First you see it....

Virtual school puts me in its own little world.

Which can lead to surprises when I come out. Carrie cleaned out the whole garage on Monday. 

She was cleaning the Volvo when I came out to grab a Clif bar for lunch.

The Volvo was sold before my last class.

I was caught between stunned and thankful.

The Volvo has been a growing problem. We parked it in the pole barn while the garage. Heavy rains had a tendency to seep in somehow (despite hearing several times "It's fixed"), so we wanted it under cover.

Only the moisture found a way in.

After a month of collecting humidity and cooking it, mold moved in.

A 120k miles, hidden leak, mold, intermittent AC, alignment issue, worn tires, and the need for a safety inspection? I thought the scratches and paint chips were minor while leaned towards major, but there were some of those, too. 

It screamed mechanic's special. For us to pay for the repairs would be costly, but someone with the tools, time, and know-how could pay themselves to fix it for a turnaround. 

We talked about it. I was open to the idea. Carrie was gung-ho. We looked at each other and said, "$1,000?"

I meant to do more research, but that fateful day I logged off the computer and found it was already all done! 

Hence the "stunned and thankful." I would have liked to have been in the process and known exactly what we could have got. I was also glad I didn't have to be in the process when I was already busy enough with other things and Carrie handled it all!

I've settled on thankful, by the way. I don't know when I would've handled it had it been left to me!

Carrie said that she felt compelled to tackle the Volvo. She intended to do a quick rinse, but an inner voice kept urging her on. So she tackled the inside and cleaned out all of Shane's old food crumbs and pulled lost board game bits from between the seat cushions.

Once it was sparkling, she drove it to a local tire shop to get the nail fixed Costco wouldn't patch ($25). She asked the owner where she could get a state inspection, and said, "One more thing done before it can be sold!"

The owner started to ask more questions.

"How much were you looking for?" he asked.

"$1,500" Carrie replied.

She told him about the issues and he took the Volvo for a spin while Carrie played with the shop cat (which she fell in love with).

He came back and said, "Sold."

Thankfully, the cat wasn't part of the deal.

Carrie went by the tire shop later with Shane to drop off all the keys (while I was still unaware and at work!). She said she saw the owner hard at work prettying up the Volvo. 

I'm curious if he's planning to keep it or flip it, so I'll have to check online to see if it's for sale at some point.

That's a lot of crazy coincidences. Plenty of reasons to be thankful! Carrie did a great job and I decided to get over being stunned once I heard the whole story.

"So this means you're willing to give me a truck key now?" I asked.

"We'll need to buy one from the dealership," Carrie said.

Miracles do happen!

Extended Task

It should've only taken a few minutes. I decided to stretch the Volvo's legs for a short errand. 

I fired it up, let it idle, and got out the driveway when I got an "Add air or it's annihilation" warning. 

Luckily, no one was around. I popped a quick u-turn at the first intersection.

Most of the tires were around 30 psi, but I found a winner on the back passenger side.

And I found the prize it'd won, too.

It didn't make sense to stay idle while the tires filled, so I got to cleaning. Kids are kryptonite to car cleanliness. 

Then it occurred to me the gas station was on the way home.

And then it occurred to me the safety inspection was expired.....but that would wait for another day.

All I wanted to do was drive 5 minutes to Shane's school, update my work computer off the intranet, and scoot home.

The work computer was working after a few minutes, but the whole adventure took an hour! That seems like it should be some sort of achievement: "Made a fifteen minute task take an hour with zero lollygagging."

On a side note: There's a lot of construction getting done at Shane's school. I wonder if the virtual start will help the construction to finish early.

Driven Around

I've got a lovely chauffeur for the week. AAA came out and upgraded the car from 'dead battery' to 'electrical issues.' They towed the Volvo over to the shop who said they'd look at it 'as soon as they can.' 

Without a car, I'm out of wrestling practice for the week. I'm half sad and half glad. I've been ready for a break!

Carrie picked me up from work and we hit up Costco. Then we grabbed Shane and took him to basketball.

There were only four kids in the gym, at first. Shane does much better in small groups, because he gets a lot of attention!

"We've got to get rid of those pants," Carrie said. They were more than a little high-water.

Shane's Pokemon friend, Samuel, said hi after practice. He's a year older and his team practices on the other half of the court! Samuel was excited about the new tag-team Pokemon, but we haven't collected any new cards recently. I told them we might make it to Pokemon night next week. It's the same night as wrestling, but Shane (and I) may need a break.

Volvo

The older I get, the more I realize things never happen in isolation. There are always other 'plot lines' running.

Wednesday, I volunteered to take Shane to my parents house to make Carrie's morning a little easier. I dropped him off, and then scooted over to class. There was no reception, so I didn't get Carrie's message until an hour in.

The Volvo died.

Again.

It's happened at least five times now. A jump start fixed it, but no one can figure out what's causing the random dead car syndrome.

We took it to a dealership in Richmond on our way back from our Christmas Vacation and got lots of head scratching. We took it to a shop specializing in European cars up here and they didn't see anything wrong. We took it to ANOTHER dealership near Carrie's work and they proclaimed the batter to be old. Everything was covered under the warranty, thankfully. They swapped in the new battery, declared her "HEALED!" and we're back at square one again.

Carrie took the car in for more mechanic head-scratching. The error was coded "un-reproducible." There's probably a warning light or a sensor somewhere not turning off, a loose wire grounding itself somewhere, or some other seemingly minor issue that's causing the hiccup.

For now, the car works fine. I went outside and tried starting the car a couple of minutes ago to make sure there were no surprises in the morning.