My Mom Rocks!

I know... everyone thinks they have a great mom.  And ya probably do.  But I just have to say, mine rocks.  In honor of Mother's Day being right around the corner, I have decided to honor my mom with a blog post.

So, why is my mom such a rock star?  Quite simply, she's a strong, funny, happy, generous person who works hard to make sure everyone around her is treated fairly, loved well, and taken care of.  If it weren't for her influence in my life, I would not be the person I am today.

I have many wonderfully funny stories about my mom... like the time we went to lunch and she ordered dip, telling the server that she likes dips - that's why she likes her daughter!  Or, when she was paiting the doors for our house and she thought Tim McGraw was singing about how, "She's My Can of Raid."   Or, the time we went to dinner, she had her new iPhone, and couldn't stop taking pictures to get just the right one for our profiles...  Poor Bridget sat the closest and got the brunt of the modeling job...

Life with Mom is always an adventure... Whether we're bonding as we pick bugs off of the trees in the orchard with tweezers, pulling weeds in her garden, washing windows, or picking up horse poop, it's always an adventure with a reward at the end.  As I list all these things it's kind of funny to me - all these "bonding" experiences were just chores, but apparently they worked.  We're pretty darn close!

Let's face it - strong women are not born; they are made.  And the lady who has had the biggest influence on making me as strong as I am today is my momma.  Yup - she rocks!



 

Mini Cooper Mis-Adventures - The Final Chapter (I hope!)

Armed with the Mini Cooper forums, I knew I could (hopefully) take on any of the additional problems that could arise with my new car.  Here was hoping!

My mom and I decided to take the car to a holiday party (yes, all of this fun with the car mentioned in the first three posts happened in a matter of 3 months), and we arrived without incident.  Every completed ride without incident was another reason to celebrate!

We had a great time at the party, ate some yummy food, and then decided it was time to head home.  As we got into the car and were mid-entrance, when the entire car went black.  There were no lights, the automatic things didn't work, and there was no hope of it starting.  Fantastic.

My mom went back into the party while I started ripping apart the back seat.  I knew there was an emergency release in the back seat somewhere (see the previous post), and the problems seemed to be stemming from ANOTHER dead battery.

Thank goodness I have great roommates.  I "phoned a friend", and Ryan, my rommate that used to work at a local oil change shop, hacked into their database, downloaded a photo of the emergency release, and texted it to me.  Side note; what did we do before todays smart phones?  Sure enough - his picture showed the emergency release exactly where the forums had as well.  However, in my car, no luck.  It was no where to be found.

The very nice man who my mom found helped as best he could to locate the release, and we finally decided to attempt to roll start the car.  Luckily we were parked on a hill, so they pushed me down as I popped the clutch.  No luck, so they had to roll me  back up the hill...  We decided we needed more help, so our kind man-friend went back into the party to find the guests who were engineers.

At this point my car is in pieces around the snow banks.  There's a bottom seat on the right, my manual on the left, speaker covers near the seat, and assorted other pieces in the back.  It looked like my car decided to have a yard sale.

The engineers arrived, and more attempts were made to find the release.  We decided that the release just wasn't in the car (come to find out my model of the car did not have one, despite it being in the manual and the forums...  when asked how I should plan on an emergency exit should I get stuck, the kind dealership told me that I should just break a window.)  The plan changed to bring jumper cables through the cab if we could uncover the battery.

More parts of the car were pulled out, and finally we were able to locate the battery.  Turns out my fantastic installation of the battery was not so great...  Even with asking the dealership to check it, somehow the connection had come completely off the battery, hence the lovely lack of power when we got in.  Yay for the engineers!  They kindly re-connected my battery and sent me on my way.

The Mini Cooper has provided many great stories, and I still have the car.  Luckily it has been sans problems for the past few months, but I will never buy a car from that dealership ever again, and I hope the car will last for many happy years.  My first car buying experience is one I don't plan on duplicating again for quite a while!

Mini Mis-Adventures (Part 3)

I know what you're thinking - there's no way this story can really and truly be worthy of three posts.  Yes, it really is...  Perhaps even 4!  The adventures this Mini Cooper has taken me on continue to amaze me as I'm retelling the details.  It's hard to believe that all the fun with the car was in the first 3 months!

