Stuff and Things 11/2

+November 2nd is a weird day for me. It's the day Scott left for Afghanistan back in 2009 and was the icy plunge into it's-time-to-grow-up for me. That was a hard four months (I laugh now...four months). Also that was pre-blog, so no link.

#TBT...right before he left for that deployment...like October 24ish, 2009?

+I renewed the RAV4 registration last week. Two months late, so there was a late fee. Also, I had no orders, LES, or POA. I just paid full price. WHATEVER. I don't even care. The idea of getting all that paperwork together and going back to the DMV (on a school day at 4pm) was more daunting than paying the extra money. When you're an active duty soldier, you get a discount if you provide alllll the documentation. Well, Scott is in Wyoming. I am here. It's a Colorado vehicle and I just needed to get this done because, again, it was due in August. And without those Colorado orders (uh, he's in Wyoming now), we have no claim to Colorado, as we are Alaska residents (though maybe since we have a house here...? I don't know.)

And since he worked so hard to fix the RAV4 over the weekend with the intent of actually driving it, it needed to be legal.

+Halloween was...passable.

For the second time in three years, my coworker bought/made my costume for me. I literally just won't do it and she figured this out long ago. Last year, I ordered my own Power Rangers tshirt from Amazon so she didn't have to do that.

+I have this theory that people in Colorado are bit wimpy. You see, on the east coast, people are used to winter and they just kind of sludge through it. It's wet and humid snow, and muddy and gross but whatever. In Alaska, they relish it. They literally live for it so complaining, I learned, doesn't get you far. Here, people are very die-hard Colorado. They want the badge of honor that goes with living in Colorado and they assume that makes them tough. When it snows and when it's cold, they say, "What are you going to do? It's #ColoradoLife". However, when it does snow and when it is cold, they get very "Nooooo, it's cold" or "Nooooo, not snow" and the interstate will shut down and school will be canceled and life does not go on as normal when it snows or is cold. People lose it and are really bad at things relating to winter. Recess gets canceled if it's below 25 degrees (with the windchill...which means it can really be 35 degrees and recess will be cancelled). It's an absolute conundrum of a place. From what I've gathered, the people who live in Laramie are more like the people who live in Alaska. They love the cold weather and deal with it. I have no guesses about which place is best, really, but this is just something I think about a lot, since I've dealt with winter in four different states now.

+I went to Target yesterday for pens and protein powder. I also wanted some Thanksgiving stickers but they don't sell those...they only sell Christmas ones after Halloween, apparently. Also, I asked the cashier how early everyone had to show up in order to get the Christmas stuff out (because it was ALL out at the Target) and she said 5:00am.

+And, lastly, for any weekend t.v. watching you might be interested in, I recommended some shows on Tuesday but I just watched Simply Complicated, the Demi Lovato documentary last night and it was shockingly good. I'll recommend it for sure. I couldn't find it anywhere else, so I watched it on Youtube.

Linking up with Kristen!

Tire Stuff and Things

Getting tires fixed is literally the story of my life. I'm not exaggerating.

Since we live on a dirt road, we get nails in our tires often. This results in tire pressure warning lights coming on and then me driving whatever vehicle it is to the tire place, Big O Tires.

One Friday a few weeks back, my light came on. Since Scott was away hunting, and it was 2 degrees outside, I took his extra truck to school and then the next afternoon, he and I took my SUV to the tire place on our way to run errands. They said they couldn't fit us in that day but they believed it was the back passenger tire and that it was a slow leak and they could top off the air and I could come back Monday.

Scott checked all the tires himself when we got home. and said there was nothing wrong with any of them (the reason why I usually insist we use the tire place is because it's free since I have a warranty plan there and I really hate adding to Scott's to-do list).

The tire light went off. Four days later, it came back on again. Scott was using up the last of his block leave on another hunting trip, so I drove to the tire place after school. They asked me which tire it was and I repeated what they'd told me the week before. I waited for half an hour and they said it was good to go. The next day, the pressure warning light came back on.

