Operation "Mama Needs A New Pair of Radiator Hoses"

So, today I was driving to my normal Wednesday hot-spot, the 59 Diner on Katy Freeway, and my "check engine" light came on.  Sure enough, I had sprung a leak.  Coolant was falling into the holding tank and evaporating, so when I was virtually out of coolant, my engine started to overheat.  I went to visit my friends Macon and Jose, the two managers at My Mechanic Green Trails.

"Hi."

They said in unison, "Hi, Amy!"  They remembered my name from the first time I patronized their business.  It's like they used to work for Nordstrom or something.

I told them my issue, they agreed to diagnose and treat my sick car, and I went on my merry way to just wait for their phone call.  When I received it, I did the math and deduced I would not get my car back until probably four in the afternoon, and it wasn't even nine in the morning yet.  This calls for a friend intervention.  I called Kathleen.

After she picked me up, we went back to her house and then to Yarntopia, where she was working for a few hours and I was just going to fondle yarn and gossip with her.  When I finally got the call that my car was ready, I had a different demeanor when I was signing my receipt for the parts and labor.

Excuse me...my $826.11 receipt for parts and labor.

Understand, this is why I buy cheap cars.  If I had a forty-thousand dollar car and knew that I would be spending a grand every six months on upkeep at ninety thousand miles, it makes more sense to just save the money on the initial purchase and pay for the same inevitable work with the savings.  But man, I did not need that bill right now.

The good news is that I finished both the prayer shawl and the one-ball wonder, the Noro headband I wrote about last post.  The even better news is that I weighed what I had left from the ball of Noro, and I used less than half of it.  I can make another one!

So friends, I ask you to do me a favor:  forward this link (for the blog) to all of your friends on facebook and twitter and whatever other mailing and distribution list you have.  Then, make sure they click on both the post, and this link:

http://www.examiner.com/knitting-in-chicago/the-benefits-of-joining-a-knitting-group

After that, be sure they forward this link to both the blog post and the article to THEIR friends and family.  Then, make sure that if they want one of my knitting patterns found at http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheFiberFriend?ref=si_shop), they PayPal me right away and I will send them the pattern as soon as I get the confirmation.

BECAUSE MAMA NEEDS A NEW PAIR OF RADIATOR HOSES!  And Mastercard and I are having a huge fight at the moment...

(pictures of the two new items to come in the next couple of days)