That's What Agency is all about, Charlie Brown.

Helpless. That's how I'm feeling at the moment. And my underwear isn't even showing.

I won't share the details. Suffice it to say I am developing a deeper understanding of what my mother meant when she said she loved the time when we were all little kids and that she'd do it all over again.

I might. Not necessarily with the career I had when the kids were younger, but certainly they were simpler, less frustrating times.

Agency is happening, and that's fine. That's supposed to happen. Doesn't mean I can't feel like I want to help, but I know I can't intervene. Not my decisions to make.

So, I can text. And pray. The ol' dismissed "thoughts and prayers." But that's what agency is all about, Charlie Brown.

 

Tinkering Continues

Isaac and Joe were up until almost 4 am replacing the brake pads and rotors on the truck. They pulled it partly into the garage to have light to work by.

They weren't able to finish, so Joe went home and, so nobody stole his tools or otherwise did tomfoolery in the garage, Isaac slept out there on the pad in the bottom photo.

They finished the job today, and the truck's brakes are working just fine.

Proud of him for tackling this.

In the tackling, however, he noticed one of the axle boots is basically gone. Had he had the axle at the time, it was a matter of only six bolts to replace it. Now, however, it's on the backburner until, you know, the money thing is taken care of.

It's Almost A Noteiversary

I've had this contact information on this post-it for nigh on a year, from when we got the idea to buy key fobs for our kids for Christmas 2022.

Taking care of the first car was easy. Of course, that car got sold shortly afterward, but it had two key fobs when it left.

The second car took a bit longer, but by spring 2023 it too was taken care of.

Third car, well the owner of the third car misplaced the fobs for a very long time, so I held onto this post-it for a long time. The fobs recently resurfaced, so in no fewer than three trips, we got them taken care of.

They're not getting anything for Christmas this year. Maybe I should wrap up this note . . .

Oh, Look. *Another* Van.

So here's the newest addition to the family. Lexie is on the cusp of getting her license and is technically living in Pocatello right now relying on the good graces of others to get her around. So when Michelle saw this on 17th Street, we decided we'd better take a look.

At first we thought we'd lost it -- we were the first to look at it, but there was another family that had called first, so they got first dibs. They ended up passing for some reason.

It's at the mechanics right now getting a tune-up and a general look over. We did take it to them before we bought it and he figured it looked and sounded like a good deal. We'll see how it goes. We absolutely do NOT need another vehicle sitting in the driveway, but that's what we're looking at for the time being, until Lexie gets her license.

Finding a car during these "uncertain times" has been a real battle. Not too long ago when we were looking, the price range was about a thousand less than this and we were finding a lot of good cars. This time around, cars in that price range were all either being parted out or so junky or mechanically unsound they should probably be condemned. We got lucky with this one.

Dad Drawings

These might be the most accurate drawings of me made in the past ten years. The first is by my wife. She even got the stubby feet right.

And even if technically I drew this one, my wife's addition of the caption makes my day. That's supposed to be our ballerina daughter.

The entire mess, along with bonus dog drawings, can be seen here:

Wood

Today, we got wood. Lots of wood. A truck and a trailer full of wood. Wood wood wood. That was our day. We have a fireplace in our basement. The basement is cold, despite the presence of a natural gas-fired furnace in the house. The first year we lived in this house, we had no firewood. We were cold. On Christmas Eve Day the first year we lived here, I got fed up and found some wood I could burn. We liked the heat. We even chopped up and burned an old wooden bookshelf I had out in the shed, doing who knows what with it.

Since then, we've been consistent wood-burners. We get most of our wood from a place not far from home where they build custom log cabins. Basically, we pay them $15 a cord to root through their trash and find the wood we need to keep us warm during the winter. Then came this year. The economic downturn, combined with the housing collapse, dropped the bottom out of the custom log home market. Whereas we were used to bountiful harvests at their scrap pile, this year we spent our time crossing our fingers that they'd actually have wood in the pile, and that someone else didn't beat us to it. We got about half the wood I'd hoped we'd get, which was disappointing.

Then today. A family member is building a house, and we mentioned that we'd like to come scavenge through the garbage piles for wood, like the folks in Paris during World War II. They said that would be OK, and then mentioned that they had a huge pile of firewood in the basement of the home they're living in -- borrowed from his side of the family. They'd been asked to move the wood, as it was a fire hazard. So we said we'd take it -- because they had no way of getting it away from the house; they didn't want to haul it off by putting a log or two in their car. So we went all the way to Driggs today to retrieve the wood. We had to start off by fixing two flat tires, one on the wood trailer, the other on the van, and then getting an oil change for the truck, which was to haul the trailer. The trip there was pleasant -- we got to see the last of the potato harvest, trucks hauling huge loads of spuds and the occasional spud spill.

Erica and Nephi treated us to lunch, then we went to work. And work. And work. There was a lot of wood, in a far-back corner of the basement, where I had to duck udner a furnce duct. The wood was big and heavy. I hauled wood pretty much on my own for about an hour while Nephi was at work (I get Fridays off, which is nice) and Michelle, Erica and the kids went to the thrift store to find Halloween costume items. I hauled wood. And hauled. And hauled. Then we drove home, cursed the weight of the wood which made the trip slower, but then blessed the wood because, once we got it home and once I spend an hour or two unloading it tomorrow, it'll keep us warm.