I was waiting for the tow truck

Waiting for the tow truck is embarrassing. Plus I hate waiting. I had planned that the tow truck would take half an hour to get to me. That was wrong as the truck took longer than that to get to me it took about 45 minutes. While I was waiting I was running out of water. So I had to decide should I go get more water or stay where I was at. As soon as you go back in the house the tow truck will show up.

I finally went back into the house and got a fresh bottle of water. I purchase water bottles by the dozen when they are on sale 3 for $9.99 so you end up with 36. Then I re-use them until I can’t reuse them anymore. I re-fill them with tap water. I buy these because they are easy for me to hold, they have a cap that screws back on, they fit into the cup holder in the car, you can drink from them while driving, they are handy for around the house also.

This whole scenario started because I came out to my car and tried to start it. It almost turned over but didn’t make it. I had shopping to do so I called the tow truck. So the dude finally came and I had enough cash. I programmed the phone number into my phone because these people were less expensive than the last tow truck I had to call. So I knew the drill. You have to drive the car for a long enough time to fully charge the battery again.

So I drove ‘around the block’. A very long block and definitely drove for a long enough time. Then I went into Target and got what I had to get. I was not in Target that long I just went in to get what I had to, no dawdling. I came out to the car and had trouble starting it so I knew what I had to do. I drove it over to the repair shop. This was going to take a while because it was not early. You get your car to the shop early and you get your car back early. The later in the day you go the longer it takes.

So I tell the dude what my car story was. He starts talking about well it could be the battery but it could be something in the electrical system. It could be the battery, the alternator, the solenoid, the distributor cap or the wires or the spark plugs and so on and so forth. I knew this because I took a car electrical course at the Junior College. So I went and sat down. I had brought my bag of things I don’t want to leave in the house. My project lists, my passwords book, my checkbook, and other types of personal information. No book to read I had left that at the house.

First thing I had to do was give up my seats for work. So I made that phone call and released my seats for the next 24 hours. The dude said it would take about 40 minutes all told. I didn’t really believe it would only take 40 minutes but started watching the clock anyway. One gal was reading something. I asked her if that was an iPad. She said it was a Kindle™. It was sooooooooo thin and smaller than a piece of paper. So we got into a discussion about reading. She got the Kindle™ in a drawing at work. She prefers books to the Kindle™ and reads on it when she is waiting for something. She recommended a book series to read written by Terry Goodkind The Sword of Truth series.

Lo and behold it only took one hour for my car to be fixed. So now because I had given up my seats for the day I had to decide what to do with my day off. I decided to go to the movies.

®Worx GT Trimmer and Edger

When I bought the Ryobi® I bought it at Home Depot. So that is where I went to get more line. Once I bought a package of line and my intention was to fill up the empty spool for less money than to buy the spool already loaded. This did not work out over time because I had to keep stopping to take off the spool cap and manually unwind it.

The Ryobi® battery is too big for my smaller than average women’s hands. It takes two hands to remove the battery from the weed eater. It also takes two hands to remove the spool cap from the Ryobi® and remove the spool to either put on a new spool or to unwind the line by hand. The Ryobi® guard was much easier to put on than the ®Worx GT guard. The Ryobi® does not vibrate while you are using it and it is heavier than the ®Worx GT. It takes about four days to do the whole yard, alleyway and where the cars are parked with the Ryobi®.

When I got my ®Worx GT, I was working so I had to wait until I was done working to play with it. The ®Worx GT battery is smaller and so is the spool cap and so is the spool. Even though the spool is smaller it has more feet of line on it. The ®Worx GT has 16 ft of line compared to the Ryobi® which has 9 ft of line on the spool. The ®Worx GT guard was a caution to put on. It was the hardest thing to do as far as the ®Worx GT goes. Putting the guard in place and then screwing the screw in took some doing. I think though that the screw will stay in place and not fall out like the Ryobi® screw guard did.

So then the next morning I took the ®Worx GT lithium battery from the charger and put it into the ®Worx GT trimmer/edger. It only took one hand to do so. I took off the spool cap to take a look at the spool housing. That only took one hand so even before I use my ®Worx GT trimmer/edger I am liking it very much.

So then I go out to the yard and start whacking weeds. The ®Worx GT vibrates and it vibrates so much that I was wondering if I could finish before my hand got tired. Well I did not have to worry. The ®Worx GT is not as heavy as the Ryobi® so my hands did not get tired as fast. I did the whole yard then I decided to do the alleyway then after I was done with that I did where the cars are parked. ®Worx GT vibrates a lot so I am going to try wearing gloves next time to cut down on vibration.

I won’t be needing to use the edger feature on the ®Worx GT as I have no lawn to speak of to edge. The ®Worx GT would be just a bit heavier with the edger tool attached to it. The Edger looks like a nice little tool and maybe if I put the edger tool on the ®Worx GT it would be heavier enough and maybe that would offset the vibration.

So here is my assessment briefly. Ryobi® battery bigger. Ryobi® spool bigger. Ryobi® guard easier to put on. ®Worx GT spool has more feet of line. ®Worx GT battery and spool cap are made for a woman’s hands. ®Worx GT vibrates. ®Worx GT is not as heavy. ®Worx GT is easier to adjust for angles. The ®Worx edger feature is nice.

