See what happens is . . .

This has to be the toughest part of being a mom/student/employee and many others.  I paid my tuition Friday.  I should have waited.  I should have waited until Tuesday like I was going to.  I also had to pay my rent at the beginning of the month.  I paid that Friday too.  Usually they don't make the deposit until after the 5th.  I know with the holiday that it would be the seventh so I calculated that things would be ok since I get paid on Tuesday?  Sometimes I wish I still had that aspect of working for the state.  If the holiday is on Monday you get paid the Friday before.  Alas I don't work for them anymore.  

I don't like the feeling I have today at all.  I have a horrible pit feeling in my stomach.  I called to check on my balance to see if things would be ok and  . . . . nope.  I took a terrible chance.  I lost.  I am over drawn by $300.  What it means is they deposited my rent check before the holiday weekend.  It makes sense but I sure wish they hadn't.  Since the other was a certified check I don't have to worry about what went to the school.  Monday I have to go to my property manager and pay whatever fine I have to pay and hope I don't get kicked out.  

I have a sick feeling.  I feel wildly out of control of my life.  I hate being here.  I know come Tuesday that everything will be ok but I hate this feeling.  I want to cry today.  I want this to be done.  I want to have things be ok for once in my life.  I want a mate that understands anything I am trying to accomplish.  I want someone to rescue me.  These are the days when realizing that I am entirely alone really stand out.

For fun it's a wonderful toy. For constipation it's a wonderful tool.

I know my daughter is going to be angry one day, for my talking about her poop to . . . well, the world.  But this was too good to pass up.  Constipation.  Sometimes it happens because your kid isn't getting enough fluids.  Sometimes it happens if they get too much protein.  Sometimes it happens from not getting enough fiber (age plus 5 for a recommended amount up to 21 grams daily in case you wondered, I only know because everyone was telling me I wasn't getting her enough, I'd ask how much was 'enough' and no one seemed to know.  It took a couple of days but I found it.) Sometimes it happens because they are growing.  Sometimes it just happens.  For Xyla it usually happens right about the time she is going to hit a growth spurt.  It persists for a few days but we have always been able to resolve it naturally - that is without manual "help".

I know why she does what she does.  Mostly because I have been there myself.  You know when a poo is going to be solid.  TMI WARNING.  You know when the poo has the potential of ripping out of you quite literally.  When you feel one of those coming on, it is natural to not want to let it come out.  I get that.  That is why I will sometimes find my daughter hiding behind a door, or a towel, or a curtain, scrunching her face and crying a small desperate cry.  She is clenching her butt cheeks.  

She will walk around with her cheeks clenched.  It looks the same if you run into a coworker in hall who obviously waited too long to hit the head.  Stiff legged, waddle from side to side and sometimes stopping in her tracks because if she doesn't get it under control it will all be over but the crying.

When she was smaller I would put her on the toilet.  She was so small that her little feet would stick straight out and she wouldn't have a choice, your muscles don't have that kind of control.  She would go and I would be holding her for support both physical and emotional.  The poo would come and she would whimper.  We would flush it away and say "bye, bye, mean poo poo."  

There is no reasoning with her that everything will feel better if she'd just let it go.  I mean, when you have to go and can't you have this pressure working against you.  At best your back starts to hurt, at worst is positively aches.  When your back hurts it messes with your emotions and you just feel like a rotten mess.  At some point you hurt everywhere down to your toes.  But yet she is just sure that the pain of the poo is going to far outweigh anything she is going through.

That is what we have been experiencing since Friday.  Only, now she is too big for the potty trick so I have to let her sit there and she is really efficient at keeping it in.  So 15 minutes later we are back in the same place, doing the same thing.  We have been tied to the bathroom for about two days.  Whining, crying, whimpering.  We have gone through a few puuuwwups.

We had already been to the bathroom twice this morning in a span of 30 minutes when Xyla decided to go play in her room.  I hear a shriek.  I go in to investigate. 

Xyla was standing over her plastic rainbow colored slinky, which she obviously wanted very much to play with.   She was standing, stiff legged and trying to bend at the chest to reach the slinky.  Obviously this wasn't working.  She knows that if she bends over to reach the toy that there will be no more holding in the poo.  She also knows that she really wants that slinky.  

I told her if she wanted the slinky she would have to lean over and get it herself.  Honestly, I thought she would give it up and move on to the next toy.  I seriously underestimated how wonderful this toy really is.

