Quiet at Home Again

The house is quiet again today. There is no competing music playing from upstairs, no arguing about sleeping too late or if someone had borrowed someone else’s clothes. It is both strange, and soothing. It is nice to be able to have the TV at a respectable volume level again though, and I won’t miss the doors slamming and stomping around upstairs. Time to enjoy the next four months until Sarah gets home for summer.

Heading Back to School

It is hard to believe it has been a month already, but winter break is over and we drove Sarah back to school today. I hope she got a good dose of home, but it is time for her to get back to work. This trip wasn’t as hard as the one in September, though we still had the “I don’t want to go back” whining. It’s understandable, but at least this time I won’t be worrying about Sarah sitting in her room alone and crying. And this semester, she gets a new roommate. Her old roommate decided to transfer schools to be with her boyfriend, so one of her other friends from a different dorm is moving in with her. Hopefully they find it easy to live together.

More Saturn Problems

It was time to take the Saturn in to have the oil changed, or at least so I thought.  After making the appointment I went back to look and I had it done in November, so I still had a month to go.  Apparently with Sarah being home for semester break though, we had hit the mileage threshold, or were about to.  So while they were in doing the oil, I asked them to look things over, because I was seeing spots on the driveway under Sarah’s car.  I wasn’t sure what kind of fluid it was, all I could tell is that it was fluid.  My first thought was coolant, but the coolant level looked to be OK, so I thought I would just let the mechanic tell me what was wrong. 

It turns out that there isn’t a leak at all, there are MANY leaks.  He told me that there were small leaks coming from the steering fluid, brake fluid, cooling lines, a little oil…  pretty much everything had a little leak and it was all mixing together to make one big leak.  He wasn’t even sure where to begin with fixing it.  His advice was to just drive it, and check on a weekly basis to make sure the fluid levels were all still OK.  That would be the cheapest thing to do rather than having to spend a lot of money to fix everything. 

So we go on…  Though having to deal with oil spots all over the driveway is going to make me insane.

2017 iCheer

Ali had her first “real” competition since the UCA qualifier today in Greendale at the 2017 iCheer.  Unfortunately, the girls did not do well.  They ended up taking third place.  Personally, I don’t see how they finished third.  Realistically the team from Madison that took first place should have taken first place.  Their routine was pretty spot on.  But I thought the Falls should have taken second at least.  At the very least they should have finished ahead of Hamilton.  Hamilton had a couple of shaky moves (I thought) and I thought their degree of difficulty wasn’t all that high.  I felt that our girls did much better.  Kris tells me that I didn’t see it because I was recording it, but that the Falls had a couple of shaky moves as well as a fall/almost fall.  So I’ll have to go back and watch the performance again.  I still think they should have finished ahead of Hamilton though.  In fact, Hamilton should always finish last.

Made The Dean's List

With all the work and worrying about how Sarah would do in her first semester at college, we found out today how she did.  Her official grades posted and she ended up making the UWL Dean’s List with a 4.0.  Not too shabby.  I guess she’ll be OK, although that’s a pretty high bar to start with.  So congratulate her on a great first semester if you see her!