street Toy Override Switch.” Geez, and I was beginning to think it was a bomb!!! ~sigh~

I now know the purpose of the mysterious silver switch……the one that can reset my car, (with the proper secret code put into the stereo with those station memory buttons that I naively thought were just for my radio). It was the switch for those times when I’ve changed keys and/or drivers and confused the car and made it think it was being stolen and to prevent it from going into “defense mode” and shutting down the entire car and locking down the thief inside! It's that same button that with the use of the proper key in the door can shut off the alarm system when it’s beeping and flashing the lights. That same button caused one of Frank’s staff to laugh hysterically and comment, “Geez, you really didn’t know you have this Toy system on this thing and really don’t know the code for it?!? It’s a good thing you never lost your keys or played with that switch or hit it while you were driving because you would have been broke down on the side of the road, locked in your car and would have never figured out what to do!”

***Yeah, that would have been the pits on a foggy morning. I would have had to crawl out through the trunk, huh?***

So, after a 10 minute explanation of everything that little black box, along with a CD for my computer and a little remote control can do, I stood in utter shock. Then the reality started kicking in.....
You mean to tell me that for the past 3 years I have been able to start my car from my computer or from a remote control key chain? And I can set the temperature that I want it to be from inside my office? And it will defrost the doors and windows with the push of a button without ever touching the car? And that my key tells my car who to expect and what my driving habits are? And this box, determines from that if it’s really ME driving? And there’s an elaborate alarm system on it that will lock down the doors, hood and trunk to keep somebody from disabling it? And if they get past that, it will lock a thief down inside my car? And that there’s a timer on this thing that I can set to my own desires? AND that there’s an elaborate lighting system on it where I can choose my interior colors and under the dash colors and lights under the seats and even under the car that I never even knew existed?!?! And I can locate my car from my computer if my kids drive it or it gets stolen?!?!

So my car really does have a relationship with me?? And it really did know when DH was driving it rather than me?!? HOLY COW!!!!

In other words, I’m really NOT driving an "old lady car" but really instead driving a “sweeeeeeeet Street Toy” and never knew it?!?!

Now where the heck do I get one of those little remote control key chain thingies and that CD for my computer?!? I WANT IT ALL AND I WANT IT NOW!

:( I feel like I've won the lottery (part 1)

with just a couple of minute little challenges.....I didn't know it until yesterday; and now I can't find it!! ~sigh~growl~sigh~
Maybe y'all can help?

Yesterday morning I went out to start my car and nearly broke my neck trying to get down the deck stairs that were iced over. Ok, this was a major aggravation for me because I put those "no freeze, no skid" black rubbery-stuff tread pads down on all those steps last Fall. Do you think it helped? No, the ice froze right over them! Then I got to my car and couldn't get the doors open because they were iced over. This really aggravated me because I'm standing out there battling with a frozen car (that I bought used 3 yrs ago from a little old lady who could no longer drive it...but more about that later) that's parked in front of, outside of, a 3 car garage. DH is gonna hear about this one again tonight!

Now, to clarify, we can't put the car in the garage because DH has his workshop set up in there on one side. The other side is storage for all the furniture and household stuff that came from his house, that we didn't use in my house, when we got married.
And as further clarification of this next part, I've returned a brand new battery to Auto Zone twice in the past 6 months because the new batteries don't seem to be holding up. I keep complaining about it; but hey, they're under warranty so I'll keep exchanging them until I get one that does seem to hold up. Auto Zone, on the other hand is getting rather testy with me, and insist that there is something wrong with my car that is "zapping the hell outta our batteries."

OK, back to getting off to work this morning.....
I stood out there mumbling and grumbling about the cold and not having access to the warm garage as I angrily waved my trusty blow dryer along the door to melt the ice. I finally got into my car and thought:
PLEASE start this morning. I know it's cold out here but I really gotta get to work. Dear Battery, please don't fail me now!

Hmmmm, one great thing I can say about these batteries, they always seem to work great in bad weather! It's just in good weather, after sitting for a day or two without being driven, that they can't seem to start the car. Isn't that odd?!? And what's even odder is that when they go, they take the entire electrical system with it. Everytime I change one of those heavy-duty, way too expensive, batteries, I have to take my car over to the shop to have the electrical system reset and recoded.