I walked back into the living room.  After about 10 minutes and some barely audible whimpering my darling daughter comes running into the living room at light speed shouting, "I got it, I got it."  Consequently, I too, got it.  I peeked into her pull-up and the biggest, stiffest poo we have seen all week greeted me with a familiar smell.  

I told her, "see, now don't you feel so much better."  I changed her and we celebrated the victory with a dance to some swing music.  You can do that when you don't have to poo.

You know you are a mom when poop is like your favorite Christmas gift, ever.

Open gym. Free time is struggling to get out of the pit.

Really it was an experiment in learning about what my child might like to do in the near future.  I have been looking for something to put her in that will soak up some of the energy she drips with on a daily basis.  Most activity classes like tap, ballet ect are reserved for kids who are 3 and up (read - potty trained).  I found a place that has tumbling for kids walking to what ever age they want to continue participating.  The class itself will be on Tuesday nights but just to get a feel for the place we went to the Friday "Open Gym" night.  Note to the owners, if your website says open til 8pm let's do that, k?  I mean I did pay $7 to wear my kid out and honestly she could have used the extra half hour.  That is a discussion for another time.  

Right away Xyla found the kiddie toys section of the room.  rocking horse, tall thing to walk across (not a balance beam because wow for the little ones, that would be insane at that height).  She found the little trampoline.  Considering the way she insists on jumping on the couch I was rather hoping it wouldn't freak her out.  I was so unprepared for what happened.

It took me a few minutes to get her to realize the thing was a bouncy toy.  When she did, her eyes lit up.  It was like I had given her the keys to a Benz at 16.  While we were over there a girl about 8 or so in a bright orange leotard that said "gymnast" on it came over and announced that she 'loved' gymnastics.  I gather she must be part of the promotions team.  On the bigger kid side of the room there were about three other kids Xyla's age.  They were all happily bounding around all the equipment.  She decided to abandon the little trampoline to see what all the happy hubub was about.  She then began to realize there were several trampolines around the room.  Big ones.  The rules are only one kid per trampoline at a time.  One of the big trampolines is a runway that ends in a pit of large foam cubes designed to ease the fall should the children decide to hop right in.  She would watch many of the others run down the trampoline doing various tricks and then launch into the pit.  So she bounced down the run way got up to the edge of the pit and stopped.  There would be no hopping right in today.

On the far side of the pit from this trampoline is a small climbing wall, which appeals to Xyla's mommy very much.  To the left of the large pit is a small plastic slide that ends in - you guessed it- the pit.  I wish I could explain to you the love between this child and things that she can climb up to and scoot down just to do it all again.   It is her favorite thing next to chocolate milk and Gicky House (read - Mickey Mouse).  Sometimes she likes sliding more than Gicky.  She was trying to find a way to get onto the slide.  Ignoring two very important factors, one being the fact that the 'ladder' to the slide is obstructed by the pole that is over the pit for kids to skootch out onto and either just drop (which is what most were doing) or do a trick of some sort (which is what I-Love-Gymnastics was doing), into the pit of foam.

The pit is very friendly looking.  The ease with which the kids drop into it and bound out with the enthusiasm of a pointing dog on a hunt, is very deceptive.  As is the climbing wall, but we'll get to that in a minute.  I picked up Xyla and put her atop the slide, knowing full well that she didn't realize there was a bit of a drop at the end.  It makes sense though.  Putting the slide there, I mean.  How else are you going to get nervous kids to fall into a pit of something they have never seen before.  She skootches herself down the slide and is almost at the end and she stops in her tracks.  She is looking at the pit like it is filled with vipers.  Like it is going to swallow her alive as it seemed to be doing with the other kids.  I did what any mom would do.  I pushed her in.

Once she realized she was not being bitten or swallowed she grew a grin so big you could hear it in the next room.  She started navigating the foam and I fished her out and she said, "'gin, momma, 'gin."  So I put her up again.  Same thing.  Again. Rinse.  Lather.  Repeat.  

Next to the slide on the side away from the bar is a large mat.  The mat is about a foot and a half tall necessitating the fishing out of the small children to include lying down and  hoping you can reach their hand.  After a few trips down the slide, Xyla spotted the climbing wall.  I have tried to get her to actually climb the ones at the play ground and she hasn't shown much interest.  Surprising since she climbs everything else at home, which is significantly less secure than the wall. She goes over there and I follow.  I think, "the only way I am going to be able to help her is to jump into that stinking pit."  

