Liz's World: Summer: days 5-8

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Summer: days 5-8

Oops. I'm already slipping up on posting about our summer on a daily or at least every other day basis.

Day 5: Sun June 5th
We went to church Sunday morning. Savannah had a meeting after church, so I made a trip back to the church a couple hours later to pick her up. That night I taught my final evening of childcare at the local church where I've been working 2 nights per month since January. It's been fun! I sure will miss those kiddos!

Day 6: Mon June 6th
I finally cashed in a massage gift card that was a year old. Larry set up the appointment for me a couple months ago. When he called the hoity-toity spa/salon, he didn't specify anything about my massage...just that I had a gift card to use. No sweat, right? Well, I got to the salon, checked in, filled out my paperwork & then waited. A man in scrubs came out to greet me & show me to my massage room. He asked a couple of questions (which I assumed he'd be passing on to my FEMALE massage therapist) and then left the room. As he left, he said over his shoulder "I'll knock before I come back in." :::gasp::: Call me a prude or old fashioned or whatever, but I was a little stunned. The only other massages I've ever had were with female massage therapists so I wasn't sure how I felt about a MAN doing my massage. I had to give myself a pep talk before shedding my clothes & climbing under the sheets on the table. You know the one: "Ok, self....he's a professional. He does this every day. You are a big girl, you can do this. It'll be fine." but all the while in the back of my mind, I was thinking "Oh my gosh....some other man is going to see my bare skin....sure the important parts will be covered up, but oh my gosh!" I finally decided to just try to relax, close my eyes & forget that it was a man doing my massage --- and kept reminding myself that I've gone to male doctors before & Larry's doc is a lady. I think it took about 5 minutes of the massage before I was turning to jello & didn't care WHO was massaging me. Thankfully the man was a total pro at everything, helping me to stay SUPER modest, never giving me even a moment when I questioned what he was doing. So glad that was the case. Toward the end, we even talked while he was finishing up the massage and he was a really nice gentleman.

That afternoon, we went to Savannah's orthodontist appointment & were given the EXCITING news that she's done! They took the impressions to make her retainers & set up our appointment to come back in 4 weeks to remove her braces. She's a happy, happy girl! She's been in braces for four years now, so she's tickled to finally be getting them off! She spent quite a while eyeballing the retainer catalog, choosing what color retainer she would get. She selected one called "blueberry"---it's a light blue color.

Day 7: Tues June 7th
On Tuesday, I returned to the preschool to work. I only had 7 kids in attendance. They are a great group of kids & they stay so busy all day that I hardly feel like I'm 'working'.

Day 8: Wed June 8th
About a month ago, Larry's truck air conditioner went out. You may not remember, but we live in NE Texas where the temperatures are already hitting the triple digits every day. I think our highest so far was 105. But really, after the thermometer passes about 90 degrees, it's just all HOT. And with the humidity around here, you find yourself panting & sweating so fast when you're outside. So that does not make for great conditions when the air conditioner goes out in your vehicle! It's not just sticky & hot & sweaty & uncomfortable....it's a matter of getting sick from it! Dehydration & heat sickness are a very real issue around here & it happens quicker than you can imagine!

For a month now we've been trying to figure out how to afford fixing Larry's truck a/c. I volunteered to let him take my van on days when we knew for sure that we weren't going anywhere & didn't need it. But ideally, getting it fixed would be best because there would always be a few days a week that he couldn't take the van. We called around & got quotes from several places a few weeks ago & have just looked at those numbers ever since, knowing we don't have enough in savings for ANY of those quotes!

Last night it finally hit us. It's only June & the heat is only going to get WORSE. We *had to* figure out a way to come up with the money! That's when we had one of those slap yourself in the forehead, DUH moments. While we don't want to go into debt for anything that we don't HAVE to, we considered this one of those "HAVE TO" items. We realized that if we could go to the credit union early this morning & get the money (and we didn't have any concern that they'd turn us down), we could make the arrangements to pay for the repair up front in cash & spend the summer (and my preschool job checks) paying off the loan. By the summer's end, we could have the loan entirely paid off or at least paid way down.

I think it took Larry about 3.2 seconds to spring for his cell phone & make the phone call to the service guy (a friend of ours from church) & get things set up!

So this morning, Larry & I left the house about 6:20am. :::yawn::: We were in McDonald's having a little early morning breakfast date sort of thing by 6:30 and then arrived at the dealership where they'd fix the truck by 7:05. They don't open the service dept til 7:30 but because our buddy is the service manager there, he took Larry's truck in early! THANK YOU SEAN!!!

By the time the work day was done, his truck was fixed! He picked me up & we drove up to get the truck & then I went out to eat with a girlfriend tonight.

And ya know. Being stranded at home all day wasn't so bad after all. I mean, I had my bon bons & soaps to watch after all. (snicker, snicker)