Odds and Ends and Expenses, Oh, MY!!

I don't really have a lot to say today, but it has been an age since I posted, so I figured I'd share a little glimpse into the foggy windows of my life...

• Saturday (last post) we dropped Big Red off at the Toyota dealer for some torture. The check engine light had come on, and since Ornery was supposed to go out of town Sunday, we had Elizabeth meet us at the dealer after our last training session. The service technician said he thought it might be something that was covered under warranty. Then she dropped him off at work to pick up the rental car he was taking to Clovis, NM. 
• Sunday morning, bright and early, Ornery left for Clovis. There is no cell phone service there with our carrier, so we talked via the computer or his land line room phone. He worked 17-18 hour days, then drove home on Thursday. 
• Tuesday we found out the pickup was going to cost $1700. to repair. The main issue was indeed covered by an extended warranty (although the 2007 truck only has 45,000 miles on it) but the other issues were not. Since it is our only vehicle and we intend to keep it a long time, we went ahead and had it repaired.
• Wednesday afternoon the vehicle was finished, and they drove it home for us and parked it in the garage, so it was here ready and waiting for Ornery when he got home Thursday night! :) 
• Friday, July 3 was a holiday, so Elizabeth took him over to work to return the car, and his mom came over to work a puzzle with me. We enjoyed the long weekend.  Elizabeth and Michael went to Toys R Us and bought a few toys for our house,  because we just plain didn't have anything for our grandkids to play with!  I'm not sure I would have gotten the Lego Technic set Elizabeth selected, but Ornery and I spent an enjoyable Saturday morning building the three pieces. :)  It was the first time I had ever built one, as Ryan had never wanted my help when he got them as a kid. Before we knew it, Monday had rolled around again.
• Monday morning a man came to clean our dryer vent. It is not a good design, and feeds through the wall behind the dryer, up into the attic and out the roof. He took the pipe apart inside the attic, and located the problem--a bird had built a 12" deep nest in the top of the pipe, which impeded airflow considerably. The birds ended up in the garage for a few hours, cheeping and carrying on like they had been sorely abused. We were able to get them out eventually.
• Tuesday morning, a man came and fixed our sprinkler system--it had frozen over the winter and we were just now finally getting around to having it fixed. THAT was an expensive mistake!  Ornery had plugged in the heat tape, but either it was just too cold for it or the GCFI receptacle was bad and we didn't know it. 
• Monday night we had a call from the company that is training us in Real Estate, and that took pretty much all evening from 4:00 to 9:00.  We signed up for more training... It's all good, and I think this will be the best part as it is one-on-one mentoring.
• The week flew by, although I can't really tell you what we did.  Friday night, however, we hosted our kids and grandkids for burgers and dogs.  It was a delightful time. Micah really enjoyed the Lego set, and Makayla was quite taken with the horses and play food. 
• Ornery went to work a bit on Saturday, mowed the lawn, and did some online training. I did a bit of art, read some books, and lounged around.  My hip has been really aggravated lately for some reason, and it just wasn't appealing to be out and about.
• And here we are back in a new week. We just had our first mentoring call and did part of our first assignments. Ornery is assembling my new desk chair. 
• I signed up for a pocket letter group and several Swap Bot swaps and am looking forward to spending a bit more time in my art room this week.  

That's about it. When I condense it down to a short paragraph, it seems like a pretty shallow existence...