Let me stop right here.  I get why they put the wall over the pit.  If anyone falls off (there are no top ropes) they will fall into a giant vat of fluffy foam instead of breaking themselves.  I don't know if these people are that in to climbing but since they encourage shoelessness and they have a climbing wall, I am guessing no.  The one thing they don't tell you that they really should is that there is no way to get out of the pit.  No ladder you can wade over to.  No hole or foot holds you can use.  Nothing.  I am sure they don't tell you this because you will only do it once.  I think they secretly enjoy watching people panic as they begin to realize there's no way out.  I was a little concerned at the fact that no one was willing to help the obviously misguided fat girl out of the pit either.  Finally someone rescued me.  He'd be my hero but he was married so we'll stick with rescuer.  I now know what it would feel like to be stuck in quick sand if I were a pig.

At any rate we spent much of the rest of the evening jumping on the trampoline.  Fun realized by the girl to the point where she squealed in such a joyous manner in such a high pitch that I was worried she was going to lose her voice.  Then one of the other girls did a backward summersault.  She had to try it.  Let's just say, we have some work to do on that one.  Can't get her feet over her head.  I don't think any of the websites or books really express when that particular skill is supposed to be mastered.  The other girl ran down the runway and launched herself into the pit.  Xyla ran down the runway and . . . stopped right at the edge with such perfect balance it seemed unreal.  I understand though.  I am not afraid of heights.  I am not even so much afraid of jumping from heights, it's when the height is attached to the lack of information about the drop and the clearance distance for the landing that paralyzes me with fear.  I know, that's really specific.  It helps me to understand where she is getting her ocd-like issues from.

She kicked me when they told us they were shutting the place down for the night and I picked her up to go gather our things.  It is the first time she was seriously defying me when she very clearly said, "no", after I told her we had to go home.  Doesn't matter, she is still small enough that mommy wins by sheer brute strength.  I am sure she will love tumbling.  I don't know if I will be able to get her to learn to wait her turn in line.  All in time.

On a completely unrelated issue, potty training is moving along swimmingly.  Stay tuned.

A whole different animal . . . indeed.

The reader's digest version of the first two experiences is this. My parents live in Montpelier. Frontier has a tendency to give very little time on layovers. They lost my luggage and had to fly it in to Pocatello via Delta for me to pick up. Forget the fact that Montpelier is 1.5 hours from Pocatello. I had my friend, whom I was going to visit anyway, pick it up and it all worked out. 

The second time, I was on my way home from my mom's house and since she had bought a car seat for Xyla, she sent it home with us. I checked it at the counter and it was the only car seat I was going to be able to use to get from the airport home. They lost it. They also apologized because they didn't have a spare for me to use. "So sorry". I was able to find someone I knew who had an extra but that added 2 hours of airport time with an infant to my trip. It was a nightmare. Fortunately, when they did find it (on a plane in California) they delivered it to my home since I clearly wouldn't be able to bring my child to the airport to pick it up.

This trip, I paid for two tickets since Xyla is "technically" over two years old. On the way home, I had two bags we carried on plus my personal item, which was a bag my sister gave me to fly with and I was unfamiliar with. Long story shot in the attempt to deplane smoothly, my license fell out of the bag and into the seat-back pocket. It was found by the crew and left at the baggage counter. 

The next day, it took several people to try to call and apparently only one was wise enough to know that when you call a long distance number you have to dial the area code, even if said area code is the same as the one for the airport. After a discussion of "I live an hour away so, acutally, I can't just drop by the desk and pick it up at my convenience." There was a declaration of "we don't usually send them to people through the mail, but in this instance I think we can make an exception. I will put it in the outgoing mail today." I was so excited that I was getting positive customer service that I didn't ask her name. Shame on me, I know better. At the time it wasn't a big deal because I didn't need it for anything for two weeks. I know the mail takes about 5 days to get from OKC to Stillwater sometimes, though I don't know exactly why. After five business days, I didn't see anything in the mail. Figuring that someone higher than her may have railroaded the plan, I thought I'd call and check on the status of the id. The guy I spoke with told me he was the only one there and that my id wasn't in the place they would normally leave those things so it most likely wasn't there any more. I was thinking if it was, since I would be going through there that day anyway, I could drop by and get it. Since it wasn't, I thanked him for his time and hung up. Again without asking his name. (Again, I know better than this.) I have been to their service desk and, having sympathy for how long it takes them to check in a flight, I didn't want to back up the process. They nearly made me miss my plane once because they were having difficulty finding a reservation for a passenger who was checking in for a much later flight and instead of asking that person to wait they almost made the whole flight miss the plane.  

