I mentioned on a recent Friday’s Fave Five that we got a new car at the end of the year. We were going to need to replace our van some time in the near future, and my husband went down to the dealership we were considering to see if they had any end-of-the-year sales that would make it worthwhile to go ahead and get a car. They did, and the salesman was eager enough to sell that my husband got pretty much everything he wanted. Plus, since we didn’t absolutely have to get a car right now, when the negotiations weren’t going the way my husband wanted, he could honestly and without remorse and coercion walk away. That, we discovered, was a good position to negotiate from. I’m glad he likes doing that kind of thing. I hate it – I want to know the sale price and any discounts available and be done with it. But because he likes that kind of interaction, we’ve gotten some great deals along the way.

I don’t remember how old our old van is – maybe 18 or so years? Old enough that it has a cassette tape player, and when it came out, keyless entry was the newest, coolest feature. The new one, of course, has all kinds of bells and whistles I need to get used to. Jim took me out to the car after he brought it home and showed where various things were. He set up what was needed for my phone to connect via bluetooth and play through the speakers (Yay!!) and showed me how to activate that and various other things.

I had driven the car briefly when he brought it home for a test drive, but I wanted my first solo voyage to be a very small and short excursion while I got used to it. I had to go to the post office yesterday, which provided a perfect opportunity.

The car starts with a push button, but requires that you have a “key” that connects wirelessly so that not just anyone can come start and drive your car. So I got in, got set, pushed the button — and everything came on except the engine. The windshield wipers were going full blast because it had been raining the last time we were out. I knew where the controls for it were, so I was turning everything on them that I could, but nothing was happening. I finally realized I had been fiddling with the controls for the back windshield wipers. But I couldn’t see what to do to turn off the front wipers. I accidentally moved the lever, and saw out of the corner of my eye something on the screen behind the steering wheel that said “Off, Int, Lo, Hi.” The setting moved when I moved the lever, so, voila, that’s how to turn the windshield wipers off. That sure seemed more complicated than it needed to be.

But I still had the problem of how to turn on the engine. I pushed the button again — nothing. I called my husband, but my call just went to voicemail. I got the manual out of the glove compartment, and you’d think “How to start your car” would be on the first page. But, no, I had to go searching for it and found it about halfway in. Turns out I have to have my foot on the brake pedal and then push the button, even though the car is in “park.” Success!

The car has a nifty back-up setting where it shows you what’s behind you and has little red and yellow lines to show you which way you need to go to back up. I had been looking forward to that feature, but I found it disorienting – when I turned the way I thought it was indicating, I went the opposite way. So I had to just ignore it and back out the old way, looking over my shoulder.

This car has many more warning beeps than I am used to – one for when you veer out of your line, proximity sensors on all sides so you know when you get to close to something, etc.

The actual driving was fine – except I kept stopping too suddenly. Have to get used to the feel of the new brakes.

I kept thinking this all probably looked like a scene in a sitcom. 🙂

I was glad my first excursion was a short one, because I was pretty rattled when I got home. 🙂

Earlier, when we were in the car together and my husband was driving, I got out the manual to flip through it, and was overwhelmed with too much information. What I probably need to do is just go sit with it in the garage and go through the manual page by page.

My kids love the learning curve with new technology. Me — not so much. I’m sure I’ll love everything once I get more familiar with it. But I hope my next drive goes more smoothy than the first.

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Tuesday evening I came out of the bathroom door – the same bathroom door I have been coming out if for 6 1/2 years now with no problem – and somehow banged my little toe on the door frame. It really hurt, and after doubling over for a minute, I looked down at it – and it was angled away from the rest of my foot. That can’t be good, I thought. I showed it to Jim, and we discussed whether we should go to the ER. He taped it to the next toes and we decided to just wait, figuring that’s probably what a doctor would do anyway since they can’t put a cast on toes.

The next morning I got dressed early so I could call the doctor and be ready to go in immediately if they had an opening. Unfortunately my doctor was not in, but the nurse practitioner had an opening at 5:15. I asked Jim’s mom’s caregiver if she could come back then, and she could. So I went in, and she took some x-rays and said I needed to be seen by an orthopedic doctor. She said it looked to her like there was a spiral fracture and mentioned the possibility of needing surgery or even pins put in it. (Yikes!) There was an orthopedic clinic that was open til 8 if I could get there. I had driven to the doctor’s office because they are close to us, but, even though the injury was on my left foot, I just didn’t feel I could drive to this place. I called Jim, and he was on his way home, so we met there, made his mom’s dinner, and headed out again.

