A Good Day

Pretty much every day is a good day around here. Retirement is fun . . most of the time. The dogs, even though they’re a lot of trouble and require almost constant attention, they’re such a joy. I have my garden, knitting, cross stitching, cooking, canning. There are few days that I have to do things I don’t enjoy doing so . . all that to say . . it isn’t unusual for me to feel like I’ve had a great day but today was one of those really feel good days.

We left this morning to go to Sam’s Club, Menard’s, Hobby Lobby, Walmart, Home Depot and Panera for lunch. On the way to Sam’s, Vince said “Why don’t we stop and get the mini chicken biscuits at Chick fil-A so I said ok but was wondering how we’d be hungry for lunch if we ate at Chick-fil-A about 8 a.m. and I was determined to have lunch at Panera. We got to Chick-fil-A and were walking in. Vince said “I forgot my wallet at home.” Great! We live about 15 miles from Sam’s (and Chick-fil-A is almost in the Sam’s Club parking lot). We were going to go home to get his wallet and I said “Wait! We can do the Scan & Go at Sam’s and check out on the card on file.” So, we did that, then went home, put away what needed to be in the fridge/freezer, got Vince’s wallet, went back to town. It worked out well because after our Sam’s Club visit, the car was pretty full.

We ended up not going to Menard’s because it’s way up by Sam’s and Vince was able to get what he needed from Home Depot. We ate at Panera, which is my favorite place to eat these days. We got what we needed from Walmart and came home.

But the best part of the day . . I’ve told you that Chad hit a deer with his old pickup, which was a 2001 GMC and he didn’t have full coverage insurance. That happened on August 9. Vince took Chad his old S-10 pickup to drive til he could find something else. Vince found a pickup for Chad. It’s one of those years when the GMC paint wasn’t sticking so the truck needed a bit lot of paint. The truck was owned by the guy who works on our cars so Vince felt comfortable buying it from him and he recommended a body shop to repaint it.

Chad had seen the truck at the mechanic’s shop and test drove it but then he left to go out of town to work so once the mechanic had changed fluids and done a couple of things, Vince and I went and picked the truck up and took it to the body shop to get the work done. Today we got a call that the truck was ready so we went and picked it up and took it to get inspected.

I drove it home and I told Chad it’s a good thing I didn’t drive it before Vince told him about it or he would still be looking for a vehicle. It’s a nice truck and 6 or 7 years newer than my Highlander!

I think it looks pretty nice sitting in our driveway. When we went back to the mechanic’s shop to get the truck inspected, I told the guy there . . can you find me one just like it? Vince was saying NO! We’re NOT getting a pickup. We won’t but it makes me so happy for Chad to have such a nice pickup. When he bought his old truck, he and Nicole were just dating. It has just the one seat so it isn’t much of a family vehicle. He’s had that pickup for about 14 years and he has not been easy on it. It isn’t 4 wheel drive and the new truck is 4 wheel drive so I know that’s going to come in handy for him.

This is funny – y’all will probably all laugh but remember – our newest vehicle is a 2007. I drove the truck from the body shop to the mechanic’s shop. When I turned the key off, the radio kept playing. I thought . . Great! The radio is messed up. Chad will forget to turn the radio off when he stops and he’ll run the battery down. I’ll have to be sure and remind him to turn the radio off when he stops.

When I opened the door . . the radio stopped. Hmm . . I kinda looked around to see if someone was playing a trick on me with a remote or something. I closed the door and started the truck. The radio came on. I turned the key off. The radio kept playing. I opened the door. The radio stopped. I called Chad and said “You aren’t going to believe what this truck does!” He said “Mom . . you need a new car!” 🙂 I don’t. I never drive my car and it’s fine for what I need.

But, it really makes me happy for Chad to have a newer pickup that looks nice and he (and Addie) will be proud of. Driving Vince’s 1996 S-10 has been torture for Chad. It has issues. It’s dependable mechanically but the radio does weird things when you switch the lights to bright (Chad says – we never drive to at night). It leaks “a little” according to Vince. Chad said “It’s more than a little”. There’s a couple of other things that it does that are weird. I can’t even tell you the last time I was in it. I’ve been waiting for us to get the truck back so we can go get bales of straw. I need those for the garlic so I haven’t planted it yet. I’m hoping we can get the straw this week and I’ll plant the garlic as soon as the straw is here.

Nicole and Addie should be here any time to return the “toy truck”, which is what they’ve been calling the S-10 and get their truck home.