The power of positive peer pressure

When the Holiday season was in high swing, a friend issued a challenge to her friends via facebook post.  Essentially she asked us all to find something you are good at and help someone else by doing that thing.  And then, find someone else that needs help that you can provide.  Repeat as necessary.

Such a simple concept.

The Boss Lady has taken this challenge to heart and she found a project that ended up involving the entire family.

The Boss Lady rounded up a 20+ year old pediatric wheelchair because she knew of a three year old who was needing one.   Once she brought the project home, it turned into a family affair.  The Princess helped disassemble and clean parts.  The Talker helped scrub and clean too.  The Boss provided most of the time and muscle on this project.  I was the wheel man.

After rounding up new tires and cleaning the whole thing up, we had a working wheelchair almost ready to deliver.  Once-upon-a-time the wheels were easily removable so that the wheelchair could fold and slip into the trunk of a small car.  After 20 years of storage the wheels no longer were quick release.

This morning I hauled the little purple rig down to Racecar Man's garage.  After applying heat from a blow torch, penetrating oil, some force, more heat, more oil and a little persuasion from a big ol' hammer, we ended up with axles that are once again easily removable from the wheelchair frame.

While we were making the chair more functional, The Boss Lady was busy sewing up a new seat cushion.  This evening the kids took turns test driving.

Here she is, refurbished and ready to roll.

Wheelchairs are very individualized pieces of equipment.  And the new owner of this ride will soon need one made specifically for her.  That is the next part of The Boss Lady's project.

Insurance companies are often reluctant to pony up the $$$ to buy pediatric wheelchairs.  (The current version of this chair sells for upwards of $2000.)   As you might guess, the paperwork hassles are enormous, especially for parents venturing into the process for the first time.  The Boss Lady is up to the challenge.  She is preparing to take her paperwork skillz out of the office and she is going to help these parents navigate the process so that their daughter can get the equipment she needs.

Getting a new wheelchair approved, fitted, ordered, built and delivered can be a 3-6 month process.  So now, in the meantime, there will be at least one more happy little girl out on a cruise with her family.

Don't let me die in a landromat

Or an old Blockbuster's Video store either, for that matter.

This week, while enjoying our week off of school and the start of allergy season, I made several trips around the neighborhood with the family.  The wife's favorite Target store is 3 miles from our house - the fact that they tore down a Home Depot to build this store still has not fully settled with me.  However, land is at a premium along the major roads, so tear-down/rebuilds are now fairly common.

It was on one of our outings to Target that The Boss Lady pointed out a renovation that has recently started a couple of miles from here.  There once were lots of Blockbuster stores.  Then came Redbox and Netflix. After that, the Blockbusters all went away.  Except one.  This poor little store hung in there until last Spring.  Finally the nearby Blockbuster Video store suffered the same fate as the full service gas stations.

The storefront is finally being renovated.  The Boss told me last week that a minor emergency clinic was coming into that space next year.  At first that sounded like a fine idea.  Our closest Hospital ER is not a terrible place to have to go and wait for healthcare, especially considering the other options closer to downtown.  But a private company trying to relieve the wait time for more serious injuries by treating the coughs and flu symptoms sounded OK to me.

Yesterday I drove by and noticed that this place is not billing itself as a 'Quack Shack, a Doc in the Box, a Band Aid Box' or whatever.  They are highlighting their full ER abilities.  MRI machines and all.

I looked over at The Boss Lady and simple said "Don't let me die at the old Blockbuster's, OK?"  Thinking back I probably should have said 'Please".

Road Tripping. Again

The Boss Lady was not able to go on our jaunt to St. Louis and Memphis. Somebody has to keep working to pay for all of this running around, you know!?!  As originally planned, we were going to extend our original trip all the way down the Mississippi River to New Orleans.  Time and the fact that I was driving solo AND keeping the kids entertained finally intervened and I cut the trip off and headed for home as we left Memphis.

Last week The Boss Lady said  she would like to visit New Orleans.  Road trip #2 was on!

My go to trip planning sited this summer have been Costco.com for rental cars and hotels (Best Western). and google maps for routing.  After about 10 minutes on Costco's travel website, I found a hotel that was in walking distance to most sites that we wanted to check out in NOLA and the nearby railcar system's 3 day passes would get us everywhere else.  Even better, the hotel was less than $110 bucks a night.

Turns out we did REAL good on the hotel room.  Because we only stayed in Best Western hotels on our first trip, we had a voucher for a free night.   Since we had never spent more than $75 on the earlier rooms, I was not sure they would comp us the full value of the room, but a discount would be OK, too.  One of the mistakes we made in traveling to new Orleans was under estimating the cost of parking.  Even our hotel charged $25 a night to park a car on site.

When the hotel comp-ed our room for the first night, they also gave us free parking.  So our total stay for two nights and parking was just over $150.  DEAL!

