The Week to End All Weeks

As I sit in the living room to write this week’s newsletter it is hard not to notice kid #2’s newest vintage car’s engine block (which are apparently affectionately called ‘red blocks’) on our coffee table…again (well, to be fair, it’s the first time for this engine block, just not the first time AN engine block has lived in our living room). It has been quite the week!

It started when kid #3 overloaded our washing machine one time too many, causing the machine to give up all hope of ever spinning or agitating our clothes again. This is not where you want to be, in the middle of the summer, on a livestock farm with 5 members in your household. I can say with all confidence and without exaggeration that we are a fragrant bunch at the end of the day. No washing machine is a disaster.

Scott ordered a part that he thought might fix the problem but after kid #2 opened up the machine it was to find more issues than could be fixed in a timely manner. Luckily, we found a suitable washer on sale which arrived Monday. We now have a broken washing machine on the back porch.

The second big problem came on Sunday when we drove kid #2 to pick up his dream car…a 1972 Volvo 144 (who’s engine block now adorns our coffee table), which my brother had just sold him. Our most mechanically inclined kid visited his uncle on Saturday to assess the Volvo’s condition and after a little tinkering he announced it was safe to drive back to Durham…spoiler alert, it wasn’t.

Once at my brother’s house we waved goodbye to our middle kid, as he headed back home, deciding to give him a head start by having lunch with my sibling and our fabulous niece. After a lovely lunch full of food, fun and family, Scott and I checked in with kid #2 to see which route home he had taken so we could follow just as a precaution. He was a mere 9 minutes down the road with no chance of getting any further.

I’m not very familiar with Winston Salem but have always thought of it full of mothers in ponytails, pushing cute children with a dog in tow. I’m sure there are parts of Winston just like this, but our shade tree mechanic of a son broke down in an area that was much more likely to see an older man with matted hair pushing a shopping cart muttering obscenities. We decided to stay with our kid and his powder blue Volvo while he waited for a tow truck.

Our hopes lifted when the tow truck through AAA told us he would be with us in a few minutes. I was unaware that “a few minutes” was just an expression and should not be taken literally, luckily our tow truck driver was able to educate me on my misunderstanding of the English language when I called 3 hours later for an update.

We finally made it home unscathed, tired and relieved to find our dishwasher had gone the way of the washer…..sigh! Luckily Scott thinks it’s an easy fix.

The final straw was waking up to drops of water leaking from the ceiling onto the ‘Red Block’. The flat roof above needs a new coat of marine paint…will this week ever end?!?

Next week better have a its act in gear or I’ll have something to say about it!