Spending money on Saturday

As you may remember, I had an 8:00 AM appointment to get my rear brakes fixed. I got there five minutes early. My plan was to drop the car off and walk the six blocks back home if it was gonna take a long time or, stay and read the book I brought.

They said about two hours so I opted to go home. But, I didn't even get a block away when I realized just how bad both my knees felt. I am pretty sure this was from yesterday's long road trip, but whatever the cause, I turned around and went back to read and wait.

Two hours and $330 US later and I was back on the road. But, I wasn't happy. The mechanic found the cause of the mysterious clunk that's been haunting this car for about a year (and, I did have it looked at professionally before as well as me crawling under the car and tugging on things). It seems the coil spring on my strut rusted through near the bottom, allowing it to bounce around and beat up the strut. He said it was safe to drive, though. He tried but couldn't find any aftermarket parts for it, so he said he would call a Volvo dealer on Monday and let me know the price to fix it... I can't wait...

I stopped at the grocery store for the few items I needed to get through the weekend. No way was I gonna trash my legs further by doing the whole grocery shopping today. I was back home by 11:00 AM. Once inside I opened the new bag of cat treats and gave them each a handful (I had to get those damn treats so the cats wouldn't eat me while I was sleeping!)

I debated whether or not to take a pain pill so I could get some things done today, but decided against it. I might get things done, but then Sunday I'd be in worse shape. Instead I stripped the bed and started the weekend wash.

Jake and Carla stopped by briefly on their way to the dentist. So, I told them all about the big event on Friday. After they left, I made up the bed and put my pants and shirts in the dryer. I laid on the bed to rest my legs and watched some taped cooking shows. I hung up the last load of clothes and then decided to take a nap. So, I did.

When I got up it was about 4:00 PM. So, I lit the charcoal. I want to grill some hot dogs and brats for the coming week's dinners. I was almost finished when the phone rang. I told my friend I would call him right back, finished grilling and then did return his call. After catching each other up on personal stuff and world events, we hung up. It was too early to eat dinner (for me anyway) so I swept the kitchen and straightened up the house a bit.

I was reading a book on the couch (legs up) when my daughter Melissa called. As usual, we talked forever. To give you an idea of how long, one or the other of our phone's batteries both went dead during our conversation!

When I hung up for good, I ate two brats on the last two slices of bread (with mustard and chopped onions) and went to bed for the night.