The biggest mistake we made on this trip was our serious underestimation of the cost of eating.  Sicne that is a big reason to go to NOLA, we knew it wouldn't be free.  We estimated about $40 a meal to eat at family friendly (aka CHEAP) places.  We should have upped that by 50%.  We never even ate at the fancy restaurants where dining for 4 could have been $150 or more.  If I had known we were staying so cheap, we might have gone a little higher-end on one meal.

In the end, we had a blast.  We ate great.  We checked out tons of awesome street artists and we heard a lot of incredible music.



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It is cold. Lettuce grow some veggies!

Yes!  Two posts in two days, smartass. Get over yourself.

Yesterday we out running some errands and stopped by Home Depot.  We were looking at flooring options for the kid's bedrooms but the kids and I got sidetracked almost immediately inside the store.  There were racks and racks of seed packets displayed just inside the front door.

I admit.  I am the worst kind of gardening junkie.  I don't eat that many veggies and I have never, ever been able to grow a cucumber or tomato that costs less than the grocery store variety.  I'll take The Boss Lady's word for it that they TASTE better.  What I really like is the planning, the prep and playing outside a lot in the Spring.  As my grandma said, after that it is just scratching dirt and petting the plants.

Last fall I kicked the addiction.  I was planning a big fall garden but my real world commitments won out.  There was no time left.  The chaos that is currently my backyard proves that is true. OK, I didn't KICK the addiction, but I didn't make my gardening addiction worserer.  That is a win, right?

Flash to yesterday, just inside the doors at Home Depot.  I tried to be a good, reformed junkie.  I glanced at the displays, but we were here to find floors dammit and not seeds.  Floors are made of made of hard stuff and colors and hardly ever make you sweat or give you skin cancer.

That is what veggie gardens are for.

The store didn't have what we wanted.  And we were headed out.  But I couldn't resist one more glance at the pretty seed packets.  Junkies will tell you, it is the second look that will get you in trouble.  When I first saw the garden displays my animal brain was like "Look, stuff in small envelopes with pictures. Interesting."  But when we went by the next time my inner garden junkie was all like "C'mon. You can pick up just one.  It is the perfect time to plant lettuce and snow peas.  No one will know.  Just be cool, dude.  I dare you!"  Damn.  A dare.


Thirty seed packets and $25 later, I was out the door with a Spring's worth of work ahead of me and just enough starter soil to get a few transplants ready to go in the kitchen windowsill.  After all, I was there already, right?  No need to waste time making another trip to a garden center to buy seeds.  I was saving time and money by getting my fix.  But right in front of the kids too?

Well, they sort of started it.  The girl was looking for packets of Blue bell flower seeds.  And The Talker?  He didn't help either.  He was checking out all of the cool colored veggies that neither of us will ever eat.  He started it by talking about those cool, purple carrots.

So blame them when I don't answer the phone on the weekends.  I'll be busy, out in the garden getting my fix.

Craig's List Fun

This afternoon The Boss and I made the final leap into the Internet age. We sold a car through Craig's List.

The VW went quickly. I posted the add at 2pm and by 2:15 I was answering calls. I set up to meet the first of the potential buyers and he test drove the car in a parking lot nearby. Within 15 minutes he was finished looking over the car and the haggling was done.

I probably could have held out for a couple of hundred more bucks with a another buyer, but getting this done in one shot was worth something too.

Of course, I wanted cash. No checks accepted when I sell you a car in the Sporting Goods store parking lot. But as soon as the buyer handed me the cash, I was instantly worried about taking counterfeit bills. The Boss Lady and kids were at the parking lot with another car, so we signed the paperwork and headed straight to the bank to deposit the cash. I think the cashier thought I was nuts when I asked her to check the bills.

So now we are back to being a 2 car family. But of course Marge, the 68 Chevy gets a pass on that count :) We celebrated by washing the Mini Cooper and the Saturn Vue. Then I went and shampooed the seats and carpets in the Saturn. After all, if The Boss Lady is going to let me drive her new car to work, she will be expecting mine to be clean and ready to go.

Driving Miss Boss Lady

A few days ago The Boss called me to let me know that she had forgotten to "remind" me that her momma was coming to town AND that The Mother of the Bride would be here in about an hour.

Since we were in the middle of a couple of weeks off from school, and there was a gigantic pile of clean laundry waiting for a grandma's special folding skillz, I decided that this visit sounded like a great plan. (and a chance to make the pile of laundry grow a little bit more).

Skipping over the real highlights of the visit, it seems The Boss Lady had a plan. She announced that we (without Grandma or kids) were going to pack a suitcase, jump into the new car and then see where the road took us.

I started dreaming of some spontaneous road trip scenarios and we decided on a few ground rules. We would not drive on any interstate highways during the entire trip. And we kept to that rule, too.

We used the Garmin GPS to help us find some good back roads to cruise. And we did a little dirt road driving, too.

We stayed overnight in one of the finest 2 star motels in Huntsville, Texas and spent the rest of the time avoiding big cities and heavily traveled, multi-lane roads. We ate beef jerky for lunch and we ran through most of the good stuff on two iPods. This was a successful spontaneous trip!

Thanks to The Mother of the Bride for the folded laundry (and for watching the kids).



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