I whined around to Scott for a few days, asking him to look at it. He was busy. I had after-school obligations and couldn't make it to the tire place.

Finally, he left work and came to my school, took the back driver's side tire off and said there was a giant nail in it. He put the spare on and, since we had an army obligation after work, said I could take it to the tire place the next day. I *kind of* complained about this. I mean, I know he's absolutely swamped at work all of the time, but unless it's a meeting or something, I usually assume he can leave the office. Like, I WISH I could do that just a little bit. My whole day is one long meeting. I relayed my thoughts on this to my coworker, as the truck sat in the school parking lot with my deflated tire in the bed, waiting to be taken to get fixed after school.

Then Scott sent me a message saying he came by and picked it up and dropped it off at the tire place. It'd be ready for me to pick up after school.

Done and done. I may be the most predictable person around, as I'd already let her know. And Scott never fails to make himself look good.

I went into the tire place after work and they're all How can we help you? and What can we do for you today? and Oh, yes, your husband dropped off a tire? Was it round? Ha ha ha Yes, we'll get that right out.

And I barely had time to come to a stop before I was turning around and following my tire as it was rolled out the door and put in the bed of the truck.

Obviously, when Scott got home, my first question was What did you do at Big O? Because they were awfully nice and efficient. 

Scott said it took him all of a minute to get everyone's attention because he walked in and said he did the hard part for them and the tire was off the car and he put a piece of tape over the hole and Should I wait or should my wife pick it up? They said I should pick it up and he said She'll be here at 4:15 and just left.

So anyway. Fixed for now. Until next time.

Also, is it really only Thursday? Like, really?


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The little things

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Sometimes life is just more difficult than it has to be.  We call them first world problems, and they come up when things just simply don't go our way.  But sometimes, they pile up over and over again.  It seems like, each week, there is a new challenge I have to surmount and rise above.  Some are trivial, some are not. I say "rise above" in a little bit of jest just because I remember shoveling the snow from the driveway in Alaska or cutting the grass in the enormous yard and finally feeling a huge sense of victory at the end of the task.  It's like Pa in The Long Winter yelling You can't beat us! to the blizzard.  Victory feels good.

So each thing that seems to go wrong (and I really should be keeping a list) is just another little test.  As Joey said earlier in the week, you won't be tested past what you can handle.

Anyway.

On Monday, I started the truck to take it to work because I'm supposed to drive it as least once or twice a week. It'd been about 5 days. My car just gets better gas mileage.  I can't help it.

The little exclamation point warning light came on.  I knew it was the tire again.  Yes, again.  The second time in less than 6 weeks.  

So, I started my car instead, drove to school, and emailed Scott.  He said to send him a picture.  Well, after school, I did that and he said it was indeed the tire.  I asked what I should do.  This is the way my mind works: If I drove it to school, what if it got flatter in the parking lot while it sat there all day?  Because I wouldn't be able to get to the tire place until at least 4:00.  If I didn't drive it to school and take care of this today, what if it went flat sitting in the driveway until Saturday?  Because if it went flat at the house, I'd have to call a tow truck to come get it or fix it.  You may think that Oh, well I'd still have a car, but then what if something happens to my car?  Then I'm left with a truck with a flat tire.  Leaving the house isn't an optional decision for me.  I have to do it.  Plus, I live in the middle of nowhere.  Also, I am 110% a worst-case scenario person.

Scott says, "Oh, whatever's easiest", clearly not grasping the gravity of the situation that I am solely responsible for fixing.

Therefore, I drove the truck to work yesterday, contemplating if I should just stop on my way and call and ask for class coverage, then I figured I had a prep period at the end of the day, so I could at least leave 30 minutes early and get to the tire place with time to spare.  So I arranged for that, arranged for duty coverage for the afternoon, and then walked out to the crosswalk with my stop sign at 8:35 (it is a known fact that if something is going to go wrong, it will go wrong during cross-walk-duty-week).

I looked over at the truck in the parking lot.  The tire looked even lower now.  Efffff....