So I finally got myself and the car (yes, both at the same time) headed toward work. About half of my drive is winding country roads (that are now icy )going over the mountain. So I kicked in my trusty "winter sport mode" button and trucked right along in my little car as if it were a fine Spring day. I just love my little car! BUT, long about the 13th curve around the mountain, I noticed a slight "popping" sound as I went into the curve. ***Hmmmm, that wasn't there before; I hope that wasn't my CV joint. Nah, it's just the cold weather*** It didn't pop in the next curve so I turned the radio back up. But then it happened again when I turned out onto the main road. ***Hmmm, now THAT can't be good!*** So I made an executive decision to be late to work and stop by my mechanic's shop on the way in to see if he felt I needed to be worried.

It wasn't good news, but it could have been worse. The CV boot was torn and the CV joint was starting to be affected. For about $250 in labor (to take the axle apart to fix the joint and boot) and about $40 in parts, they could fix it. But as Frank explained to me, the car is 10 yrs old which means the other CV boot is going to eventually go too which will mean doing it all again :( The other option is to wait until they both go to save some labor costs. But that's sometimes somewhat risky. Or he can order a whole new axle with all the CVs and junk already new on it for about $150 plus $150 in labor. Only $10 more, much faster and easier, and remove the future need of return for the other 10 yr old CV boot. So I left the car and took Frank's car to work. But before I left, I asked him about the battery. He said there was a possibility that if my alternator was going out or something was haywire in the charging system, it COULD eat up a battery. (Of course, his explanation was much longer and more detailed; but that is the basic summary of it) But he said while the guys were waiting for the new axle to be delivered, he would hook up the handy-dandy computer system and get down into the charging system and see if he could find anything.....

The good news was that he could find nothing wrong with my charging system and/or the alternator. ***See! Those fools down at Auto Zone were wrong! I KNEW it! It's not MY car; it's THEIR batteries!*** Both he and the computer said all was in great shape! :) The bad news was that he was trying to explain another possibility for me to have checked that he couldn't service and I couldn't comprehend. So I argued with the poor man, only to look like a fool and be completely ecstatic all at the same time! The debate went something like this...

(to be continued because I have to get into to work this morning and then make some phone calls to follow up on my "feels like the lottery" mystery from yesterday)

Scrapbook Freebies

I am finally putting together all my pictures from the past couple of months and have made my own theme kits to match similar sets of pictures. This is a chain for one of my pages:

This is an individual link to the chain:

Unfortunately, I've still not mastered saving a transparent PNG file. But have both of these in a transparent PSP file. If you'd like one of these, I'll be happy to send them to you in psp format if you request in my comments area and leave an email address. This freebie is available only through Jan 15.

Let me know what you think! :)

Putting it all back together (Part 2)

With all the parts and pieces now upstairs, the doctor put up the first shelf into those first two industrial strength heavy duty stainless steel brackets. But now, I have raw wood facing me under a white wood shelf. I asked him to take it down until I could paint it to match the other shelves. He diagnosed me with OCD about it and saw no reason to paint these; afterall, "it's just a closet."

He then attempted to install the new tracking onto the adjacent wall. The studs weren't lined up to match the width of these new tracks. So we had to stop again so he could find some "anchors" to go behind where his tracks should be. My question was, "But if my original tracking already fits on the studs, why don't we just use it rather than putting up new tracks?" I don't know why I failed to foresee his reply that the stainless steel industrial strength tracks for the stainless steel industrial strength brackets are much better. So up went the anchors and the new tracks in their new locations. The fine doctor sent me (still the scrub nurse) for the new industrial strength stainless steel brackets to go into his new industrial strength tracks.

The next challenge(let's see, am I on #4 now?):
Those lovely stainless steel brackets won't fit into the new industrial strength tracks! Don't ask me why...we both tried. They simply were not made to work together. So back he went to the hardware store to complain about the idiots who made the bracket hooks a different size than the track holes. (They really were different sizes with some of them more different than others!)