Yesterday, it was the end of the second week since the license was supposedly mailed out and I still haven't seen hide nor hair of it. I called them to try to track down if it was a problem on their end or a problem on the postal service end (don't get me started on them). See it is important next week because I have to have it to pick up my federal id on Tuesday and I just needed to know if I should go get a duplicate or not. I made sure to call with plenty of time left in the business day. 

Gail, Gail is the name of the person who helped me this time. I related all of this to her and she acted like it was unreasonable for me to be so exasperated about this whole thing and that she "was" just trying to help me. Just before she hangs up the phone she says, "I am going to make a note of this and we will try to find out what is going on and someone might call you back." I said, "Gail, I don't want that to be a 'someone might call you back' I want you to say that someone will call me back." She got frustrated. I was more than frustrated. She said, "I am doing my best here, I have to go find out who was working and all . . . " I stopped her short and said, "I know you have some work to do looking into this but I want you to own the responsibility to ensure that someone will call me back and let me know what is going on, it is very important that I know what I need to do from here."

I knew that she wouldn't be calling me back. She still hasn't, no one has. There is someone on shift at that airport from 4 am to 10 pm even on weekends and no one has followed up with this. I left for the dmv to get a duplicate license as soon as I hung up with her. It will not be resolved by Tuesday. I know other people love Frontier for the no fees for the first checked bag and because they don't have to spend hours in Denver waiting for their other flights, etc. So I figure this is mostly just me, so I probably will not be using their service again.

Vacation . . . all I ever wanted . . . the black thumb experiment.

Post from the past:

It isn't malicious. I swear it isn't. I have nothing against plant. I think they are amazing. I think they are great listeners. I think they do a lot to help the environment. I am sorry to report that there isn't a plant on this planet that I can't kill by doing exactly what I am supposed to do for it.

I was hoping through my formative years that I would inherit my mom's hair growth rate, her work ethic and her ability to make plants do stuff they aren't supposed to do, like grow little waxy flowers when they aren't supposed to bloom at all. If there is any better thing than a green thumb when it come to plants my mom has to of them. 

Two out of three ain't bad. 

I knew it wouldn't be a hard sell to get my mom to go to the farmer's market I have been dying to check out for months. Ever since she went vegetarian it has been easy to get her interested in holistic types of stuff. Yes I consider maintaining plants holistic. 

I hadn't intended to walk out of there with anything but my mom was inspired. She saw empty window boxes and felt the need to fill them. In my care it seems more like punishing them to death row. But I vow, I vow to do my best. (Poor plants). We left with several plants for the window boxes a fuchsia and a climbing rose. We then spent the bulk of the afternoon "planting" (mom was planting-I was apologizing profusely to the plants and praying that they will survive despite what I do to them.) We ended up getting one of those topsy turvy's too. I love tomatoes so hopefully this plant makes it. If I can grow tomatoes I might try my hand at other food items next year.

So far they are all still alive and I have done some research and found out that I need to water the fuchsia more often. I need a watering can. 

I was inspired. It didn't take long. So I started thinking about the things I have been thinking about for a while. Getting a yard together is going to be a process but I honestly think it will be great once I get things under control. I am uploading in my photos a new album. It will be titled "Welcome to the Jungle." My intent is to post updated pictures and posts on my adventures in lawn building. 

So far my goals are: 

Compost pile - if you are doing it right it isn't supposed to smell bad. Why buy dirt when you can make it.

Rain barrels - it rains for about three months straight here, it would be a shame to waste all that water, I will need to install gutters first.

Decorative bed beside the house - discourage intruders who might try to climb the fence, also discourage the dog from trying to dig out from under the fence on that side of the house.

Seed and grow an actual lawn - real grass, no vine-like weeds to provide a place for Xyla to play where she won't get eaten by mosquitoes or large vine-like weeds.

Lofty, maybe but I have nothing but time and Xyla seems to like helping mommy with the yard. It is a good way for us to do things together. Maybe I don't have the green thumbs but maybe, just maybe she inherited one of Ninny's green thumbs and that will counter act mommy's black thumbs. Only one way to find out.

Vacation . . . all I ever wanted . . . oral surgery.

