Plans, Stress, and Rental Cars

Why, oh why…..why can’t I have one drama-free day? Just one? Is that too much to ask?

I found out about a week or so ago that my best friend from college was going to be in the Kansas City area for work for a few days. We have not seen each other since 2004, so there was no way that we were going to NOT get together while she was here. She had no way to get to me, so I had to get to her. The plans started formulating, with a friend offering to take me to Kansas City.

Plans. Plans suck. Plans never work. Saturday morning, as I was racing from basketball game to basketball game, the She-Beast died. Literally sputtered and died alongside the road. I was able to get a hold of a friend who lived in the area and she came and took my kids to the next basketball game while her son came out and tried to work some magic. We towed it back to their house, but couldn’t figure out much of anything so we towed it the 30+ miles home. One theory was a bad fuel filter, so I bundled up the two youngest ones and we walked the mile to the auto parts place and got a new one. I came home and put it on, but alas, it didn’t work. So it could possibly be the fuel pump, which is of course located INSIDE the gas tank – that one is beyond my abilities to fix. I need help on that.

Anyway, driving the She-Beast to KC was Plan B. Plan A never worked, as the friend who was supposed to drive me went out of town for work and still has not been heard from (*gritting teeth*). Plan B was now out of the question. I tried to find a vehicle to borrow – no luck. Finally, I started looking at rentals and found out that I could get one with unlimited mileage for $20 for the day. Sold! I had to beg a ride to Wichita to get it (thank you very much to my 4-year old’s father for that one), but I got it and then I dropped my youngest off with some friends and I hit the road.

The trip up was uneventful. Having no kids in the car was strange, but it necessitated having the radio cranked up as loud as it would possibly go the entire way. I sang along with everything and had a blast. I found some great radio stations and so I had the opportunity to belt out tunes from everyone from Bon Jovi to Depeche Mode to Tim McGraw to Metallica. I managed to get up there just shortly after she checked into the hotel, so we went and grabbed something light to eat and visited for a while before I took her on a driving tour of Kansas City at breakneck speeds. Driving around and talking just reminded me so much of our days in college when we would take so many insane spur-of-the-moment road trips together, including a 17-hour one to see the peach drop in Atlanta, GA for New Years. Word of advice – if you ever have the chance to do that, don’t. It was nothing more than a giant orange pillow with a bajillion drunk people crammed into about a one square block area underneath it. But anyway…..

After our driving tour, we went back to the hotel and grabbed her coworker and we went to what the desk clerk called a “Mex-Tex” restaurant nearby. I’m not a huge fan of Mexican food, but wow – this stuff was good! The waiter was, uh, interesting, to say the least. He just couldn’t comprehend some of the things that we were saying to him – I think he was overwhelmed by three East Coast ladies in one room or something. But we had fun eating too much, talking non-stop, and halfway watching the Patriots lose to the Jets.

I finally left around 8:00pm, 2 hours behind schedule. I filled up the gas tank and hit the road. I got back to pick up my youngest around 10:45 and we got home at around 11:15. He was still awake when I picked him up and was still awake when we got home. He put a movie in (yes, HE put the movie in) and I turned out the lights and he crawled into bed with me and we both fell asleep.

This morning has already involved getting the rental car back to Wichita (and getting a ride back with another friend) and sending out feelers to try to get someone to come and look at the She-Beast to try to figure out what is wrong with her. My mind is going a billion miles a second right now, trying to come up with plans (there’s that word again) to get it fixed, get my daycare business up and running again, get my crafts going again, get my canned stuff going again, and just get some money rolling in again.

It is time, no it is beyond time, to get my act together. This divorce and all of the drama that went along with it is now over. I let myself slide into a very deep depression – one that I’m not sure most people were really aware of. I let things go that I never should have, and I’ve put myself into a very ugly financial position. But the good thing is that now I realize it. I see it very clearly. So now it’s time to fix it. Today’s plan – and yes, I’m using the p-word because I am determined to break the p-word jinx – is to get everything around the house cleaned up and straightened up and make the house look not so…….grotesque. Once that is done, the lists will be made – lists of things that I need to do in order to reclaim my life. And these lists are not going to get thrown away or lost in the shuffle – they will be kept, they will be followed, and they will be completed.

I have a new (or old) last name. I am in a new decade of my life. I am in a fairly new home (it’s been a few months, but it’s still new-ish). It is definitely time for a new start. Going to grab those hypothetical big girl panties and put them on – as soon as the laundry is done.