Friday, November 10th
Who knew my birthday weekend was going to be this insane.
The day before, I went to work and at lunch time I went to go let Murphy out, while on my way to her house, I noticed the Escape was being weird. I got to her house, shut off the Escape and the cooling fan would not shut off. I've been having a lot of trouble with the car - the battery, connection issues and now the cooling fan won't shut off. I was on the phone with Dad when this happened. I told him what was happening, and he said when I got home just to disconnect the car and he would come over after a while. I took care of Murphy and called Ben. He kinda said the same thing and then I called Trish to let her know I was still having trouble with the car. Ughhh!
I went back home, unhooked the car from the battery and let it sit until Dad came over to check it out. He called TK to ask his availability and he could check out the car on Saturday morning. It sat in the driveway with the battery unhooked until then.
That same day, while making dinner, Ben was on his way home from work, we chatted and my phone restarted itself, like it had been since September 2021. I was convinced I got lucky and got the lemon phone when we upgraded back in June 2021. I have never had a phone be that difficult before. I just continued to put up with it.
Well, my phone shut off and restarted itself, but this time, it was stuck in a perpetual restart mode, which I hadn't encountered before. I tried shutting it off, letting it sit for a while before turning it back on. Again, it was stuck in a zombie mode. My stomach dropped because everything I had - contacts, photos, text messages, audio clips, everything was now gone. I racked my brain to find out if I had moved most of that stuff to my computer or Facebook. The contacts were not that important to me because I could get those back at any time, it was the photos, text messages and audio clips I was worried about.
I got onto my computer and messaged Ben on Facebook. I told him, my phone finally stopped working. Of course, he said, well I told you to get a new one. I didn't want to get a new one because they were expensive, and I had to wait for a good deal. I probably should have taken the time to do that, but I didn't, and it was my own fault. It is amazing how much we rely on our phones.
That Friday, we slept in, ate breakfast, got ready, Ben got his bowling ball ready, and we took his Edge (since the Escape needed to go to TK the next day) and headed to west side Olympia so I could drop him off at the bowling alley and I could go get my haircut with Celeste. I had the usual haircut and we talked about wedding stuff, Erika, our friends and other random things. I thanked her for the haircut.
I went back to the bowling alley and picked up Ben. He was able to get through a few games to break in his new ball. We went to the mall to get a new phone. Luckily, it was a trade in, so my phone was free, but sadly, no one (not even the super nerds at the Livit Mobile store) could figure out how to get my stuff off of it. They've never seen anything like it before. They and the AT&T people said that I must have won the unlucky phone lottery when I upgraded in June 2021.
We had to factory reset it and I lost everything. My contacts, text messages, phone numbers, photos and my audio files. I was going to have to hunt stuff down. I am so glad that past Val, saved most of the photos and such through Facebook messenger and sending tons of stuff to other people. We walked around the mall for a bit. We went into Old Navy and bought some new jingle jammies since we haven't done that in a few years. Ben bought some gas at Safeway on the way home, while I went inside to grab a few things to make ramen.
We went home and spent the rest of the day enjoying our day off from work. I spent some time getting my new phone up and going and made some ramen.
We've been having Dad come over during the week so he could eat dinner with us since Mom was in Ecuador until Monday. He ate ramen with us as we chatted about the upcoming holiday season. He went home, Ben and I did a couple chores, hung out and went to bed late.
Saturday, November 11th
I got up around 8:30, got ready and headed into Rainier to meet up with Dad at TK. I got there just after 9, we disconnected the car from the battery, he took my keys into TK and explained what was happening. He said it should be done by the afternoon and he would give us a call. Dad wanted breakfast so we went into Yelm and decided on Mr. Doug's. I haven't been there in a while. We forgot it was Veteran's Day and wondered why the place was so busy. We got seated right away, ordered our food and hung out. Our food came, we ate, paid and went to Mom and Dad's house.
We walked down to Megan's house and meet up with Carl. Megan had taken her kids to the arcade in Centralia. Dad expressed interest in purchasing some eggs. Carl let us in the house, we sat and chatted for a bit, we bought some eggs and walked back home. I got comfortable sitting on the couch watching TV and fell asleep for a bit. TK called us to let us know the car was ready to go. Then we saw that the pellet stove auger was messed up. Seriously?! What else was going to break?
We got into Yelm, heard what was wrong with the Escape, some sort of temperature regulator (looks similar to a spark plug) and it cost me $250 for the part and the labor.
TK told us that the part he had to fix was really difficult to get to. I was so glad I had that extra dog money, handed Dad the cash and he went in and paid for it. I thanked Dad for helping me and drove back into town so I could do the weekly grocery shopping.
I went to Costco, Walmart, Winco and a Discount store next to where Shopko used to be. I was able to talk to Mom for a little while and told her about the crazy stuff that's been happening since Thursday. I headed home, unloaded and put the groceries away, made some homemade pizza, Doug and Sonya joined me after hanging out at the ER all day for a possible kidney stone incident for six hours.
I watched football, blogged and talked to Ben while he was on shift. I went to bed late once again.
Sunday, November 12th
Sunday was a chill day. Ben got home from shift and hung out until I got up. Doug mentioned that Sonya was coming over and she made us biscuits and gravy. I am not a huge fan of biscuits and gravy, but I had some because she went out of her way to make them. We ate them and watched the morning football game.
