BUSY TIMES

The last two weeks have been really busy for us. I went to the 270,683 acre Rush fire just outside of Susanville, CA for 7 days. When I returned Inklings had found a car in a northern city that met all the things I wanted in a car we would buy so she came up to the airport and picked me up. We spent Monday night with our daughter and her husband so we didn't have so far to travel the next day to buy the car.

We had been gone from our daughter's house about thirty minutes when we got a call telling us that the lady we were buying the car from wasn't going to be able to do the sale until the next day. We decided that would be OK and that we would spend Tuesday night with one of our daughters and a granddaughter. So we continued our trip north.

When we got there we visited with two of our daughters and found that they were taking a memory trip with their girls in a rented Mustang convertible to the beach at a nearby lake. They asked us to go with them so we did. They didn't have enough seat belts in the Mustang for all the girls to ride in it at once so they took two cars. That made it so that we all traded around and rode in both the cars and visited with all the little girls and each of our daughters. It was a fun but tiring trip for me and for the little girls. We got home and went to bed quite quickly as I was very tired.

Wednesday morning we got up and took our daughters child to her baby sitter and then went to the agreed on location and bought the car. (The lady wouldn't sell it to us until after I looked at it even though it was a car that met all of our needs and, in fact, was one of the cars I was looking at buying.) As soon as we bought the car we went to the courthouse and purchased a temporary license and paid the required taxes. As soon as that was done I headed for home in the new car and Inklings was going to follow later after she did some shopping in the old one. I was to stop at the daughters house that we stayed with the first night so she could see our new car. I stopped and visited for a while but got nervous because Inklings and I had not discussed if she was going to stop there or not so I headed for home. Inklings got there about half an hour later and had a good visit before she continued the drive home. We both got home about dinner time and had a great trip.

Thursday Inklings did my fire laundry and I repacked my fire bags and got everything ready to go again. After that we picked the vegetables from the garden, weeded it and found some neighbors that were interested in taking some of the produce off our hands. It was good to get the garden taken care of since it had nearly got away from us in the two weeks it didn't get the care it should have.

Friday I took our old car to our mechanics who had asked about six months earlier if we were going to trade for a new car soon. We told them we were going to try to get a new car this fall if I made enough money from the fires. They told us they would be interested in buying our old car for a loaner at their business if we could agree on a price. When I got there I told them what we had decided was a fair price for the car---they agreed and wrote me a check on the spot. We went home and took the title back to them and closed the deal.

Saturday I slept in and wasted most of the morning. We went to the yard sales but didn't buy much. One sale had a heavy tanned lamb fleece coat with the wool on the inside for sale. I have a tough time passing up any good deal on a coat so ended up buying it for $20.00. That is actually a really good deal for it but I have felt guilty all afternoon for buying it. I need another coat like I need another hole in my head.



I FEEL A LITTLE GREEDY FOR BUYING THE CAR BUT AM REALLY HAPPY TO HAVE A REALLY RELIABLE CAR FOR THE FUTURE.