Saturday, June 01, 2013

At a Standstill!

Ever have one of those days when no matter how you try to get a schedule set for yourself for the day, no matter what you do, it all tends to fall apart?

That's what's been bothering me way too much lately and as a result, I seem to get nothing, absolutely nothing, accomplished.

Yesterday, I had a visit that lasted close to 2 hours with a lady who is a notary with one of the mortgage loan companies I've talked to in the past week or so. She brought with her virtually a REAM of papers for me to sign in order to begin the preliminary work on a reverse mortgage on my house. Holy rip! Talk about writer's cramp. When you sign and date that many papers in that time span, it sure does get tiring.

Shortly after she left, I received a phone call from yet another rep at yet another mortgage loan company and I told him I had just finished signing the preliminary papers to begin the process for a reverse mortgage so of course, he launched into a big sales pitch. When I told him the company I had done this with, he then informed me that they had just recently been bought out by some firm from India that has, according to him, a very bad reputation for their customer satisfaction area and he even sent me a website too for a Consumer Reports Reviews section on said Indian company.

That report really upset me very much as I was very disappointed in what I read there! Complaint, after complaint, after complaint and really harsh realities from people whose homes had been taken from them with no recourse. I had really liked the first rep I had talked to with the company that sent the notary out yesterday with all those papers and the lady who was here was very thorough in what she explained to me too, so learning all this bad stuff was quite a disappointment to me.

Now I'm going to do a bit of research online for the company I spoke to first as well as the one that the guy who gave me this information about the firm I was figuring on dealing with as well! Just something else that takes up beaucoup time from me during which I could/should be doing other things that need done very soon too.

Last night, because the oil light on my dash has been coming on a good bit lately, I thought I'd see about getting that checked out so I went up past my son's place in hopes he might be there, be home for an hour or two, but not luck. So I went out to the garage of the guy from whom I had purchased this car but he was not around either. So, up to the gas station I went -I needed to get gas anyway -and I had the attendant there check the oil.

Talk about a strange episode though, that was one for the books for sure!

Each time the attendant put his arm in under the hood to pull the dipstick out, he would jump back suddenly and shake his hand/arm and do a little dance -almost like the heebee geebee dance Mandy does when she encounters a spider! What the heck was that all about?

Finally after 3 or 4 tries to check the dipstick, he came and told me he was unable to remove it because the battery on my car was bad and kept shocking him. What? Talk about being confused, that would have been me at that point, for sure. But anyway, I figured just to be a bit on the safe side, I'd have him add some oil for me, which he did.

Today, I took the car down to a mechanic who is good friends with Mandy and surprise, surprise -first thing discovered was the thing the gas station attendant was trying to pull out -supposedly the oil dipstick -was actually the thing that measures the transmission fluid! How he managed to put a quart of oil in and not see that the cap to the spot where he put that oil also had the dipstick for the oil there too! Amazing, huh? But anyway, that took up a good deal of my time this morning then as I then had to run into town so as to purchase more oil -3 quarts to give to Mandy's friend for having dumped that much oil into my car and an extra 2 quarts for me to put more oil then too into my buggy!

Now, I am planning to take the car early Monday to the garage in Clearfield where my ex-brother-in-law works to have them "clean" the engine so it can then be checked over kind of with a fine tooth comb, ya know, to see if I actually have an oil leak or to figure out if maybe the car is burning oil and if that's the case, the outcome then isn't going to be pretty. Just something else for me to worry about there, ya know.

Thankfully, I didn't have to cook tonight though as we all, plus Miss Dawn (Kurt's TSS) ventured up to the local Moose for supper. I had initially been figuring on just having a nice big old cheese steak hoagie that they offer there for a very reasonable price (and boy, are those babies ever good too!) but instead of getting that, which is pretty much my standard order there, we ALL dined on the Friday night buffet they had. WOW! A small soup and salad bar but hot entre items in abundance! From chicken wraps to bbq chicken, roast pork, roast turkey and stuffing, macaroni and cheese, baked ziti, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans and for dessert, strawberry shortcake or cookies! And the buffet was very good, indeed!

Trying to squeeze in time to write this post earlier, I got interrupted by my son, who showed up driving the "new-to-him" old volkswagon bug he drove to Michigan last weekend to pick up and haul home and for which he traded his 1971 bright yellow Chevy pickup truck that his dad had restored and which Clate had bought from his dad a few years back. (He had flown out to Nevada to get the truck and then, drove it cross-country to bring it back home then! I thought he would never part with that truck but apparently his love -worship, really -for volkswagon bugs is stronger than his worship of anything GM or Chevy!) So if I get a bit more disjointed than usual in my post tonight, it's because my train of thought earlier about this post got interrupted for about 5 hours due to my son, then supper, and a few other things in between too.

The last thing that interrupted my post tonight was to first walk the dog and upon getting back home from that, go find the big garden rake and try to start smoothing out the ground in my little makeshift vegetable garden so I can eventually -pretty soon -get the few things I have decided to plant this year into the ground so that they can, hopefully, grow into some veggies that can be enjoyed later this summer! I'm only planning on planting some leaf lettuce, green beans, yellow summer squash and cucumbers this year. Maybe, if I can find some, I might consider picking up a few banana pepper plants too, but that's debatable.

Now, looking over what's happened that took up much of my time today (and last evening), I'm trying to figure out how I can compact these things that crop up in my life and take time away from other things I need or would like to be doing!

Now, I need to get to bed because I have to be up early in the morning to take Maya into town for her play practice there from 9:30 a.m. until 11 a.m. That means get up at 7:30 in order to shower and get dressed and get the kids loaded into the car and head to town where I'm gonna be sitting then for that 90 minutes and hopefully, not fall asleep sitting up on one of those hard folding chairs there! (Wouldn't that just be a lovely sight for old Grammie to nod off, drool running down my chin no doubt, in full view of upteen parents and kiddos practicing for this little musical to be put on in late June?)

Maybe, I can take the book I've been trying to sandwich in from time to time and get a few more pages turned on it or, perhaps take my knitting (along with the pattern book, pen and pad to keep track of what row I'm on with that project) and get a little further along with that.

I should be happy at least going to Maya's play practice means I can sit down and maybe do something, even if it's wrong!

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