Anyway, after the dealership looked over the battery connection and tire light, I thought I was good to go (aside from a blinking flat-tire light).  Not even a week later I was driving home from work, in the dark, when a "thump, thump, thump" noise began to come from the back right of my car.  Yes, you guessed it - I had a flat tire.

I had been meaning to get new tires for winter anyway (there was an unfortunate incident after Margaritas at the Rio one night in the snow when I was trying to drive home and went horizontally down one of the main drags in Fort Collins; of no fault of the Margaritas I might add...  the sport tires are NOT made for Colorado winters).

With the tire filled with air to get me to the tire store, I hobbled in and was one of their first customers for the day.  Would you like to guess how much a Mini Cooper snow tire costs?  I really didn't have a clue, but after dropping $1000 on Firestone tires (I felt like they should have come with a bottle of wine, handsome man, and made dinner for that price!) I was on my merry way again.

Yes, he would do...

The second round of snowy weather hit with a little bit of sleet and snow...  little did I know that Mini Cooper doors freeze in the earlier models.  Yup.  The snow fall here in Colorado really was quite mild, but not mild enough for me to get out without incident...  My drivers side door froze shut!

 You would freeze at that temperature, too!

I went to my car to go to work, unluckily wearing a skirt for the day, to realize that I was unable to open the door.  Fantastic.  Good thing the car has two doors...  But not such a great thing that it's a stick shift...  Climbing over the seat in a pencil skirt, over the stick shift, made for quite a few laughs as I maneuvered my body into the small drivers seat.  I hoped the door would release by the time I got to work... or at least the passenger side wouldn't freeze...  I got the latter.

Climbing in and out of the car was quite fun that day, and as I was vaulting the stick shift for the third time in a matter of hours a terrible thought went through my mind - what IF they both froze shut and I was inside?  As you may have gathered from all the fun I've already had with this car - the situation was not out of the question.

I hopped online and checked out the Mini Cooper forums, and I looked up the emergency hatch release.  There I found great diagrams of the back seat of the car with the seat lifted to reveal a cable with a ring attached that would conveniently release the back hatch should the need arise.  I felt armed with information and was better able to sleep that night, especially when the door defrosted and worked again!  If only I knew...

SWF Needs A Place To Live

I just finished up dinner and a movie with three super cool people, and on the drive back to our house I got to thinking about just how lucky I am to have these three would-be strangers as friends.  Yes, our house...  At least for the next few weeks.  We're in the process of selling, and our days living together are numbered.

The process of finding these great people who I am lucky enough to call roommates was an interesting process...  I moved out of my shared house with my husband (now ex) in September, and I moved back home with my mom, brother, and sister-in-law.  I was there for 3 months before my endearing brother came to me and told me that in order for us to still be friends I should move out.  We'll forget the part that he's married, 23, and living with my mom...  So, in hopes of preserving a relationship, I moved out.

Where do you start as a single, white female looking for a room to rent in a college town?  Craigslist.  And let me tell you, you get what you pay for.  The ads were plentiful, but I wanted one room, hopefully with its own bathroom I didn't have to share, somewhere with easy access to the interstate, and clean with rent at about $500 per month.  Luckily, I only looked at two places, and my current home was the second house I looked at.

The first one was a totally different situation that what I find myself in today...  I called up the number, and a guy answered it saying he had a room for rent in a townhouse that was $385 per month.  Under my budget - just meant more shoes for me to buy each month!  I planned to meet him that night to look at it.

It's always a bad sign when you have to meet someone at a predetermined location, and then they have to lead you in to the neighborhood.  I'm a farm kid that grew up living in 4 houses on the same road (aside from college), so suburbia is a new adventure unto itself.  I met him at the entrance, and we began the labyrinth in to the house. 

There's hardly a place to park, and I drive a small car!  I squeeze in between a car with no wheels and a motorcycle, then walk to the font door where we pass a guy smoking.  As long as people smoke outside, I'm fine.  We pass by him, and my guide introduces me to Daniel (the smoker).  Hardly a grunt is uttered.

Inside, we are met with the stench of smelly boy gym socks.  You know the kind I'm talking about - the ones that barely survived the week-long beating they took during the Presidential Fitness Test.  The carpet is dirty, the air is warm, and the lighting is dark.  To say I felt like I was going to be raped would be a true statement.  And I was contemplating living there!

