Early on yesterday, I felt the weekend was going by too quickly, but approaching last night I felt better prepared for the week to start. This post shall be a recap of this weekend, starting with Saturday. We went to my Dad's to give the Nova a mini makeover.
The following is a list of tasks that were performed:
The water pump was exchanged for a new one. Apparently the old one was factory, meaning it's been on there 34 years. Wtf. It was fairly simple to change out, thank goodness, and the water was replaced with 50/50 antifreeze in preparation for the oncoming winter.
The doors are fixed. I used to have to slam the doors to get them to close...or lift and slam. Now you just drop it and it's done. The holes where the pins go were oblong instead of circular so my dad welded washers on them and now they're perfect.
While they (Ryan and my dad) were at it, they replaced the thermostat.
They greased EVERYTHING. The hood opens super easy now. The doors don't creak. Amazing.
My dad adjusted the gas and air intake on the carburetor which had also not been touched since the car left the factory (they still had the plastic coverings on the screws) so the car starts right up with no problems, and most importantly, STAYS running. That has to be the worst part about driving a '78...carburetor success is determined by the current weather. Oh, the wonders of fuel injection!
Today we are replacing the rubber hose part of the brake line so I won't have to keep adding brake fluid every week.
I feel like I've left out something else they tweaked. The Nova feels like a different car now...or, rather, it feels like it did years ago. Every morning, on my way to work, I go over some railroad tracks. Every morning, I have to slow down or it sounds like the car is going to fall apart. I guess that was due to the loose doors (and partly the uneven tires that were fixed the weekend prior) because now it glides over the tracks with barely any noise compared to before. The engine sounds even better, also.
We haven't had insurance for the Nova, so we called to get a quote. It will only be $20 a month to insure so as soon as payday gets here, we will be insured and I can feel better about driving around, especially on the interstate. I will also feel better being insured when winter gets here...just in case rear wheel drive proves stubborn and I slide into someone. I did fine last winter considering we don't get all that much snow, and I had worse tires then than I do now. It would be my luck that as soon as the car sounds good and I get good tires that I suddenly can't drive and crash. At least I'll have insurance :P
While Ryan and my dad were working on the car I took my little sister for a walk. I let her climb trees so she came home much more filthy than when she left, but I figured they were used to that. She also picked up a piece of plastic that turned out to be glass (*I* even thought it was plastic). She's six. Brilliant. They'll never let me watch her after that. I did, however, catch the rusty metal she almost picked up. There's a win! I think rust is more scary than glass. I mean...pouring blood helps to push out grossness (glass in this case) and clean wounds, whereas tetanus gets in your system and your done for, right? I don't actually know, but she felt better when she thought the bleeding (very little) was a good thing.
I also told her it would probably burn quite a bit. Such a trooper. I did have a hard time convincing her that she wasn't going to bleed to death and promised her that *I* know what a lot a of blood looks like because of my job, and that she was, in fact, only bleeding a tiny bit. She didn't believe me, even after me telling her the truth about the burning. This is why I'm not going to school to be a nurse. Parents would hate me. I wouldn't be able to calm their kids and I would be telling them that procedures WILL hurt. I won't let my mom live it down...lying to me like that. I also have an irrational fear of doctors because of this. I'd rather know it's going to hurt and prepare myself for it than be lied to. Unfortunately that doesn't go so well with most people. I just don't understand. I mean, why make a bad situation worse, yea?
Anyway, yesterday was a stay home and clean day. I managed to get all of the laundry washed and put away, and the dishes done until dinner, but that only made a few more to clean. The weather was lovely so I even enjoyed a nap with the blinds open, and the fan on. I also started the painting part of my painting, and I played some piano. Yay! Last night, Ryan came home after taking our friend home and announced that the weather was "perfect for walking" so I immediately felt obligated to change into some not pajama pants and go walking...after also putting on my shoes, of course. He said he was shocked and didn't actually plan on walking but since I was dressed we went walking at 11:15 pm. It WAS nice out!. Today is back to being a rainy mess. Blah.
No comments:
Post a Comment