Another note from the past:

I am going to go out on a limb and say that most people don't like to start their vacations with oral surgery but find me the person who says I do anything normal and you'll know they don't know me well. Nervous . . . yes of course I was nervous. Going completely under to have a couple of wisdom teeth pulled. (There is a reason they do this when you are late teens to early 20's-ask me about that later). 

I had designs to get shots of the doctor and my face all huge so I could write and say "this is me after a huge fight. My face swelled up and I lost three teeth, but you should see the other guy." Then put up the picture of my female oral surgeon looking all happy and stuff. Then say, "In my defense she had a team of anesthesiologists (got that spelling right on the first try) who put me under first. Guess you have to be in my head for that to be funny.

When I woke up it was kind of a whirl wind. I know why they ask you to pay before you go in. Honestly all I remember is stumbling out to the car like a drunken sailor. My sister graciously drove me home but not before I made her stop to get me a Braum's Chocolate shake. If icecream is all I am supposed to eat for two days then by all means . . . I hadn't eaten all day to that point anyway. (Gum-that is what all of you missed, gum is what got me through my hungry parts of this. You chew it but you don't swallow it so you trick yoursel .. .what ever you don't want to know that.)

When I got home it was funny because part of my face was still numb and I was drooling chocolate shake all down the front of me. My sister got the laugh she hasn't had since we were teenagers and she'd give me dead legs so I could barely get off the bus at school. They gave me this squeeze bottle that I am supposed to use to help clean out the "holes" left by the teeth, but not for four days . . . so naturally I put it somewhere "where I wouldn't be tempted to use it" (that's my post op brain recovering from anesthesiology). Needless to say, I am still looking for it. My sister swears I never got one but I know I held it in my hands and put it somewhere, as a matter of fact, where ever it is, it is sitting on it's side because I was going to use it in four days and why stand on ceremony?

This is part of the, "why they do this when you are young" speech I got from Dr. Valasquez. The roots had grown long enough to reach into the sinus cavity. When the teeth are pulled it leaves, obviously, a hole. Eventually this hole gets plugged with the mouth-y equivalent of a scab and then the bone heals etc, etc. Maybe not to anyone else but to me, it is totally cool to be able to suck air into your mouth through your teeth holes without opening your mouth. I may not be the only one to do that (when you are not supposed to) but I might be the only one Dr. Valaquez knows that tried to make them whistle. 

Eventually you have to commence with the healing. Did you know that one of the foods they recommend you eat while healing from oral surgery is meatloaf and mashed potatoes? According to my nephew I am pretty good at meat loaf. When we told him that was what was for dinner he said, "I love your meatloaf". It means a lot to me when an 8 year old says he "loves" my meat loaf. 

Everyone I talked to before the 'extraction' told me they were feeling pretty beat up for a couple of days after their wisdom teeth were pulled. Mostly from the sedation. I have always known I react to medications different from most people but what I don't understand is why I was wired and couldn't sleep for two days. The most hyper I have been since we discovered they sell giant jaw breakers in Swan Valley on our way to camp. Of course Judy was the campion and getting those things licked down to a reasonable size.

My sister and her husband left on Friday and that left me and Xyla with Ninny. I really think that Xyla remembers her Ninny. She played so hard with her that I think the baby is having withdrawls. I don't even remember Friday that well. I think we tried to spend most of the day relaxing. Because that is what you are supposed to do after surgery, right?

For the interest of time this note is continued in part 2.

A note about the cars.

A note from the past:

Is it weird that I want there to be information out there on my vehicles? I had to give one away and it was like ripping off my arm and handing it over. See if you can guess which one.

I bought my first car from Grandma Rena before I was old enough to drive. Loosely translated means my sister got to drive it before I did. I didn't care though because it was MY car. How many teenage girls get a muscle car for their first ride? The doors were heavy, the back seat had fantastic upholstery and it went through a set of brakes when I had it. My dad and I changed the whole brake system from the rim up to the pedal. I loved helping work on it. The whole thing was fascinating to me. Still is. The interesting thing about this car was that you could turn the wheel from 10:00 to 2:00 and not turn the car. That is how loose my steering was. I didn't care. I worked around it. It was a ton or two of metal but it was fantastic. I still think about that car and I get all nostalgic when I see one driving around. I get the funniest looks from men when I shout out the make and model and tell them I love that car. I have yet to find one man who can get into a car with that size engine and not try to run it up to 100 mph . . . even my dad. It did remarkably well in the snow too.