We walked in to the living room where we found a couch full of boys.  6 to be exact.  Fantastic.  I have lived with boys before, and it has been a lot of fun.  However 6 boys, all playing video games, is not my idea of a fun thing to come home to every day.  I asked how many of them lived there, and 5 of the 6 raised their hands.  Fantastic. 

My guide then showed me upstairs to the bedroom I would be renting.  It was the size of my parents closet, stinky, dirty, and there were no shoes in the world worth me living there one minute of my life.  Just to top it off, my guide showed me the bathroom that I would be sharing with smoker Daniel, assuring me he was a clean guy.  Hardly!  It looked like a dorm room bathroom after Homecoming weekend.  Again...  No shoes worth it.

I quickly turned around, thanked my very kind guide, and hightailed it out of there as best I could.  I think I drove past the house about 4 times as I attempted to exit the neighborhood.  At least my car has really good locks on it...

The next day I started my search again with renewed hope that seeking a room where I paid the actual $500 per month would result in a much safer living situation.  Yup.  I was right.  I pulled up to the house I live in, and I had a good feeling about it.  Turns out that good feeling has stayed, and it just kept growing.

Over the past 5 months I have lived with three very cool people.  I'm sure we all get on each other's nerves at points, but all in all we all really care about each other.  These three have been with me through some crazy ups and downs, and I know that the time we have shared will always be a highlight for me.  I'm incredibly blessed to have stumbled upon them on Craigslist, and I hope my adventures with them will continue even when we're not living together.

More Mini Mis-Adventures

It's time for your second installment of the Mini Cooper Mis-Adventures...  Perhaps you missed the beginning of my relationship with my car.  Find the first story here! 

From the fun at the dealership, the car continued on in its fun ability to help me have adventures I wasn't planning on having.  Next up - the battery.

I went out to start my beloved car about two weeks after it was towed to the dealership, and wouldn't you know - the battery was dead.  The weather here in Colorado had changed, and it was quite a bit cooler, so us locals are used to things like this happening.  Thank goodness I was living with my mom and brother, so I just called my brother and he gave me a jump.  An important thing to note is that the battery is in the back of the car, under the hatch.

Once I had time I started to call around to get quotes on how much it would cost to replace my battery.  Because of the kind of car, the batteries are harder to come by.  The Mini Cooper dealership in town was willing to replace it, but it was a rediculous amount - over $200!  Are you kidding me?  For a battery?  And, they didn't even have a battery in stock and didn't know when they would be getting one.  Um yeah, no thanks.

I finally tracked down a battery at NAPA, and I decided to exert my feminine powers and change it out myself.  I have a tool box that was given to me when I turned 16, and it has girly tools in it.  These tools are not the size they should be, so the project turned into quite a production with plyers being used to turn the wrench...  I'm willing to give lessons if anyone is interested...  Here's the finished product - I was quite proud!

Just an inside scoop on this - the cover for the battery doesn't stay up on its own, so I had to use my fun-sized tools, hold the cover up with my head, and bend over so it looked like my car was eating me whole.  My sister-in-law walked out right as this was all taking shape and got quite the chuckle.

So, I replaced the battery and continued on my happy way...  For a couple of weeks at least.  Two weeks after the replacement was completed I was driving back from Denver to Fort Collins, and the flat tire light began flashing.  Fantastic!  I was right near an exit that's pretty large and well lit, so I pulled in to the gas station and used their tire guage.  Their tire guage was spring loaded, and it was dark, so there was no way I could tell what my tire pressure was reading. 

I'm a gutsy girl.  Hence the name of this blog...  I marched myself up to a truck, knocked on the door, and a very kind trucker from Kentucky popped his head out.  I'm sure he was wondering what the heck was going on with a little white girl from Colorado knocking on his door in the middle of the night...  Oh well - you gotta do what you gotta do.  And I needed his help.

He very kindly got out of his toasty warm truck and began rolling around on the pavement around my car, testing the tire pressure.  What a kind gentleman!  He told me that the car tires looked like they would get me home, but I needed to get the car in to the dealership and have them look it over.

I took the car in to the dealership to do just that the very next day.  The car was in and out in a matter of 2 minutes after I asked them to check my battery installation job as well as my tires.  They reassured me that all was well, and my car was just fine.  The light continued to flash, but that's not something they could fix because they weren't a Mini dealership and didn't know how to reset it.  I could deal with a flashing light as long as my car was fine. 