My handy-dandy handiman returned with "even better" brackets, still stainless steel but with a new and improved "easy clean" black paint coating on them.
ME: WHY THE HECK DIDN'T YOU GET WHITE IF YOU WERE GOING TO GET THEM COLORED?!?
HIM: Because these don't come in white!

So up went the new black brackets into the industrial tracks; and the first two shelves were then up on the wall. During the installation of the third shelf, I stepped away to get a coke. Just as I opened the refrigerator, I heard a tremendous crash-bang in the closet, then a few choice words said in the normal handiman-gone-wild tone.

Challenge #5: It appears that the "anchors" won't hold such new-fangled, heavy duty, industrial strength, stainless steel tracks and brackets because they pulled out of the wall and came tumbling to the floor. It also appears that my "basic shelves" don't hold up well when crashing to the floor in the midst of such heavy duty industrial marvels. And of course my box of 20 Mule Team Borax along with my multiple boxes of baking soda that were on the top shelf held up no better; the boxes burst and sprayed white powder all over the house when they hit the floor.

Thank God nobody was hurt. But I then had a new fangled vocabulary-challenged handiman sporting a new chic color of white across his sexy handiman duds. What a sight to behold!

He ultimately decided to use my white brackets (although he'd deny it, I'm sure it was to match his new white attire) and my white tracks to put up the new shelves he had to go cut in the garage. By this time, he had decided I would NOT get corner shelves since they "will just cause more stress on the closet" (what the heck??) and proceeded to finish the closet HIS way since of course MY plans are what initiated this mess. He then decided that "a few" of his things were to go into the closet so that he wouldn't have to run back and forth to the garage when he needed something.

I gave up my plans. Mr. Fix-it refuses to return to the hardware store and is sorting the closet now. And his new look must be affecting his eyesight because he doesn't seem to be alarmed that he's shelving food items mixed with hardware nor that the closet shelves need paint. He says he just wants to get all this stuff out of sight and "we'll worry about the rest later."



I'll be redoing this next Saturday while he is at work. Until then, please don't visit. The house is a wreck!

Putting it all back together (Part 1)

How difficult can it be to measure out the walls and install some L-shaped shelving? And since the pantry and closet back up to each other, I can use the same plan and measurements from one into the other. Right? Why would I have thought that anything could be simple?!?

Well, remember that I told you about my biggest challenge in my goal of subtraction? Somebody, and I won't name names, always comes up with a "bigger and better" plan than mine and has to put his two cents into the equation. (Yes, Tim Allen's Home Improvement character lives right here in my home!)

My plan was to use the shelves from the closet, cut them to complete the pantry, add the white tracks and white brackets, and voila...a neat, tidy, white pantry. Then I can put up brackets and tracks on the other side of the same wall, add more white shelves and use the laundry room closet for all my cleaning supplies and linens. So I washed the walls and floors and started measuring and marking my tracks. I tried to start at the top and work my way down, one shelf at a time, putting supplies back up as I went. Here's a pic of my initial work (my first two rows) before "help" arrived:

I didn't think it was looking too bad. In fact, I was quite satisfied with it.

Then my no-names-mentioned, home improving, Tim Allen-type person decided he knew a better way and could do it twice as fast. The results were staggering to put it lightly!

My choice of shelving: the closet kits with basic white tracks and 12 inch white brackets with basic white 12 inch shelves...same as before, but run all the way across one wall and halfway down and across the other wall to leave room for the taller items like the washer and dryer, vacuum cleaner, brooms, mops, etc.

His choice: the super industrial strength stainless steel tracking and brackets with standard white shelves. He even went out and bought these supplies for me. What a guy!

He was pretty smug about all this until he put it up and the shelves wouldn't fit in those 12 inch brackets that really weren't 12 inches at all, but more like 11 5/8 inches. But no worries, I was told, he could just trim up those shelves to fit those brackets. (Now why do all that when my standard white brackets were working just fine? Or why not just take the darned stainless steel ones back and exchange for the cheapie white metal brackets?) Well, I was told, "because these are better." So the entire project was put on hold awaiting all this trimming and cutting that had to be done.