My principal was out there with me, so I told her about it and she told me just to go take care of it. After I got the kids settled with stuff to do, I drove to Big O Tires in Fountain.  My co-worker's husband works there and she said to be sure to mention her name, so I did.  The place was pretty busy for 9:30 on a Tuesday.  However, I was in and out in 45 minutes and they. fixed. the. tire. for. free.  I knew it would have cost less than $20, but the kindness of that gesture made me want to cry.

The point behind all of this is that there is always something.  And the fact that I am solely responsible for fixing everything is starting to wear on me.  The list of "chores" and tasks is never-ending around here.  I'm very grateful for the little things that remind me that sometimes it really does work out just fine.  Even if pieces of the fence still blow down when it's windy and I still have to figure out how to hook up the sprinkler system.

At least it's "already" Wednesday.

Car trouble

In the 6 years I've known Scott, I've watched him disassemble and reassemble many vehicles.  Our vehicles, friends' vehicles, etc.  He does all the work himself.  It's his thing.  He started teaching himself how to do all of this when he was a teenager because it was either learn how to fix the truck he had or just not be able to drive anywhere. He is what you would call an expert.  I'm not bragging or trying to make a point.  This is just a fact that you need to know in order for the following account to make sense.  Last summer, he rebuilt an entire exhaust system.  This is the kind of thing he spent his time on before he had a house to remodel.  We all have our hobbies, right?

Two Saturdays ago, my check engine light came on.  I told Scott, he asked how it was running, I said fine, he said okay.  He looked at it and hooked it up to the code scanner to see if it would tell him what was wrong.  He got some inconclusive codes so he said we should call the dealership since it's under warranty right now.

I called at 6pm on Saturday to make an appointment for Monday.  She said to call back Monday morning.  That was the first clue.

I called back Monday morning at 8am.  They said to bring it in Tuesday morning because after school Monday would be too late for anyone to look at it.  Scott and I left the house at 6:30 Tuesday morning to get to the dealership by 7.  He followed me there and we dropped off my SUV.  He drove me to school.  Toyota was supposed to call me at some point and I left my phone on all day (a no-no) in case.  They said "we'll try to have it ready to go by 3:30".  We assumed this meant they would diagnose it and either fix it or tell us when they could fix it.  I understand that things happen and "try" doesn't always mean "for sure", but we were assuming they'd at least be able to tell us what was wrong because they were confident about their ambition for the day.

No one called. Scott picked me up at 4:00 and I had to report to him that there had been no phone call.  We drove to Toyota.

On the way, I called and the lady said that she would "check and see if it's ready".  She wasn't sure.  Kept talking about how it was "James'" and she needed to find him.  We arrived at Toyota.  I could see the sticky note with my name and number on James' desk but the flurry of several people confirmed that James could not be found.  We waited a few minutes.

Finally, James appeared.  He said that the code scanner was inconclusive and showed us a printout from a computer.  It said one thing was high and one was low and that could mean one of two things:  something that is under warranty (and free for us) or..."and we've seen this four other times today...rodent damage".  Rodent damage, surprise surprise, is not covered by a warranty.

James asked if they could keep it for another day so they could figure out what was wrong and what route to take.  THEY HADN'T EVEN LOOKED AT IT.  They had just hooked it up to the scanner and printed out a report of what a computer said was wrong with it.  SCOTT DID THAT TWO DAYS EARLIER.  In fact, he told me later that the printout said exactly what he saw on our scanner. An analogy that crossed my mind was that us taking the car in there was the equivalent of using WebMD.

We brought up the fact of Well, yeah, you can have it for another day because you still don't know what's wrong with it but why should we trust you because you didn't even call to tell us if it was ready or not.  We were particularly upset about that.  Like, we have jobs. You said you would try to have it ready at 3:30 but you didn't even call to give any kind of update, much less figured out what was wrong.

