That Felt Pretty Cool!

We have a 1999 Dodge pick-up and the starter had been acting up lateley. Well, it finally happened, Thursday the starter gave up.I couldn't get the truck to start the day I was taking all the trash and recycling in. Aaarrrggghhhh!

A friend of ours took the old starter out and was going to put in a new one for me. I ordered a new one....only ordered a 1996 starter, so embarrassing!
The correct one was ordered and the day it came in our friend and J were unable to fix it. I could either wait til someone could do it or I could. Our friend showed me what I would need to do if I chose to install myself.

Hmm, I thought that I should give it a shot. It was intimidating but I told myself I'm capable enough to be able to fix 1 part on my truck.I have to say that my hands are not as strong as my hubby's. One part took me quite a while to connect. Usually you just have to plug in this cable, but I couldn't get it to click together. I ended up having to use 2 pliers.

I was surprised that it was as easy as it turned out to be. And man was it exciting to be the one to fix my truck! I felt like a kid who learned how to ride their bike or something!

Thank You!

We ran to Safeway to get a few groceries to hold us over til Monday.
After ringing up the cashier said,
"This has never happened before but a man came through and gave me 40$ and said to pay for the next persons groceries"

What?!
It was such a nice thing for someone to do. We only had 20$ worth of food so whoever went behind us will get 20$ off their grocery bill.

The boys were amazed too.
L asked me if we were ever going to do that for someone.
I told him maybe one day, but we didn't have to wait til we had extra money to leave with a cashier. We can help anyone, we just need to look for opportunities. I reminded them when they hold open a door, pick up something that someone has dropped, give extra help to a teacher, or help out another student at school it is giving and they should do that whenever they can.

I wish I could have said thank you to that person for the money and for the great example and teaching moment for my boys.

Addicted?

We recently canceled our account with Directv. We realize it isn't a good use of our $ and it doesn't promote activity, its a distraction.

When it was turned off R asked why, I told him to save $ and that we didn't need it. Our teen friend pipped up and said, Yeah, it just makes you sit around a get fat! R and L heard that and then were sold on the idea of canceling. (cracks me up!)

I think I'm the one who was addicted to it. Withdrawals? Sort of, I would usually have the TV on most of the day playing in the background while I did chores and Homework. So for days it felt really weird not having the satellite.
The boys haven't even mentioned it. So I guess canceling was really for my benefit!

We are not a 'No TV' house, we have Netflix and a Blockbuster membership. We just don't spend as much time in front of the TV anymore and that's probably a good thing.

The next step is getting the boys to stop being video game junkies.
Last year we had no electronic gaming allowed during the summer. Loved it! Even the boys admitted it was one of the best summers. We let them have video games after school started.
We have warned them that this summer will be like last year, No video games whatsoever. You can bet they will have withdrawals from it!

It amazes me how me and my family have become so into electronic media. I don't even want to think about how much time we've wasted zoning out to it.