Now We Are ... Eating a Lukewarm Dinner?

Well, we started back to school today. Emily was thrilled, Alex was resigned and Caleb looked for a way to blend chameleon-like into the walls. First day back is always a long day because not only do we have to go back to what we were doing when we left; we actually have to retrace back a little to make sure everyone is up to speed, including me! I love the reading part - Emily and I were reading poems from "Now We Are Six" by A.A. Milne ("But I'm not six yet" she tells me - I don't know if she thinks the book police are going to come and get her or what) and I was helping Alex with a report on Mississippi. I've only lived here just shy of a dozen years, it may be about time I learned a tad bit about it.

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So, tonight, I have dinner in the oven, Joel's called to tell me he was stopping on the way home to get gas. Schoolwork was done and put away. It looks like smooth sailing now. (Never, ever say that. Don't even think that.) Then he calls when there's something like 5 minutes left on my oven timer to tell me that Old Faithful has died. I really don't know why I was surprised. It's just that we really hoped to pass the 200,000 mile mark. (It's at something like 199,192 right now). It could be something minor (snort). Last time he had trouble, he just needed new spark plugs. This time, though, he said it went "snap" and stopped. I'm just thinking the "snap" or "bang" or "clunk" or whatever it was, probably isn't a great sign. (There's a whole other story about how we got the old girl from where she was to where she is now by using the van as a sort of automobile-plow, but perhaps the less said about that the better.) He'll call our old mechanic tomorrow and talk to him and -- we'll see. Of course the kids have a dentist appointment Wednesday morning and Emily has ballet Thursday afternoon, so scheduling will be fun, but it will all work out. And we'll be down to a one car family again, at least for a while. Plus, we're both really wishing he hadn't put the gas in first.