Car Hospice, My Person, And Spring Thankfuls

The car my daughter has been driving for the past nine years or so was a hand-me-down from my parents. It was a 2004 Toyota Avalon, and I drove it for a several years, then my son drove it in high school, followed by my daughter driving it in high school, college, and now, law school. We had high hopes it would survive until she graduated, passed the Bar, and officially began her Big Girl job at a law firm, but the little car had different ideas. It was tired. It had seen things. It had over 200,000 miles on it. It had to have a new (to it) engine after it began belching blue smoke while my daughter was still in high school. Its ailments increased over the past few years, then a few weeks ago, it became incontinent, losing its oil God knows where, and it was determined by a mechanic to be fatal. It was time to let it go.

Fortunately, my daughter made bank at her summer internship and had some money stashed away, so after MUCH research, making of spreadsheets, and test driving, she got her very first car. This event marks the beginning of my Ten Things of Thankful.

My husband drove up to Kansas City to go with her to the dealership while she signed all the paperwork. He complained a little about it, but I told him MY daddy drove two hours each way to sit with ME in the car dealership when I bought MY first car; it's a dad thing.

My baby and her new ride

While he was in Kansas City, I spent the weekend in Branson at my dad's, because my Person and her daughter were in town. It sure did my heart good to spend time with them. 

Terri and Mackenzie

With my Person

The Hanes outlet is closing, and we made a KILLING buying new bras. Girl thing.

We may have hit SEVERAL outlet stores, actually....

We ate at all of Terri's and Mackenzie's favorite places and got frozen custard twice. TWICE.

And saw The Haygoods show FOR FREE.

The Haygoods show

We had a good dose of Spring this week. The daffodils, hyacinths, and tulips have popped out of the ground and bloomed. The red bud trees are also in bloom, the grass is greening up, and there are buds on all the trees. Winter really may be out of here when it's supposed to be!

There were a LOT of leftover bananas in the kitchen at school that were beyond eating straight up, so I took them home to make banana bread. I planned to make four loaves: two to take to school and share with everyone there and two to take to my dad. I could make enough batter for two loaves at a time in my Kitchen Aid mixer. I had the batter mixed and ready for the addition of the mashed bananas, but as I began the mashing process in a separate bowl with the back of a fork, the bowl flipped off the counter and landed upside down on the kitchen floor, dumping six VERY RIPE bananas all over the floor. I said MANY bad words, cleaned up the mess, and CAREFULLY mashed six more bananas, added them to the batter, and I STILL had enough old bananas to make two more banana breads. See? I DID have a lot of bananas! And the banana bread was appreciated by all who partook.

Saturday was a gorgeous day, warm and sunny, and my husband and I ventured out to Silver Dollar City theme park for our first visit of the 2024 season. We listened to the Homestead Pickers as per usual and took a lap around the entire park and I thought to myself, "God's in His Heaven. All's right with the world."

And it was. And it is. 

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