Big White

My big, white, van gave up the ghost this morning.  Monday proved to be too much for my trusty ride.  Last Thursday I fired it up and headed for school.  It is winter, so the roads are a bit slippery.  When I slid through the stop sign at the bottom of the hill I didn't think too much of it.  When I proceeded down the level part of the trip and realized that my engine was racing faster than my brakes could stop I started having visions of Toyota owners flying through busy intersections.  Fortunately I had some good sized snow berms to ditch my van in.  It took me a few tries, but I finally got the motor to calm down.

When I told Rick the whole story, he told me to park it until we could get it looked at.  We moved it a couple of times over the weekend.  This morning it was done.  It appears to be a fuel pump, and an air filter, that our resident mouse chewed up.  That is one brave mouse, living in my garage with my cat and my dog.  I'll be out for his blood for the next couple of weeks.

I am trying not to panic about how I am going to transport my kiddos, plus several friends to the many events we have going on this week.  I am thankful that it is fixable.  My trusty van really has been pretty low maintenance for the last eight years or so.  Now that I think about it, it is pretty impressive.  Fortunately we picked up a nice little car for Rick to drive to work, so between the two of us we should be able to manage to get everyone where they need to be.  I am also very thankful for my neighbors that managed to get my kids home the day the van raced down the hill, confirming that it really did have a problem, and that it wasn't all in my head.

These are the times when I think about my grandmother living on her farm in rural central Washington.  I know they had buses that got the kids to school.  My Dad used to tell us stories about sitting on the hood in the fog, telling the bus driver where the road was.  That must have been long before seat belts.  My grandmother never got her driver's license.  Sometimes I long for that type of life.  I love to be at home.  I love making food for my family.  I love getting my home organized to serve everyone so that they can do the hard work of learning.  The simplicity of it all, sounds so inviting.  I know that it all involved a lot of hard work.  I think hard work would do my family good sometimes.  They have gotten spoiled by all of the soft work around them.  The hard work of getting them to actually do the hard work might just do me in.  For now I am glad that I don't have to saddle up nine horses to get them all to school.