getting ready

Tomorrow morning we fly out to Oahu for our church convention. We'll get home again on Sunday night, happy, but exhausted with lots of dirty laundry to wash. No internet or computers, so I'll fill you in on our adventures when I get back. We're going early so we can spend tomorrow shopping - we don't have a whole lot for stores on our island, so Oahu means SHOPPING! Ala Moana Mall, here we come.

An exciting day at work today, they put a lock on the bathroom door. Before that, the door had one of those locks that locks automatically when you close it, which is fine, as long as there's only one key and you've got it, otherwise, you run the risk of getting surprise visitor. One of our guys mentioned it to the building manager that it would be nice to have a lock on the door and the guys response was, well, you're the only ones who use it, so it'll be okay. The general consensus of those of us who are 'the only ones using it' was that we'd actually rather have some bum (who wants to use the bathroom because he's not allowed to pee on the dumpster) walk in on us while we're on the john than someone we worked with. Anyway, the management got on it and we now have a lock. This is the same guy who was giving us regular bathroom reports when we first moved into the building. He was so excited about the lock that he had a couple of our guys go in the bathroom to try it out. How do you politely tell a guy that you'd rather not go into the bathroom with him to see his new locks? Well, our guys couldn't figure out how, so they both got stuck standing there in this tiny, airless bathroom watching Terry proudly work the lock. It's the little things in life, people.

This morning hubby needed to check on a leak on our minivan. He needed to get under the van and we don't have ramps, so he drove one tire up on some crumbling cement blocks (I'm sure they were OSHA approved), then crawled underneath the van to check it out. Then he wanted me to rev the engine up for him, I didn't want to get in the van to do it for fear that my weight would be just enough to send the van crashing down on hubby's head, so I did the revving with my hand. Then he told me to get in the van and turn the steering wheel back and forth a bit. I considered having him sign a release form so if the van did fall and smush his head, I wouldn't be held responsible. I'm happy to report that I didn't smush my husband this morning - he didn't fix the leak, but he knows where it is and is going to borrow some ramps (much to my relief) so he can fix it when we get home from Oahu. Looking at the engine of our van, I've come to the realization that it leaks just about every kind of fluid it could possibly leak. I think we need a new vehicle, but I'd really rather have a car instead of a van, that means that we're going to have to limp our van along until enough kids move out of the house that we don't need all the seating a van provides. One of the downfalls of having 4 kids is that you're pretty much sentenced to at least 15 straight years of driving a minivan.