Wednesday morning, Scott drove me to work again.  It's worth saying that I'm not a morning person and look forward to my drive in solitude so this arrangement was not working out for us.  Scott had meetings all day and no cell phones were allowed. Toyota called me at 7:30am.  They said it was rodent damage and the part was $838 and the labor was $115 per hour and it would take 12-15 hours. Suddenly, between us leaving the night before at 4:30pm and 7:30am, they'd gotten their act together, ripped my SUV apart, and diagnosed my problem.  It must have been some sort of sorcery because I didn't realize things could move so quickly in that establishment.  Quotes had also been drawn up. They said we should probably call the insurance company.  Then they said I could come look at it and see the damage for myself.  I calmly replied that I don't have a car.  Then, I'm a teacher.  

I called Scott.  He, luckily, answered because he wasn't at work yet and said he'd try to go over on his lunch break.

I was left wondering and worrying all day but, alas, the show must go on. 

At 1:00ish, I got a text.

I felt kind of relieved that he'd taken care of the dirty work.  

When he picked me up from school, he told me how it went down.

He saw the damage they were referring to.  He was all WTF.  He said it was all chewed up and honestly looked liked parts of wires were cut.  He wasn't sure how he hadn't seen this before.  Or, rather, had it been like that before?  We weren't sure. When they told him of the $115 an hour for labor and 12-15 hours of work it would take to replace an $800 part....he called them out on it.  He said he didn't trust them.  He didn't think it was rodent damage.  He didn't believe their story about a mouse climbing up there and gnawing part of it while the rest looked like it had been cut with scissors.  While it is obviously possible that a mouse did some of the damage (we're not denying this), a mouse did NOT ruin the entire wiring harness with his little teeth. Scott said he didn't believe them at all and he was going to get a second opinion and he would never pay $115 an hour for them to do something he could do himself and did that $800 part really need to be replaced?  No, they said, but you really should to prevent further damage.  He asked them how long it would take for them to replace the wires.  They weren't sure until they "got in there and looked around".

Then he said that he didn't trust them because they didn't call when they said they would and they HADN'T CHANGED THE OIL YET, which they were supposed to do the day before and homeboy mechanic had his pants around his ankles and there were several others sitting around messing around with cell phones.  I'm sure that speaks volumes on how they rack up their labor rates; didn't these guys have work to do? He threw all of this at the customer service rep and said we'd pick it up at 4 and the oil better be changed.

It took them over 24 hours to actually look under the hood and another 5-6 hours to change the oil.  They didn't call us.  They quoted us ridiculous pricing.  When Scott complained about the cost of labor, they said they could drop it to $100 an hour.  To which he replied, Oh, so you can drag it out for an extra few hours and make it cost the same?    

We showed up at 5:00 to get the car.  They'd sworn it'd be ready by 2:30.  This is what I sent Scott after I got inside.  He didn't want to talk to them again.  

There were 6 people looking for the keys, the paperwork, and the car.  It took 15-20 minutes for me to get out of there because one of the guys wouldn't stop talking to me about cell phones.  Of course, he was quite occupied, playing with his cell phone and eating Chinese food at the front desk.  No wonder no one could find my paperwork.

I'd like to reiterate that this was the dealership.  This wasn't some backroad, backwoods mechanic.  This was the Larry H. Miller Toyota Dealership in Colorado Springs.  They are supposed to be reputable places of business.  It wasn't a used car lot.  

Scott bought the replacement wires for himself at an auto store a few days later.  They were $6.
Upon taking things apart, he realized that the wires looked to be cut (we could see the razor blade marks), not all had been chewed (though some had), AND they hadn't reassembled things properly.  Something with the gas tank was off (the charcoal canister) and codes were still popping up as a signal that something was wrong. We're assuming they did this to make money off of their customers and then, when they realized we weren't going to pay them to fix it, they continued down this path just to be difficult.  There were then several little things wrong with my car, mostly stemming from the cutting of wires.  Scott took a video and several pictures of the damage and left the dealership a few messages.