I TRIED to go play with my digital scrapbooking while he worked, in between all the "Honey, come here" and "Honey, hold this, hand me that" and "Now, put this there, no over here, well, maybe try this, no try that"s that kept me jumping up and down out of my chair and running back and forth to the garage. I finally gave up. I spent the afternoon playing Home Improvement Scrub Nurse to the Dr. Tim Allen Character. Do you think he wanted to hear any of my concerns or suggestions along the way? I even tried the sweet, suggestive wifely voice, "Honey, maybe we should..."
All I got was "NO, just hang on; I know what I'm doing."

So with all the new and improved equipment ready, we carried it all out of the garage and upstairs to the closet....

Subtracting Little Joe

Well, I've finally mapped out Little Joe's travel route. And I have spent the weekend making this route my first subtraction goal of the year. He jumps from the tree next to the back deck, over onto the roof over the kitchen, then into a hole he has made between the roof and the gutter, on into the attic above the loft.
He had quite a storage cache of nuts in the attic, right next to the wall that comes down between the laundry room closet and the pantry.

I noticed that we had that darned Georgia clay staining the floor next to my file cabinet. I couldn't figure out how we were getting clay onto the floor in the closet, but decided to pull out the file cabinet to clean the floor.


Guess what I found? Yet another cache of nuts behind this file cabinet. And just look what else I found...one of his little squirrelly doors:


It appears that he has been running down this wall and has made himself a little door into both the pantry and the laundry room closet. So I pulled everything out of the pantry and the laundry room closet and had no place to go with all of it at once. So our living room, corridor and hallway now look like part of a redneck thrift store! lol



I then proceeded to clean out both areas decided to put in more efficient storage shelves. After a trip to the hardware store, I was ready to put it all back together....

The Year of Subtraction

My CEO stated that this would be the "year of subtraction" at work. She plans to reduce paperwork, one way or the other. She plans to reduce repetition and recidivism. I can hardly wait; we really need to do this. It would make life so much simpler and much more enjoyable.

I plan to do the same at home this year. Of course I claimed this same goal last year, just different words. Last year was to be my year of simplification, to get rid of all the stuff in the house that we didn't need, cut back on all the "clutter" in the house, in my mind, in our lives, and give us more time, room and energy for the things we enjoy most. But I never got it done.

One of the biggest challenges is that of the four people remaining in this house, none of us can agree on the priorities. Now, with the girls, I can pull rank and just make an executive decision. Afterall, I am the mother! With DH, it's a little more complicated. He's all for reduction and getting rid of non-essentials, seldom used or long ago overused items. So I can start cleaning things out. And the keyword in that sentence is "START."

You see, the problem with starting is that it must be finished. Otherwise, it becomes a bigger mess. When I clean out the girls' clothes and package them for the Thrift Store, the boxes must go somewhere. That somewhere is my living room until one of us can take the boxes out. DH will then come home from work (he comes in as I'm going out) and decide these boxes just simply can't be in the living room in his way, so he moves them to the porch or garage. If he moves them to the porch, I guarantee you it will rain that day! It has happened far too many times. If he moves them to the garage, he will decide that they will be in the way of his tools, and will then change his mind and return them to the house. And guess where they will go? Right back into the girls' closets!

If I clean out larger items to make more room, within hours DH will plan a purchase of something to replace the disposed item and fill the space. And I guarantee you that the replacement will take up more space than the disposal! There is no subtraction in this house....just swaps! ~sigh~

I think what I need is a week off work, here at the house, all by myself. That's the only way this will work. Now to plan how I'd do that......
hmmmmm.......

Happy New Year!

Hope y'all had a great holiday and hope your new year brings good health, good cheer and many blessings.

I took off work for past ten days and have enjoyed being home. It has allowed me some extra time to do some "catch up" and some thinking about where I've been this past year and where I want to go this year. But more on that later.

I also spent some time working on my scrapbooks and made a couple of new digital scrapbook kits. I'm thinking of posting some of the parts for free downloads but need to find a more efficient way of doing it. I'll be checking into that this month. I also need to learn how to save my PSP files as transparent pngs. Otherwise, all my freebies will be in PSP or JPG format. I use that darned wizard on my PSP; but my saved PNG pages still come out with saved backgrounds where the transparencies should be. I still can't figure out what I'm doing wrong with these. If anyone has any words of wisdom or ideas, please email me.