Little did I know that I was going to have troubles with both of them...  and the emergency hatch release...  Stay tuned for more of the mis-adventure!

Poetry because it’s Saturday

What does your Saturday consist of? Perhaps you’re taking out your love,
For a movie, popcorn and a little fun,
Hopefully you can fit in a run!

Maybe your day is filled with house work,

And you get to wear your crappy old t-shirt.
The one you got in college for being on a team,
And now you wonder how this became your dream.

Weekends should be filled with the things we care about,

Like health, fitness, a drinking a beer that is a stout.

Get your butt of the couch and get going,
Make the most of your weekend – you’re bound to do some growing!

So far mine has been made of coffee and work,

This is a good sign because this I don’t want to shirk.
I’m taking on some new revenue flow,
And no, your yard I will not mow.

I really want to serve other people who’ve been in touch spots,

Because my luck has been not too hard a lot.
How do you find what you want to be when you grow up?
You know it’s the real deal when it fills your cup!

You wake up raring to go even when you drank last night…

And when someone makes you mad you don’t tell them to fly a kite.
You take what you hear with a grain of salt,
And then self-medicate after with a really good chocolate malt.

As you may be able to tell,

My life is about to take a trip to the dell,

I’m moving back home to the farm for the summer,
And getting back to my roots before I get dumber.

I’m going on an adventure to boot,

So please stay tuned and I’ll share my loot.
I’ve learned a lot over the past 5 years,
And things are finally coming together to share with your ears.

Thanks for sharing your weekend with me,

A little known fact – my middle name is Lee.
I’ll see you around with a coffee in hand,
Makes me the happiest girl in the land!

My Boy...

Sometimes things in life happen, and you don't really have a choice on how they may occur, but you do have a choice as to how you're going to react.  As someone who has faced the death of loved ones head on, this has held true. 

One question I have found, especially with the unexpected death of my father almost 5 years ago, is that when I ask why I get bogged down, depressed, and begin to question every aspect of my life.  Loss of loved ones is a hard part of life, and the grief I experience with my dad's death is something that sneaks up and squeezes my heart in a vice at unexpected times.  I'm working on still processing this grief, and I'm learning that it's ok to cry, ok to experience the sadness, and ok to find the peace that comes after feeling those emotions.

This less entertaining blog is stemming from a phone call from my mom that just came in.  She called to let me know that my boy, TC, isn't doing well.  This is the second of these phone calls, and they are never fun.  My boy, TC, is a 16 - almost 17 - year old Black Labrador.  He has been one of the most loyal, loving, sweet and handsome guys in my life.  Here's my handsome guy.  Yes, I think he knew he was having his picture taken.  He doesn't always look this noble... especially when he's eating horse poo at the farm.

TC and I became friends in an interesting way.  I was dating a guy, and he had to move and couldn't keep his dogs.  I told him that, as a good girlfriend, I would take the dogs so he could visit them whenever he came to see me.

The boyfriend and I broke up, but the dogs stayed...  At least one of them for the long haul...  TC was my companion when my dad died, and I would bury my face into his soft neck and cry.  He would patiently lay there, lick my tears away, and eventually make me smile again.  His breath is terrible, but in those moments, it just didn't matter.  His loving spirit was exactly what I needed to help get me through the biggest loss of my life.

From there our friendship moved into my marriage, which lasted about 4 years...  That's a long story I'll get into at a later date, but no matter what happened I knew my pal would always be there for me.  Ready to go for a walk and be a constant in a somewhat tumultuous life.

This sweet dog has had a life of changing owners, and my hope in keeping him (at 11 years old) was to provide him a loving home to finish out his days.  Little did I know that he would continue to live on for almost 5 years!  Life expectancy on a dog like TC is about 12...  Not my boy.  He just keeps truckin'!  I can't believe how good he looks for his long life!

Well, I thought the end had arrived for TC in January of this year.  I got a phone call from my brother who told me that TC wasn't eating, wouldn't get up off of his bed, and Nate thought I needed to come out to the farm to decide if it was time to put TC down.  When I saw my big dog he looked incredibly sickly.  I laid down on the floor and again buried my face in his soft neck and cried.  He just laid there, and when I was done gave me a lick on the face.

I took him to the vet, and it turned out he had an infection that, thanks to antibiotics, cleared up what was ailing him in a matter of hours.  By that night he was acting like his normal, puppy self.  Thank goodness! 

