Car = Freedom

Deep breath and relax, Heidi.

Actually, things are going pretty well around here. Conference weekend was rejuvenating, and my kids actually let me listen on occasion. In fact, we dared to take them to watch the Sunday morning session in one of the local chapels and didn't live to regret it. Truly a miracle!

On the other hand, it's been kind of an annoying week. Last Wednesday the van coughed and choked on me, finishing with that oh-so-lovely "check engine" light. Yippee. So Sunday night we dropped the van off at the mechanic and my mother helped get all our family back home. (It took two cars. The trouble with having four kids is that your whole family no longer fits in the vast majority of vehicles out there. Especially when almost all of the kids are still in car seats or boosters.) Our wonderful mechanic found two problems and fixed it quickly, but it still took two days. That meant we had to live two days with only a pickup truck.

The positive side of all this is that since the van had to break down, it couldn't have come at a better time. Right now the kids are out of school for fall break, and Terence just got that off-duty pay so this is all manageable. But I didn't realize just how trapped I would feel in my house with no transportation but a pickup that I had to share with my husband. It meant a ton of coordinating: "I've got to go grocery shopping, honey." "Yeah, well, I need to get to the gym." "But so do I." I think the last time I had to so carefully negotiate a car sharing strategy was when I shared a car with my sister in high school.

Unfortunately, even though the van is fixed and we've gotten it back, I still have to share one car with my husband. See, the mechanic is 45 minutes from our house, and we couldn't both drive up to get the van because six people in a pickup just doesn't work. So Terence stayed home with the kids while I drove up to my mom's house, left the truck, she drove me a couple of miles to the shop to pick up the van, and then I brought the van back home. We'll pick up the truck on Sunday when we all go up for dinner, but in the meantime, I've got four more days of sharing to do.

Complicated. And irritating. I'm used to running around without having to worry about what Terence wants to do. Does that make me sound spoiled? I guess it's true. Having my own car means I have freedom! Well, the freedom to take four kids to the gym, the library, Wal*mart, the bank, to school, and whatever other errands I have on my list. Still, that's enough freedom for me. Just don't trap me in the house!