Happy Birthday to Me!

I turned 35 today. My mother mentioned “middle-aged” in the conversation many times. She thinks she’s funny. Ha! I mentioned it on my Online Party Network group, and thankfully one of my members informed me middle-aged is closer to forty. So, I’ve still got several years to go Mom! :)

So what did I do for my birthday? Did I take the day off? Spend some me-time? No. I spent the day dealing with car issues. See my car has been in the shop since August 3rd with a blown engine. They had it for two weeks and called me to say it would be ready to pick up the next day. Well, the next day they call to say I can’t pick it up because the new engine is losing oil pressure. It’s going to be a while. So after a slight panic attack, they offer to get me a rental car. Well, 55 days later I’m told it’s finally ready and I can pick it up. So, I turned in the rental car on Tuesday night and picked up my car. I was slightly disappointed after driving it home because I just felt something wasn’t right, but I convinced myself I was just being paranoid and needed to get used to my car again.

Oh, and by the way, the registration on the car expired while they had it and apparently they parked it on side of the road and it received two parking tickets while they had it, which they are taking care of. Ok, so back to my story.

So, Wednesday I try to take it to get the registration renewed. I get about halfway to town and it starts making a noise, the check engine light starts flashing, I smell something burning AND it won’t accelerate. Ummm, ok, so it’s not totally fixed. I pull over and call the service center. “Oh…well…it drove fine last night. Bring it by and we’ll check it out.” I take it down there, they run a few tests and determine it’s fine. The check engine light is off, it’s accelerating just fine, blah, blah, blah. I go to leave, and lo and behold, the check engine light is on. So, I go back inside and tell them it’s back on. They take it for another test drive and determine it’s either in the intake or the exhaust. If it’s in the intake, it’s covered under warranty. If it’s in the exhaust, it’s not covered under warranty unless it’s determined that it was caused by something they did when putting in the new engine. What’re the chances of that? :)

They determine it’s the exhaust. They send me down the road to find out what is causing it and if it’s because of the new engine or not. They find that the catalytic converter has basically imploded. They also say it was an issue with the old engine and therefore my responsibility to pay for. :( Thankfully though they paid for it and they are going to let me make payments to them along with my regular car payment. Of course, I can barely afford the regular car payment, but that’s another post for another day. Ha!

Obviously, I didn’t get the registration taken care of yesterday. Oh yeah, and my driver’s license renewed today. And did I mention I didn’t sleep well last night. And I’m getting a cold, so I’m cranky and stuffy and have a headache all day. I go do the registration first thing this morning. Then I go get the driver’s license renewed and get a new crappy picture. The old picture I actually really liked, but I couldn’t convince them to use it again. Then I had to drive out to Salt Lake to pick up a check from a client. And what do you think happened on the way there? If you guessed the check engine light came back on, you would be right! I guess I’ll be taking it back out to the repair shop tomorrow. Maybe I’ll just give it back to them and by a bus pass. :)

I barely got home in time for Andrew to get home from school. We hang out for a bit and then Andrew took me to Red Lobster for dinner. (Thank goodness for MyPoints otherwise we couldn’t have afforded it.) We had a nice time, and I was quite relieved that he was actually pretty well behaved. We’ve been having more of that lately, and I for one am enjoying it. And so to the end of a not so great birthday, is a very special time and a reminder that life’s not all that bad.