La La La La La ...Laaaaaaaaaaa!

Mardi Gras is in the past, Ash Wednesday too and the kids go back to school today for two days. Mardi Gras is a state holiday here; post offices, banks and government offices are closed. It's time to get back to normal. I have things to do.

April got her jeep back yesterday and I got my Grand Marquis back. She has been driving it while hers was in the shop. A remanufactured engine was installed and we are holding our breath and hoping this vehicle gives her a few more years of service. Used cars are now very expensive but with the cost of a new one being around 30,000.00, the used ones with low mileage are going to cost around 18,000.00. It's just crazy the price of a new automobile AND the cost of a used one.

Ted's truck is running fine, Lesie's Toyota is hanging in there and April's jeep is back on the road and I'm holding my breath here. I remember the good ole days when I worried about April only; then the grandchildren came along. Nobody warned me. I thought when April was on her own, I would be done with worrying. Silly me! Once you have a child the worry never ceases. It wasn't written on the fine print on her birth certificate so how would I have known?

The husband called yesterday from Alexandria. He wasn't happy. Apparently they are calling a halt to the job he expected to be on for a week. The formation is not what the company expected and they think they have drilled through core point which is where the husband does his job.

He expected to be on this job for a week, be home for 3 days then head to Oklahoma City for another job. Now he might have to hang out around the house for a week before leaving.

 

 "He doesn't get paid for hangin out around the house."  was his response when I told him to relax and enjoy being off.

 

He has always been someone that is ready to work. Thankfully, he likes his job and usually has a good time at work. He has visited rigs all over the USA and always sees employees on those rigs that he has met somewhere in his travels.

 

Once while traveling through Arizona, we stopped at a McDonald's to grab a cup of coffee as a Greyhound bus pulled in and stopped. The first person alighting from that bus looked over just as we were exiting the McDonalds' and said 'hey buddy!"

 

It was a cook that was working offshore in the Gulf that remembered the husband from when he visited an offshore rig. Sometimes it really is a small, small world.

 

Many times he has been called to a rig and someone there will remember him while he has a difficult time placing where he has met that person; usually someone from his days of working in the Rocky Mountains.

 

I'll be a little relieved when the boom slows down just a bit. Right now I can't travel with him. The rigs are placing mobile homes on the locations for the guys to live in as the hotel rooms in the area are filled to capacity with workers.

 

When it slows down a bit, he will be back in motels and I can travel with him. Some places I don't mind not going. West Texas has never been a place I have desired to spend any time. I would like to go back to Farmington, N.M. or somewhere in the Rockys. I'm encouraging him to do some work in Colorado but not until this summer. The below zero temperatures right now and the snow covered roads are not something I want to vacation on.

 

Have you been watching the story on that cruise ship stranded in the Gulf? Yet another reason for me to not cruise. I've never had the inclination to climb on a ship to be isolated with 4000 people in the middle of the ocean. It's bad enough the dislike of flying that I have. I fly when I have to but much prefer driving. Oh, I know all the statistics regarding flying and driving. It doesn't help. I still hate flyin!

 

I'm going to get out of this house this morning before that trial starts and before the husband arrives back home and before any more rain arrives. Maybe I'll just do some cleaning on the automobiles.

 

Soon the summer heat will again return and I'll me moaning and groaning and hiding out from it. I have some outside chores to do before summer blasts into town.

 

I'm gone!