Well, the second phone call came tonight.  TC has been sick, has stopped eating again, and is looking really bad. Mom wouldn't call unless she thought it could be the end.  She is going to call me in the morning with an update on the handsome boy, so hopefully it is good news, but with his advanced age I know it's only a matter of time.

It breaks my heart to think that my sweet boy will be leaving me soon.  Can't I keep all the wonderful people, dogs, and things I love right here with me all the time?  Wouldn't that be wonderful!  However, I think we sometimes have to experience these amazing friendships and relationships in life, lose some of them, and realize that the loss of them makes the ones we still have all that much sweeter.

TC, if this is the end, just know that I love you tons.  I hope we'll have many, many walks together when we both get to heaven.  Because I do believe that all dogs go to heaven...

Mini Cooper Mis-Adventures

It has been over a year since my last post, and the time has come to begin blogging again.  So much has happened over the course of the last year it's hard to believe this is the same life...  One of the best and funniest things to come of this past year has been my biggest purchase of a Mini Cooper S.  I realized that my life had been all about making other people's dreams come true, and somewhere along the way my dreams had been diminished to the point of not even knowing what they were any more. 

The one dream I held on to despite all the strife in my life over the past 5 years?  The desire to own a Mini Cooper.  On October 3, 2011 that dream became a reality.  And on October 7 it was on a tow truck.  Yes, the dream of owning a Mini was realized, but so was the realization that some dreams can turn into nightmares very quickly.  Here's "Coop" on her first trip to the dealership.

Yes, I said first trip.  The adventure of "Coop" had just begun.  The car was on a tow truck on that Friday because as I drove to work and went to a paved road from a dirt road, the front left of the car began to sound like I was killing puppies under the tire.  I drove a short way, called a friend, hung the phone out of the window and asked what he would do if his car sounded like that...  He quickly yelled, "Stop driving it!  Put it on a tow truck!"  So, that's what I did, but only after getting out and feeling my brakes to see if the left front roater was substancially warmer than the others...  it was.  I then called the tow truck.

As the kind tow truck driver loaded my precious car onto it's flatblead I texted my dear friend, Kate, and asked her how early was too early to begin dreaking.  She's my girlfriend for a reason.  Her response?  As long as it's mixed with something it's perfectly acceptable to drink before noon.  Hello Mimosa. 

(Hey Mom, if you're reading this, it was AFTER noon that Kate and I went to the Rio and had a Marg...  Don't worry - not an alcoholic.)

I rode in the tow truck to the dealership where I marched my happy self into the service department and demanded that someone pay for my tow.  The very nice men looked at me a bit puzzled, and they asked what was wrong.  I promptly told them that I had purchased a car from them on Monday and it was on the tow truck out back, not even 5 days into my care.  The looked a little perpelexed, said they couldn't help, and that my salesman would be able to help me. 

I marched my happy self across the street to the sales area, and as I walked in another sales man very kindly asked if he could help me.  Very loudly I proclaimed that yes, yes he could help me.  A car I purchased from his dealership on Monday was on a tow truck in service, and it was only Friday.  He then quickly ushered me to a back office and asked me to wait for the manager.  All the while he looked at me a bit puzzled.  The entire time I thought it was because of my near-tears emotional state...

The kind manager came in, and once he saw me he prompltly told me they would figure out what was wrong with my beloved car.  They would handle it, and would I like a ride somewhere?  I told him I was fine - I just needed to go across the street to pick up a baby gift at the Boot Barn.  Silly baby gift, I know, but I love to buy my friends little, ittty bitty cowboy boots.  Silly, but who else is going to buy them a pair?

As I walked in to the Boot Barn I looked in one of their copious mirrors, and low and behold, my entire face was covered in brake dust.  Fantastic!  The tow truck driver, service guy, sales guy, and sales manager had all been treated me so oddly because of the fantastic war paint I had on my face. 

Great.  I was mortified, but I think it helped me get a free service and tow out of them...
It turns out "Coop" had picked up a rock into the brake, and the brake was crushing it onto the roter.  Thank goodness I had stopped because the damage could have been much more had I not stopped when I did.

The adventures didn't stop there... stay tuned for dead batteries, emergency escapes, frozen doors, kind truckers from Kentucky, and engineers at holiday parties.  And yes, I still own and love the car...