That Feeling When...
...you spend 10% of your car's value on a single instance of routine maintenance using an affordable mechanic. On the upside, our car apparently doesn't want its oil changed more than once every ~10k miles, so that's pretty sweet. On the other hand, it's like a fifty mile round trip whenever we go anywhere. That ten thousand miles goes by fast.
I got the feeling that the mechanic was holding back on recommended maintenance since our old-model, high-mileage vehicle isn't exactly something you would want to throw a lot of money at. But I pressed, and it turned out there were some maintenance items worth looking into. It wouldn't be worthwhile to replace the transmission or rebuild the engine, but regular maintenance to keep the car running well in other respects is 100% money well spent. And a good policy in general.
The kids got in their Saturday Morning Cartoons (it's a thing). I got in my run. More on that in a moment. The K (10) finished up folding the laundry and putting things away. H (8) and A (4) are "doing the kitchen". S is leaving for "lady's tea" at church. I'll have all of the kids declutter the house as soon as she is out the door. It's amazing how quickly a toy-here-and-a-toy-there turns into chaos – AND I already proactively get them to put things away, but it still adds up. S picked up what I think is just a small laundry basket thing. I've started using that as a toy collection point. If anything sits in there too long, it is subject to being discarded. The details are still being worked out.
All morning, J (6) has just been palling around, doing her own thing while her siblings knock out these chores. She probably hoped she'd just get lumped in with the rest when it came time to play on an iPad or watch a show. Not so much! We walked the house while I pointed out all of the furniture that needed to be moved so she could thoroughly deep clean (insofar as a 6yo can deep clean), which mostly means sweeping in this case, through several rooms. The amount of garbage that accumulated in these places was shocking. Anyway, she's got her hair up, some Petra playing on my phone, a trash bag by her side, and she's just working away while singing. Warms the heart to see!
About the run. My boss has this thing, which I think is unusual. Not bad though. It has to do with personal growth. Mostly it boils down to just agree on some personal growth goals, and then fulfill them. For me, that's working out three times a week. It's easy for me to throw myself fully into one thing – a work project, typically. And when I'm done with work, the kids want to go to the park, or on a walk, or maybe I need to help them with school work. With all of that, it is easy to just not going running (or whatever my intended workout might have been). So, I appreciate this motivation from work, to take a break and not neglect important areas for personal growth.
Okay. That's all for now.