The orthopedist said the toe was dislocated, so he numbed it up and reset it (or reduced it, as they say, but I am not sure why they call it that.) I asked if it was just dislocated or if it was broken as well. He said, “Oh yes, it’s broken – it looks like a jigsaw puzzle in there.” So he taped it up with the next toes, gave me a stylish boot to wear, told me to keep it dry and elevated and come back in a week.

He said at one point that this would “probably bother you for three months.” I told Jim I hoped he was exaggerating. He said he didn’t think he was. I don’t know if that means wearing the boot and keeping it taped for that long, or just that it will be that long before it feels completely right.

I’ve been on acetaminophen round the clock since it happened. Before seeing the doctor, it actually felt better when I was walking around and excruciating when I was lying down. I thought that was so odd – you’d think it would be the other way around. But last night I slept great. It only seems to hurt now when I’ve been on it for a while, and the doctor said that’s a sign I need to go elevate it.

It was embarrassing that every time someone at either of the clinics asked me how I hurt my foot, all I could say was that I ran into the wall. 🙂 It would have been nice to at least have had a dramatic story to tell about it.

I was thankful that both offices had evening hours, that Jim’s mom’s caregiver was available, that we got it taken care of that evening so he didn’t have to miss work today, and that the doctor numbed the area before reducing it. When I checked out and one girl mentioned the reduction, the other said, “And you didn’t scream?” I said no, it was numbed, she replied, “We have heard people scream sometimes all the way out here.” Yikes!

I’m also thankful I had gone to the store on Tuesday before any of this happened. I was thinking of putting it off til Wednesday because it was raining and we weren’t quite in danger of running out of anything for a day or so, but finally decided that since I had already planned for it, I’d go ahead and get it over with. I’m also thankful that the bulk of the Christmas shopping and wrapping was done: most everything that’s left can be done sitting down, except the housecleaning I was going to do next week before Jeremy came home. Jim is off next week, so maybe he can help me with that.

Trying to figure out how to take a shower without getting my foot wet was a challenge, and the boot is annoying already (mainly because it’s a different height that any of my shoes, so my gait is uneven). But I hope it’s on the mend now with no further complications.

And that’s probably much more than you wanted to know about anybody’s little toe. 🙂

It’s a hazy day in Eastern TN. Perhaps you’ve heard of some of the fires in the area. By this report there were some 67 of them as of noon Tuesday. There are fires in SC, NC, and Kentucky as well. We haven’t had rain in weeks, quite unusual for this area, and none is in the forecast for at least the next week. The report I mentioned said visibility is only 50 feet in some areas, and my son said he couldn’t see the sun through the haze on some parts of his drive to work this morning. It’s not that bad at our house, but if we’re out and about even just to run errands, we come home with irritated throats and sometimes irritated eyes and nasal passages. A friend in the Tablerock Park area of SC has seen a fire that has burned over 2500 acres actually visibly come closer to his house. All his neighbors have each other on a group text so they can alert each other if there is a sudden need to evacuate.

If you think of it and feel so led, we’d sure appreciate prayer that the fires would be put out with as little damage as possible as soon as possible and that God would send rain.

In other news…..

Craft shows used to be one of my biggest joys. The first two cities we lived in had big ones around Christmas time. The third place we lived was not too far from the first, so I eagerly drove over for the big craft fair in December – but it was immensely smaller and looked more like a home and garden show, with businesses selling swimming pools and windows and even teeth brighteners rather than crafters selling their wares. I was so disappointed. I’ve seen one advertised here the last couple of years, but just hadn’t made it out to it. This year I made plans to go with Jason and Mittu. It was so fun. It was still smaller than some of the big ones I used to see, and there were a few home and garden type booths, but mainly it was just a big old fashioned craft show. I was so happy! I did notice an absence of a couple of typical booths I used to see: tole painting and kid’s wooden toys. I always liked the tole painting because I couldn’t do it. 🙂 I wonder if anyone does any more? And I think, with all the light plastic toys we can buy for kids these days, parents got away from the heavier wooden ones.

