Sweatquity
...rolls off the tongue. ...aka Sweat equity - I'm not sure if this qualifies as sweat equity if it isn't work done *on* your house, but it was work done on stuff we own, so I'm going with it. Beyond what I'm about to discuss here was plenty of other work done that WAS attached to the house so it really was sweatquity (say it with feeling)... I'll stop now--you get the idea.
But before I describe the pics and the work we did, I must mention that blogging is back in. Oh yes, it's cool again, in case you didn't get the memo that it was boring for a couple months and now it's back. The REAL story is that for some reason I was too busy doing other stuff that I just never got around to adding to it so now it's like cram-cram-catchup... but in a "not-forcing-it" sort of way. Oh, and a really cool thing for me is that my guard job which became fulltime in March (ref: "busy" in previous sentense) is returning to parttime in Dec, and I get to return to my favorite test job with its short commute in the desert. Thankfully God worked it all out so I didn't have to quit the guard job too.
Ok. The work. It was a cool learning what we're able to do ourselves (me & Chip) as far as auto repair goes. We replaced all 3 engine mounts (pictured above) on his Maxima - no small feat. I think we make a great auto repair team; we just need more experience. This particular job fixed the aweful jolt when you shifted in and out of Park or Reverse. [Good things come in waves...] In addition, Chip and his dad just yesterday discovered the fix to the rough idle... one of the spark plug cap wires was severed/detached, so after repairing that, the Maxima purrrrs like butter! Or a cat.
We also did some poor man's landscaping (on steroids). No we're not on roids, but our tractor is. New neighbor (and bible study buddy) Tom brought his personal backhoe and 2 large creosote bushes from his yard to ours (free bushes = the poor man's part). We're watering daily and hoping those old roots take to their new home.
As you can see in the tractor photo, there's Papou, who was an ever-present fix-it force behind just about all of the repair projects accomplished over the last 2 weeks. And Nana tirelessly read to the kids, taught crochet, baked... the list is long and also filled with pictures. Patience - you'll have to wait.
Anyways, I better get to bed - cya. -Scott
