Side-Tracked, Busy and Lethargic

What The Hell? (Can I say that...of course I can...it's my blog)
I'm not sure how you can be all 3 of the verbs I've listed in my title, but that's what I've been feeling this past month.

I never thought I'd go a whole month without writing in my blog, but here you have it....one month and 2 days later, and I'm back.  And a lot has happened during the time I was gone. 

Where do I start? 

Maybe with the tremendous oil leak in my new/old truck?  It's a 1975 Chevy box truck, the one I bought with my concession trailer, and it's leaking oil like someone pulled the plug.  I do know it wasn't leaking when I bought it so I can't blame the previous owners...dang it.


Or maybe with the oil leak in my new/old car.  I noticed a ticking noise and checked the oil...down 3 quarts!  Yes, 3 quarts gone in one month.  Where did it go?  No oil in my driveway and oil isn't something I check regularly.


 Or how about the water leaking all over my floor from my washer?  Admittedly, it's probably close to 15 years old, and yes, I checked.  It's not a bad hose.  I couldn't get so lucky.  But for it to happen at the same time as the 2 oil leaks?  Really? 

And then there was my pool.  I know, it's just a small 12' blue ring pool, one of those where you inflate the blue ring then add water and it stands itself up as the water fills.  But do you know how many leaves and twigs and dirt can get into one of those when a storm with 85mph winds blows off the cover? 

If you read my last post, you'll know we had a terrible storm hit our town and many of us, myself included, were without power for up to 6 days.  It was just shortly after we all got back to normal that things started going wrong at home.

So lets see...the truck is going to cost me around $1000 to fix.  See, the person who put the engine in (35,000 miles ago) didn't change the old motor mounts for new ones.  So now one of them has broken and the engine has slipped and is resting of the frame and rubbing a hole in the oil pan.  To fix it, they have to lift the engine up, but that can't be done with one of those pulley things because you have to get to the engine from inside the truck beside the drivers seat.  Labor galore!  That one's on hold till the business makes a little more money.  So for the time being, we have an oil catch pan under the truck collecting the oil that leaks out.  And...we have to add oil every time we want to drive it to or from an event.  Bummer!

My car is fixed after putting out $900, but that wasn't just for the oil leak.  It had over 100,000 miles and needed a timing belt replaced.  And...since it's so hard to get to the timing belt, requiring a lot of labor and time, they just went ahead and replaced the water pump while they were in there.  Add to that the gaskets to fix the oil leak and there you have it.  The mechanic's exact words were "This was the worst timing belt I've ever seen that was still in one piece."  So money grudgingly well spent.

I now have a new washer and the old one has been hauled away.  I won't kid myself that this one will last 15 years (they just don't make them like that used to)...but it should last for a few years.

And the pool?  That took me a couple hours of skimming and re-shocking to get rid of all the storm debris.  And since the old cover didn't stay on anymore (the drawstring was broken) I now have a new cover for the pool.  But another 85 mph storm....and who knows. 

So the "side-tracked" was all the trouble I encountered.  And the "busy" was all the running around and work it took to make everything right.  And last but not least...the "lethargic" was my attitude as everything went wrong at once.  I didn't moan too much, I didn't get upset...I just got it done.  But my joy seemed to be gone.  Spending this kind of money all in one week was a real set-back for me and I had a real hard time with that.

I couldn't write in my blog, I couldn't work on any of my works in progress, I couldn't even write an email.  I didn't visit Facebook or Pinterest.  And I even approached our last concession event with little excitement. 

Don't get me wrong...we made money at the last event...but all I could think about was all the money going back out. 

So I finally decided this attitude wasn't getting me anywhere and it wasn't going away by itself so I made it go away.  I got up off my depressed butt and started getting involved in things again.  Two of my granddaughters spent the night and we had popcorn and watched their shows and laughed and giggled.  I babysat for another granddaughter and a grandson and had a wonderful time with both of them.  I went to 2 birthday parties and enjoyed myself immensely.  And I floated in my now-clean pool. 

And this coming weekend we have a really big event to set up for.  It's our annual Balloon Fest that brings hot air balloons from all over for one remarkable show of rides and illuminations and lift-offs and kids events and, yes, refreshments (that's me :)

So I'm getting myself up and dusting myself off and getting back into the things that gave me joy before and I'm happy to say I didn't let all the things defeat me. 

So I'm back and I'm going to be posting here regularly and getting back to working on my new manuscript.  Thankfully I haven't lost my sense of humor and maybe it'll show up here again...I know it will.

Friday my daughter and I set up for the Balloon Fest and we're looking forward to having a fun and profitable weekend.  Then we're down until Labor Day weekend.  So wish us luck and I'll write more soon.

Quotes of the Day:
People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing. ~ Dale Carnegie   

Be happy in front of people who don’t like you, it kills them. ~ Unknown

Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and I thought to myself, where the heck is the ceiling. ~ Unknown