Angela Law

animal lover, gardener, knitter, and gourmet cook
 
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burning the midnight oil

Well, not exactly, but my car’s engine is burning oil. That is why it keeps running low. It’s a problem too expensive to fix, so it looks like I have even more incentive to buy a new car. I secured a car loan yesterday (thank goodness for Capital One Auto Finance–with a resource like that I can’t believe anyone goes to a bank for a loan anymore). So, I should have my check by the end of the week and then we can go car shopping. I hope to acquire a new car next weekend.

Yeah, I’m still getting a Toyota Corolla. Just because I actually have to buy a new car now doesn’t mean I have any more money for the deed. I’d like to go to the Toyota dealership and check out their Corolla selection this afternoon after they close. According to their online inventory, they only have one manual transmission in a color I don’t like (of course). But, I think I might have to go with that because I really don’t want an automatic. I guess that will give me bargaining power. I suppose I could have them bring in a car from another dealership, but I don’t know if I want to go through the hassle particularly since my car is on its way out (there goes my trade-in value).

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that’s it

I’ve had it with my car. As you might recall I recently had trouble with my car. Given that, I thought it might be a good idea to check my oil today. When I put the dipstick in and removed it, no oil was showing. This was cause for alarm. So, I drove it over to the garage (they are thankfully close to the house) and they took a quick look at it. They didn’t see any leaks (like last time), but it was 2 quarts low on oil. They said the engine might be burning it. I’m pretty sure that’s not a good problem to have. Anyway, the garage was getting ready to close for the day so my car has to go there tomorrow. ka-ching!

I made an executive decision this afternoon and I’ve decided to get a new car. Financially speaking, I could probably find a better time to do this, but there’s no reason that I should be driving around in a car that could break down any minute. It wouldn’t be so bad if Brian worked in town–he’s not exactly close by if anything bad happens. I’m leaning towards getting a Toyota Corolla because they’re fairly inexpensive and I’ve had pretty good luck with Toyotas so far (at least ones that were under seven years old). I don’t particularly want a Corolla (I was planning on getting another RAV4 for my next vehicle), but it does seem to fit the current bill:

1. the price is right
2. great gas mileage (guess what Brian’s going to be driving to work?)
3. any problems with it for the next three years will be paid for by Toyota
4. that “new car smell”

I decided today that I’d much rather be driving around in a new car even if it’s not exactly what I want versus my current car which might break down at any given moment.

Today’s stress level=HIGH

tv

qotsa & snl

Did anyone catch Queens of the Stone Age on Saturday Night Live last weekend? Brian passed out on the couch around 11 that night, but I wanted to catch their first set on SNL so I stayed up. It was well worth the wait. They played “Little Sister” from their latest album. This actually ended up being the funniest thing I saw on SNL that night (their skits have been absolutely horrible this year). A few years ago, they did a skit that was Blue Oyster Cult playing “Don’t Fear the Reaper”. Will Ferrell played the cowbell in that song. It was ridiculously funny. Well, “Little Sister” has (what I think is) a wood block throughout the song. But, while QOTSA was playing it, Will Ferrell (that night’s host) was on stage playing a cowbell. Classic! Of course, the musical entertainment shouldn’t be the funniest thing on the show…

gardening & landscaping

more of the same

Playhouses and gardens seem to rule my life these days. I wonder what I will do with my free time once all of the hard work is done? Once the playhouse is done, it’s done. But, I guess the garden will take up most of my summer (but, that’s kind of the idea…). My gardens have been subpar the past few years due to lack of time to attend to them. I hope to remedy that problem this year. No large projects are planned for this summer so that should give me plenty of time to putter around outside. And Jake does a pretty good job of keeping himself busy these days, so that should get me more time over previous years.

My grow lights were an interesting twist to this year’s gardening plan. It, of course, is a lot more work to grow your plants from seed, but I find it a lot more satisfying as well. My first batch of plants didn’t fare as well as I’d hoped, but I did manage to salvage a few plants from the bunch. I cranked up the lights for an additional two hours per day for the remaining batches and they are all doing well.

Last year, I put in a butterfly garden where my rose garden used to be. I was pleased to see how many plants survived the winter and how much bigger they are versus last year. Of course, many of the plants in a butterfly garden are closely related to the weed family, so it’s no wonder they grow so well. But, I think it looks pretty nice and the fact that it’s easy to maintain is a bonus.

I put in a new herb garden this year. I still don’t have all of the plants for that yet. I also need to put some sort of a border around it. I think I’ll use rocks. I’d like to replace a lot of the grass in the garden area with decorative rocks. Maybe someday… I doubt Brian will complain as he hates to mow the grass and mowing around all of the stuff in our back yard probably takes more time than when it was all grass back there.

That said, I need to get back to my garden!

celebrations

happy birthday, jacob

Today was Jacob’s 5th birthday. We gave him his present, the playhouse (in case you haven’t been paying attention), yesterday evening. It’s not quite done, but it’s close enough that we were ok with giving it to him. Hopefully we can wrap it up this weekend. He really seemed to like it (he was grinning from ear to ear), but he couldn’t reconcile the fact that it was his. He kept saying, “but, where are we going to keep the garbage cans?”

This evening, we had a party in his honor. Most of the family came over around supper time and we ordered pizza and wings and had the requisite cake and ice cream. Batman was the theme this year.

Jacob got a ton of great gifts (the kid always makes a haul). And best of all, most of them are for the outside, so we won’t have to cram any more toys in his already overstuffed bedroom.