 The service manager called Scott this past Monday and offered to fix the car for free.  Scott said he didn't have time to sit there and watch and make sure they do it right.  They argued a bit about it and mentioned that they'd already gotten the terrible review I wrote (eh, I was kind, all things considered) so the company is offering to fix it for free.  They still stand by the fact that a mouse must have slit the wires with his teeth and pulled out 4 separate pieces, all exactly 5 inches long, and carried them away.  A more likely story is that the person who disassembled things cut all kinds of stuff, assuming that we would be paying them $2400 to replace it.  With the extra damage, the estimate Scott came up with is about $3,900 to fix.  They took a $6 problem, lied to make it a $2,400 problem, and created a $3,900.  (That is L-A-R-R-Y H. M-I-L-L-E-R Toyota of Colorado Springs.)

Scott took one more crack at it on Tuesday night.  He spent 3 hours outside under spotlights rewiring things and repairing the damage. And then, it was fixed.  All the codes disappeared when he scanned the car for the final time at 9:30pm.

The End.  

3 1/2 day weekend

Thursday, we got out of school early because there was a potential of this:

Terrifying, right?

And that was hours after I got home from school. There was nothing on the ground when they made the call.

I spent the afternoon on the couch with a bag of tortilla chips and some Christmas movies.

Scott had been duck-hunting 3 hours north that day, so he called around 5, when it actually started getting bad out, to say there was an accident and he was stuck in traffic on our hill.  There is one paved way into our development and one way out.  Poor design.

He turned around, went back to the highway, got on the dirt-ish road that is, literally, the only other way into this place, and called again.  Another accident. Both accesses were blocked.

By this time it was pitch black, 15 degrees, and snow was actually coming down.

He went back the original way.  Only this time, traffic had backed up even farther, so he decided to park at the post office TWO miles away and walk home.  He did, with Scout and some dead ducks in tow.

He loves it.

The next afternoon, after the plows finally went by, we walked two miles to go pick up his truck at the post office (because my car was under half a foot of snow and we were feeling the cabin fever).

Hello snow boots.  It's been awhile.

Also on Friday, I planned to DO ALL THE STUFF.  Wrap, bake, grade, clean, exercise (maybe), and so on.

Instead, I ended up spending the ENTIRE day playing with a batch of sugar cookies.

And part of the day Saturday too.  A time manager I am not.  But this is the prettiest batch I've ever made, so it was worth it.

Onto Saturday…

Remember when I told you that Scott doesn't care for surprises?  He took offense to that.  While it's true that, to him, a gift is a gift, whether he buys it himself on December 8th or opens it on Christmas morning…to me, a gift is opened on Christmas morning.  Period. End of story.  No wiggle room.  Gifts this time of year are for on Christmas. 

Which explains why I wrapped up shirts I bought myself a few weeks ago in Christmas paper and wrote "To: Kristin, From: Santa" on the tag and stuck them under the tree.

Anyway.  The highlight of my 3 1/2 day weekend was our new car.

On Saturday morning, Scott told me he was going out to check the trapline with his friend.  This wasn't unusual.  He goes a few times a week and it always takes a couple of hours.  He wasn't back by noon and called to say the traps were frozen and it was taking longer than usual.  I felt really bad for him because his "plan" was to come home and do some maintenance on my car before went to potentially trade it in on Sunday.  His whole Saturday would be spent doing work (while I watched Christmas movies and baked cookies, obviously).

When he finally came home around 3, he asked me to help him move his motorcycle outside so he could work on the car.  He opened the garage door and there it was.  

The only reason I KNEW it was ours was because it had my Alaska plates on it.  Turns out, he'd been driving to Springfield all week to try and close this deal.  It was made more complicated by the fact that we were trading in my car and because we hate salesman and their incessant need to take advantage of customers (Scott coming home with the Rav4 = he won).

Scout's lucky I love him…a dog in my new car is practically blasphemous.

Merry Christmas to us!

Back to work tomorrow…9 1/2 more days…9 1/2 more days…Don't worry, I got my papers graded. Mostly.