Tune Up

God is faithful. I don't know that I proclaim that as much as I should, but He is!

A few months ago I noticed that the Saturn had a rough idle. I mentioned it to Eli, but it didn't interfere with the operation of the car so we ignored it. There were a few times that it would get all revved up during an idle, and we would just have to shut the car off and start it again to get its "heart rate" back down. It seemed to fix itself, and I forgot about this random revving (until just now, actually). Then about two weeks ago, the car started "hiccuping" during acceleration. My initial thought long ago was spark plugs. Then the hiccuping made me think maybe fuel injector. And then Eli drove it, and thought maybe clutch--and he saw the urgency of getting it fixed now, whatever it was that was making the only car with air conditioning unsafe to drive. The car is 11 years old, just turned over 187,000 miles, and any of these things could be worn out--or worse.

Eli was fretting a little bit about how much it would cost to get the clutch replaced and do any repairs on this car. I wasn't worried though. We have a baby emergency fund of $1000, a la Dave Ramsey, for just this reason--you know, the whole dealing with Murphy's Law. So we took the car in on Monday and by the end of the day we knew that it wasn't a clutch problem. (Hooray!) It was, in fact, the spark plugs ($12) and a sensor that was kaput ($150), plus the cost of labor. They gave the car a tune up, and called us Tuesday morning to come pick it up.

Now, as tax refunds were coming in, I was redirecting those funds to the emergency fund account, and after paying down some items, there was still a little more in there than our original $1000. Wouldn't you know that the repairs on the car came to within $15 of the excess? God is faithful. Our emergency fund is intact for another day, another unexpected life event. :)

And speaking of tune ups, I went for my 36-week appointment today. I'm evidently a pro at this having a baby thing--no problems, everything just right. The doctor did say that the baby was probably not going to come this week, though he's been surprised before. I was relieved to hear this medical opinion because I still have so much to do--focusing on lesson plans now, trying to knock them out by next week.

Eli turned to me last night with this look of awe on his face, and the realization that this baby could come at any time now. I feel the same way. I'm now into my once-a-week appointments, but honestly, the time has flown by in such a way that I feel like I've been going once a week this whole time! We'll see.

And just a little funny, I think Elsie is understanding more and more. The other night I was putting her to bed and I told her to get a book for me to read to her. She went and got a book. And not just any book, but one that her Uncle M and Aunt S got her for Christmas: A is for Alabama, Roll Tide Roll! I am utterly amazed that she keeps pulling this book out of the pile of books and making us read it to her. Randomly last week she turned to what I think is now her favorite page: B is for Bear Bryant. Bear is shown in profile, and she touched his ear. Then she touched her own. It was really weird. Now any time she gets to that page, she touches his ear and touches her own. I tried to get her to touch her nose, but she's not having any of it. :) So, my little one is learning, possibly in spite of me. Haha. Her other favorite book is one I got really cheap from Scholastic called What is Square? It has pages of things that are square, and then one page of round buttons with one square one that the rhyme prompts the reader to find. Elsie also loves this page. She points to the square button, then smiles and claps. (Yes, this might be Pavlovian, since I cheered for her the first time, and maybe the second, but it's still cute!!)

And the most common understandable phrase to come out of her mouth of late is "A-E-I-Uh-Oh!"

Cheers.