The only thing I came away with was a wooden heart ornament and a wonderful piece of apple cake, but there are a couple of things I wish I had gotten.

I would have bought some dish towels – I like the thicker, heavier kind, which is getting harder to find any more, and one booth had them with the little crochet part at the top where you can button it to a cabinet or stove handle. I was looking at them, trying to decide if I liked the crocheted part and looking through the designs, but the older man at the booth just wouldn’t leave me alone to look. He kept saying things like, “These are good an heavy, here feel this one. There are Christmas designs back here – here, come and look,” etc. I just left. I guess I could have said, “Thanks, I’d like to just look at the designs and decide which one I want,” but I didn’t think of it. I’ve never liked craft booths or farmer’s market booths or garage sales where the sellers feel like they constantly have to try to sell to you.

At any rate, it was a fun time, and I am looking forward to next year already.

Speaking of sales people, I got a call last night from a company I ordered a dress from online. I don’t normally answer the phone if I don’t recognize the number, but Jim answered it. The caller said the dress was on the way to me, and I said I had already received it. She said, in an excited voice, “Did you try it on? What did you think?” I said I liked it, but I really didn’t like phone calls like this. 🙂 So she said they would put me on a do not call list. I hope this is not a new thing!!!

Lastly, to leave you with a Timothy-ism…he has been doing a good job learning his colors lately. They were at a restaurant which was playing bluesy music over the PA system, and Timothy was trying to sing along. Jason asked him, “Timothy, are you singing the blues?” Timothy said, “Um….orange.” 🙂

Yesterday we left the house for a couple of hours to have lunch at Jason and Mittu’s. When I got back, I noticed a couple of sections of a neighbor’s fence were down and thought that was odd since they had just had part of it repaired a few months ago, but I was in a hurry to get in because it was about time for my mother-in-law’s caregiver to leave.

When Jim got home an hour or two later, he noticed the fence as well as a big black patch on the grass which somehow I had missed. Evidently there was a fire during the time we were gone.It had to have been starting when I left, but the garage is on the other side of our house, and I didn’t look that way, so I didn’t see anything.

We found out later that a neighbor across the street had seen it, called 911, and hosed off what she could while waiting. Somehow we missed all of that. Jim’s mom’s caregiver didn’t hear anything.

The yard the fire was in is next door to the house directly behind ours. The fire started in her yard and spread to ours and the neighbor behind us. Jason took this picture from the vantage point of the neighbor’s yard – I am not sure how well it will show up since I think it’s a panoramic shot. (I tried to crop out any identifying features from the houses around us).

It’s amazing to me that it went around our fence on the left. It did cause that section of our new (to us) fence that my husband worked so hard on to warp.

He said some of the edging will need to be replaced as well.

He was outside when the neighbor from the house where the fire started came out and talked to her. Evidently she was burning leaves last week and thought she had put the fire out, but it must have been smoldering down where she couldn’t see it. It has been unusually dry here. She had been out of town until yesterday, and when she came back she was trying to find her dog, went out into the back yard, and saw the evidence of the fire (you’d think the firemen would have put a notice on her door. “Hi, we were here!” I guess they figured she’d figure that out).

We’re thankful that:

• It wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
• It wasn’t so bad that Jim’s mom needed to be evacuated or needed to be aware of it at all.
• The row of 52 dead trees that we had taken out a few months ago was gone. If one of those had caught fire – that would have been a disaster and a half.
• We’ve been planning to put mulch along the fence and create a planting area, but hadn’t yet. Those chips might have been susceptible to catching fire.
• No one was hurt.

I was a bit shaken that something like that could happen in the short time I was away. But I am extremely thankful for God’s protection.

And a public service plea: please make double and triple sure that any fire is thoroughly put out.

No doubt you’ve heard of the tragic school shooting on SC. One victim was the six year old son of my brother-in-law’s cousin. His femoral artery was torn by the bullet and he had to be revived twice. I don’t know the family personally but I know they and everyone involved would appreciate your prayers.

http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/33274334/kindergarten-student-in-critical-condition-after-townville-elementary-shooting

Update: Sadly, Jacob passed away Saturday afternoon. Please pray for the family. The news story is here:
http://wspa.com/2016/10/01/jacob-hall-dies-days-after-townville-school-shooting/