The last couple of months I’ve been suffering from hesitancy to post. The long winter seemed to have frozen my brain and I worried that I couldn’t possibly say anything of interest to anyone. I read a lot of blogs, better written blogs, and got into a trough of negative comparison which is never a good idea. Now I’m out of it and ready to be myself again.

Tim is not back to his roofing job yet as the winter is still very much with us. Every March we are all sick of the snow and eager for the colour of grass, flowers, basically anything that’s not white. A big storm passed through in the last couple of days piling another load of snow onto the already towering snow banks. Schools were closed and yet the young ones weren’t that impressed. On the bright side, our kitchen is finished and painting of walls and trim is getting done all around the house. There are some bonuses to Tim being at home for a while, though it’s funny me being the one leaving in the morning and reminding him of things that need to be done.

Last week, during March break, I worked three days including Thursday. It was the first time I was alone for the whole evening until closing at 9pm. Although the library is part of a middle school, the school part is closed by late afternoon, only the field house (gym) remains open if there are activities going on. There was last Thursday, so at least I knew there were a few people around and out in the car park. But it was very quiet in the library. By 8pm I’d done all the work I had to do, it was dark outside and the patrons who had been in had left. My mind had some time to play tricks on me and I started to imagine noises and people creeping up on me. Then as I looked out of a window I saw a guy hanging around in the nearly empty car park, just standing there talking on his phone.

In the darkness I couldn’t make out who it was. He was there a little while and to be honest I was getting freaked out at having to lock up and walk out by myself. All kinds of stupid things were going through my mind at that point. I looked away from the window, pulled out my phone and began to dial home to tell Tim to come and meet me. Then I heard the main door open, I held my breath, the library door opened and in came…Brent, one of our church elders. Needless to say I was so happy to see a friendly face and not the axe murderer of my imagination. I didn’t tell him of my fears of a few seconds before, but just happily helped him find some books for his children, and then had a good laugh at myself once he had gone – surviving the rest of the evening without letting my overactive imagination getting away from me.

After passing the milestone of our four years in Canada anniversary, which I talked about in my last post, we passed another. Sam turned 18. 18! It doesn’t seem possible. To celebrate, while the rest of us were away in Prince Edward Island the weekend before his birthday, Sam found an ad for a car he wanted, walked with the dog in the middle of a snow storm to go and look at it and talk to the sellers, went for a test drive and then made an offer on it. Our reaction on skype later on that day was, ‘You did what!’ Where does he get his confidence from?! Nevertheless he did the deal a few days later when we were back and bought the car on his birthday, a Pontiac Sunfire, and named her ‘Wanda’.

Then came black Friday. Sam took Wanda in to his mechanics class where his teacher told him that the car needed so much work he shouldn’t have ever bought it. There was damage underneath that Tim had not been able to see when he checked it over.  It was gutting. I was mad, not at Sam but at the injustice of him paying for a car that was so in need of repair. Sam seemed to have lost out big time and we didn’t know what we could do to make the situation better.

Anyway, what a difference a few days makes. The next week Tim took it to a garage to be looked over and they seemed to think things weren’t so bad. They listed the repairs to be done for it to pass its inspection and now that’s all in process. It doesn’t seem that Sam has lost out quite so badly and all being well the car should last a few more years. The best thing of all is that to insure the car for him is costing only an extra $10 a month on our insurance. That’s got to be another good thing about living in Canada.

Both men in my life have turned into petrol heads in the last few months. Before Wanda, Tim and Sam bought a broken down four wheeler from some friends. Since around Christmas they’ve been tinkering with the repairs, stripping the whole thing down, cleaning, mending and putting it all back together. They’re often A.W.O.L. in the garage…the sudden rev of an engine and fumes leaking into the house giving them away.

As for me, I’m planning the vegetable garden…