I had to trade that car with my mom because it was getting to be too much to handle the repairs and I was going to be heading to college soon (down the street but still). I needed a more reliable car. I was 17 and I walked away from the deal with the Dodge Spirit. Most people will tell you that car is good for nothing but it had more than 200,000 miles on it when I sold it. I went to camp one year before I listened much about car maintenance and got stranded in Melrose, Montana for more than six hours while my family decided who all was coming to get me. I warped the heads in the engine but that got replaced and I never missed an oil change after that. It got me through college and my 6 months of "unemployment" while I was going to school and working in Idaho Falls. I have had to haul a new car battery more than two miles on foot before. That was an interesting day. This car and I went everywhere together. And I mean everywhere. It got me through two boyfriends, about 5 moves and a pretty horrendous snow storm that my mother and I argued about whether or not was considered an "emergency". I later found out that my parents would drive through some pretty rough weather so I probably should have put my foot down and told mom it was what I was comfortable driving through, not what she was comfortable driving through. 

I acquired the F-150 during one of the moves. I was finally getting my own place, by myself, no roommates. Which as it turns out was better for me and my 3 am schedule at the television station. Mom and I blew out a tire when we were hauling it up to pocatello and a nice state trooper stopped to help us fix it. After the move It sat out behind my apartment complex for a year before I had to move again. This time I had to move home because a plan didn't quite work out the way I'd hoped. I spent couple months looking for a job and was off to Tennessee. I had my dog, no radio and was hauling all my worldly possessions and my spirit behind me. I told my mom it was something I had to do on my own. Somewhere in Arkansas I had to call my dad to find out how to get my carburator to help me limp into Knoxville. In Knoxville I drove mostly the truck. I am not sure why. The car had been broken into at one point and the poor thing just kept going down hill from there. I had to drive it somewhere and found out the brakes were going out and that is was going to take more money to fix it than it was worth. I would have paid it but I didn't have it. I sold it to the guy at the brake store and went home an cried for hours.

So then it was just me and the truck. It was my grand father's truck. It had rust holes in the side and the paint was oxidized from bumper to bumper but it was redneck and I WAS in Tennessee. It was easy to load up the dog and take her down to the lake and let her jump in to her hearts content. I put a new stereo in it. One with a CD player so I could actually get radio and when I didn't like anything that was on I could pop in a CD. After two years of Tennessee and seeing some of the biggest stories that helped to shape my view of the reality of other people, I was on my way with my truck, a U-haul trailer and the dog to OKC. The Ford has more than 300,000 miles on it. Has been across the country and back more times than I have and as my grandfather quoted two years ago "needed getting rid of". When my mom told him I still had it he told her to tell me to get rid of it. Man o man I love owning a truck. I always used to tell people I would own a purple truck one day. I probably still will. After I'd been here in OKC for a while mom gave me the Intrepid. I don't even want to talk about what happened to that because I feel entirely responsible. Now after being totaled by an OKC curb for the second time it is laying at Pull-A-Part waiting to be stripped of its usefulness. I had no emotional attachment to that car. 

I got the Buick just after the truck gave up on me. Just to file in your mental roll-a-dex: "You can't expect an old man to haul rocks." It gave up on me two blocks from the house and Mike (my rommate) gave me a push with his mitsubishi back to the house. I was about 6 months pregnant and my parents were going to bring me the buick my grandfather left behind. I had to promise not to let it wander into any curbs. I also told my dad I couldn't take it unless he let me pay him for it. It is just what I need right now with the baby. It is still under 100,000 miles which is really good for a car 15 years old. We still have many adventures to go on so the story of this car isn't quite over yet. The F150, sadly, is coming to an end. Sentimental reasons have told me I had to keep it even though it won't run. In a couple of weeks it will make it's way to pull apart as well. At least it's parts will go to help another vehicle and not just be crushed to oblivion (that is what I am going to tell myself anyway). It isn't junk to me. It is almost 10 years of my life, two heart aches, a pregnancy, five jobs and four moves. So don't be surprised the next time someone tells me "it's just a car" and I haul off and deck them. It's memories - good, bad, whatever that truck/car was part of my life. Most of my interesting stories arrive in one of those five vehicles. Hopefully I will only ever own maybe two more vehicles in my life. One of which will likely be a purple truck that can haul a horse trailer and handle Montana winters.