Overall I like the ®Worx GT trimmer/edger much better than the Ryobi® weed eater. The next time I used the ®Worx GT timmer/edger the vibration did not bother me and I didn’t have to wear a glove to offset the vibration.

On the floor was a screw

I saw it just as I entered from taking the trash to the bin. My gut said don’t throw it out it belongs to something. I thought it belonged to the weed whacker. I was out in the yard whacking the weeds on the perimeter the ones growing next to the fence. The previous day I had given up on using the weed whacker and got out the push mower. It took a while but by using the push mower, I got the weeds mowed down all except those growing close to the fence. So today I got those with the weed whacker. All of a sudden the guard fell off.  I left it there and continued without the guard and got all the weeds growing close to the fence. So my weed whacking is caught up for a while. So then I worked on fixing the weed whacker. The screw I found was not the one that fitted the weed whacker. So then I had to look for a screw that did fit and I did finally find one. So I put the weed whacker back together. I read the instructions on how to fill the spool with line and then to put the spool back in the weed whacker. Maybe I have finally solved this problem. I recharged the battery and put that back in the weed whacker. Right now I can wait a few days to look at the yard to see if it needs whacking again. I am ready.

I am looking at portable air conditioners because I do NOT want to be sweating taking calls and the evaporative cooler aka as swamp cooler won’t work when July and August get here. Portable air conditioners are expensive but I can afford one this year and it will be worth it to take calls in dry cool air.

Went to the Asian take out but won’t go back. I like the ‘vegetarian delight’. I thought maybe it would be similar to the Asian take out in Ypsilanti, MI on Washtenaw Ave but I was disappointed. It had the same ingredients as far as veggies go. It had, yuck, white rice. I like brown rice or fried rice. The veggies were soggy and not crisp. The sauce was very sparse and essentially not there. So I will have to try to find another Asian take out to replace the one in Ypsilanti, MI.

Some days I get a whole lot of things done before I go to work. One day I sat in my car and read while I charged up the car battery. Then I whacked the weeds next to the fence on the way to the entrances to the apartments, the weeds were getting out of control. Then I posed a new entry to my blog a short story. Plus I took a class for work. Just think all this before work and had some time left over to boot.

Ok I finally started the Brazil Butt® Lift workouts. I had to rearrange the living room to make room to move along with the video. I put in the DVD and started with the Basics video. I drank some water while it was loading. Started doing the basics exercises but doing it while listening to the neighbor yell was not fun. I couldn’t do all the basics. So I am going to put in the Basics video and practice, practice and more practice until I can do all the basics. Meanwhile I played the Bum Bum and started with it but was not able to keep up so I guess it is back to the drawing board and back to the Basics video until I can keep up with the person showing how to do the basics. I need to get either a mat or maybe use a pillow. I did get a small workout so I did do some good anyway, Snicker.

Use it or lose it

Is what I found out this week. Wednesday I left the house to do some errands and got in my car and started it up…..but nothing happened. See when you don’t start up your car on a regular basis the battery slowly drains out. So I had to call a tow truck and then I had to drive the car for 20 minutes before I could shut it off and go do my errands. I decided to drive to the other side town so I could use up my twenty minutes. One errand was easy and I didn’t have to shut the car off so I did that one first. I had to mail the rent check and another item. All I had to do was drive up to the post office and drop them in the outside drive up boxes. So then I kept driving to my destination but my minutes weren’t up yet so I decided to turn around and go to the store I was going to go to in the first place. I kept checking the clock in the car as I was driving to make sure that I wouldn’t have to drive past the store I was headed to in order to use up my minutes. By the time I got to my original destination I had used up my minutes and a few more. When I parked and shut off the car I started it up again to make sure that when I left the store I wouldn’t have to call the tow truck again. Lucky for me I have them programmed into my cell phone.

So I have a choice for the future. I can go out to my car every other day and run it for 20 minutes or I can buy the thing the tow guy used to start my car. I know I can buy one for $50 or there abouts, which is what I paid the tow guy. So I can start surfing the Internet for prices and then go buy one.

I have been very busy this week taking a class online for a product that is going to be sold soon. I spent all my spare time doing that. It is a seasonal product but the next time it comes up I will only have to do the refresher and that won’t take so long. I took donation calls for the Haiti earthquake. Boy, the George Clooney thing went all over the world. I know this because that is where some of my calls came from. Ecuador, Ireland and so on and so forth.

We are all going to be pleasantly surprised at the new tax credits. But those who have already done their taxes already know about the new credits. I have yet to receive three more documents before I can do mine. All of them will be postmarked February 1 unfortunately for me. I am gung-ho and want to find out if I am really going to get something back or if I have to pay again.

I finally figured out how to stop getting text messages. Text messages on my phone plan are about $10 a pop if you delete them. Doesn’t matter that you didn’t even read them. So the next phone bill I get will be the last one I will have to pay for text messages. I went online to my cell phone company and tried to find how to block all text messages. The search turned up several alternatives. They are all bunched together so you have to read them and decide which one is going to do the trick. So guess what I had to do to get the text messages to stop. Yup I had to send a text message to get them to stop. It was quick easy and painless and I got a message back almost immediately confirming my request. So I can relax knowing that I will no longer get any more text messages.