We spent time doing laundry and the bedding, I worked on my blog, spent some time getting ideas for my elves since December wasn't too far away, I did the dishes, folded clothes, put together a menu for the upcoming Friday and Saturday, ate leftover chicken as a late lunch while we watched the Seahawks beat the Commanders 29-26 in the afternoon game. Once the bedding and blankets were done, I had Ben help me make the bed since it is a two-person job.
I had some popcorn while we watched the SNF game, and we all complained on how our Fantasy Football teams were doing. It always came down to how our players did on Monday night. I was doing well in my division in both the leagues I was on. All of our energy was focused on beating Kevin since he was a cheater over the past two years, and we did NOT want him to magically three-peat this year.
We finished up our chores, got cleaned up and went to bed. I didn't have to get up the next day and go to work but Ben did. He was super jealous. I can't believe the next day I will actually turn 40.
Monday, November 13th
At 3:23 a.m. I turned 40 years old. It's an interesting milestone because you're not old but you're not young either. Luckily, I still look somewhat young and can pass for someone in their thirties still, plus I remain active as well.
I didn't set my alarm. I got up around 9:30, grabbed a shower, got ready to go and saw that it was actually going to be a nice day. November 13ths are not usually nice but rainy and blustery most times. Last year was a nice day and I was happy to see it was nice again this year. I could actually go out and do something outside. I got my geocaching stuff together to go fix some caches later on.
I drove out to Rhonda's house to go let Murphy out and I got a text from Erika asking what I was doing today and to wish me a happy birthday. I told her I really had no set plans and was wondering if I wanted to meet her somewhere for lunch. She has a 4-day work week and has Fridays off but because Friday was a holiday, she also got Monday off. I told her that would be fun and asked her if she had any ideas on where to go. She said she hasn't had Panda Express in a while so that is where we went...to the one closest to her house on Martin Way.
We ate, hung out and shared some stories. She was still pretty early in her first trimester of pregnancy, and she was telling me stuff about that.
She said she had to go to the store afterwards and drove the short distance to Safeway and I joined her. I needed to get a few things anyway. She bought stuff for lasagna. Afterwards, we parted ways, I thanked her for lunch, and she went to the lab, and I went to drop off the recycle in Hawks Prairie.
I drove to Yelm to pick up the three of the newest geocaches. They were on the north side of the Yelm. The first one, Live to Ride (GCAB9BB) was an easy one but the parking was weird. I wasn't going to be there long, so I just found a place on the side of the road, got out, found it, got my name on it, got a quick picture and got back in the Escape. Hardly anyone drove by.
The next one was on the other side of the Aquatic Bath property near the new dog park that was being built on Rhoton Road. I was hoping the cache wasn't going to be where the city workers were at with their large trucks. I got closer and found out it wasn't. I pulled into the driveway, made sure I parked off to the side (just in case the employees of that company needed to come and go while I was there) and found where the cache was. Aquatic (GCAEDC4) was a fake electrical box. All you had to do was flip the bottom latch and the cache revealed itself. I signed my name, took a picture and put it back. Off to the next one!
Ohjoy! A Geocache Anniversary (GCA7GRN) was in the shopping center by the Goodwill, Dollar Tree, Burger King and the newest addition, Harbor Freight. I had to maneuver myself with the Escape so I could go out and get it without being noticed since it was in a lamp skirt. I found a break in the shopping center traffic, grabbed it, took it back to the Escape, signed my name and then when there was another break, I went out to put it back.
I went into the Dollar Tree to pick up a few things for the upcoming birthdays and Thanksgiving holiday. While I was in line, I found out that Doug lost his investigation and was on the brink of losing his job. He was awful for the rest of the day.
I fixed my cache The 507 Series: Yelm, Wash. (GC3AMVW) cache that seemed to have recent problems as of about a year ago. It for some reason goes missing a lot and it never used to. I ended up just putting a bison tube out and zip tied it to one of the Doug Fir branches. Let's see how long it stays this time.
I drove out to Roy to check on another one that went missing a lot as of late, The 507 Series: Roy, Wash. (GC3AMVP) kept going missing. I was running out of fake rocks and had to spend $7 on a replacement. I parked at the convenience store and walked over to the large rocks. Yep, it was missing. I replaced it with my expensive fake rock and hope it stayed for a while.
I got back onto 507 and drove back to McKenna. I had to move The 507 Series: McKenna, Wash. (GC8MCGV) because the people who now own the property did not want it there. I saw that I could move it to the park next door, and it was under the parameters to be able to move it. I found a spot along the fence line that I could hide a hide-a-key. I took some new coords and walked back to the Escape.
I took the back way to Vail to go see Bob and Bev for a little bit. They showed me the puzzle they've been working on; they gave me a card, we chatted for about an hour about random things and Bob gave me some chips to bring home with me. He had a friend that works for Frito Lays and gives them to him. Ben was on his way home and decided on Meconis for my birthday dinner. We ate, watched Monday Night Football, I worked on my blog, fixed my caches and logged the three I found. I received a plethora of Facebook posts, messages, a couple phone calls and text messages. I miss my birthday song from Grammie.
Mom arrived back to the states earlier that evening and had a long layover in Miami. They arrived at SeaTac just before midnight but didn't make it back to Deleny's house until after 2 a.m. Since Doug didn't have to go to work the next day, he picked up Mom from her house and took her to Rainier and dropped her off. He didn't do a very good job coming home at like 3 in the morning and not waking people up. Oh well.
Happy Birthday to me!
Next Adventure: Birthday Party Weekend Extravaganza
No comments:
Post a Comment