Take That, Murphy!

You may be thinking, who's Murphy? As a military wife it is all too often that it seems we are dealing with Murphy's Law AFTER the fact that the husbands are thousands of miles away. Basically anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Unfortunately, Murphy decided to stop by this weekend. Let's just put it this way, he is NOT a friend of mine and is not welcome around here.

With the gas prices in Alaska slowly approaching $4.50/gallon, I've made the decision to make it a priority to drive B's car, instead of that gas guzzler of mine. After driving his car all week, I decided Friday the Jeep needed a little attention and I would drive it to work instead. Again on Saturday afternoon I decided to take mine out to run errands as I had purchased a car wash ticket from a friend's daughter for a fundraiser and figured, let's get the Jeep washed. After all the effort, I realized the car wash was not until today. It was then that I headed home to finish preparing for some friends coming over. As always, I parked my car in the garage, came in and let Duke out, and we headed for the mailbox, just like our everyday routine. On our way back to the house, I began to notice a trail of "something" in my driveway, which then continued into my garage. At this point I was thinking oh geez, what could that possibly be?! Well, I got to the front of the car, got on my hands and knees, poked my head underneath the car and was completely surprised with the presence of the entire contents of the oil from my car...on the garage floor. In all freak out fashion I sat on the garage floor, with my head down and started crying while thinking, "are you serious? why not 2 weeks ago?" I then realized sitting on the ground crying was obviously going to get me no where. I immediately called a friend that has not left yet, not knowing if he knew anything about cars. Nope, not familiar. Next on the list, my dad. Not that he could do much from Texas, but I knew that he might know what could be wrong and tell me what to look for. It was at this time that I realized why my dad always thought it was important for me to learn the basics of car parts and how they worked. As I layed on the dusty ground underneath the car looking for where it could possibly come from, all I could think about was "DANG YOU MURPHY!" At that time I decided I was not dealing with the situation until I could hopefully hear from B and he could assure me all was going to be ok. So instead, I did yardwork which was just the relaxation that I needed. Friends then came over, we ate, played games and listened to my frustrations of my stupid car. It was then that B called and I was able to share with him what was going on. Since he is the one that works on my car the most, I knew he could tell me exactly where to look. So here I was on the ground, underneath the car again with B on speaker phone, but this time with the help of said friend that was unfamiliar with cars. After looking around we realized that it seemed as though the oil was coming from the oil filter, therefore assuming it had come loose, and left it at that for the night. This morning when I woke up, I knew I needed to deal with the situation, but it was so easy to think, "I have B's car, I really don't want to deal with this." Instead, I told myself I needed to BUCK UP and handle this. I once again found myself laying underneath the car trying to twist the oil filter to see if it was loose. No budge. So here I was, back at square one. I thought to myself, who could help me? Not like I could drive my car anywhere since it was completely wiped of oil. It was at this time that I had the perfect person in mind. Only hold back, I thought he had left last night. I decided to give his wife a call to see how she was doing anyways since she was on my mind. It was at this time that she was sharing her annoyances of the anticipation with me that I said, "wait, he hasn't left yet?" I then started to tell her of my "minor" issues and before I could even say anything she had said, we're on our way and hung up. Within 5 minutes the entire family was at my house spending what was their last afternoon together to help me out. If that isn't a true Army family, I don't know what is. He immediately said it had to be my oil filter as I had thought from the beginning, but with it not being loose, we thought it must have a hole...or something. After wrestling with it for a bit to get it off, it was removed, missing it's rubber gasket! Are you kidding me? How did B not notice that when he put it on last time? With a quick run to the store for a new oil filter and new oil, my car was quickly back to it's good 'ol self, not leaking oil, thanks to the help of great friends! :) Oh, and to make the story even better, we then found the rubber gasket just sitting on another part of the car. How it got there? We will never know.

My car and it's disaster.

My oil filter.

The new oil filter.

One of us is not like the other.

Oh, but here I am. I am the cause of all your problems.

TAKE THAT, MURPHY! Round 1, you have been defeated.
Lindsey-1, Murphy-0

Other than having an unfriendly visitor, the rest of my weekend was filled with great company. Friday night was spent at the Grizzlies game with a fellow wife and her son. Saturday morning was spent cleaning the downstairs in entirety and purchasing a few new things for the house. Saturday night was spent playing a very competitive game of spades with some great friends. Today, even under the circumstances, I enjoyed my time with what I will now call my "saviors" and ended the day with volleyball practice followed by a yummy dinner at another fellow wifes house with some of my favorite volleyball girls.

DeWight and his new Grizzlie ball!

Our awesome FREE seats. 3rd row, right on the 25 yard line.

What a booty whoopin! GRRRRRRRRR-IZZLIES!

Tomorrow begins the craziness of baseball season for work, along with volleyball playoffs for me. I'm still trying to figure out how I am going to the juggle the two. Although, I'm having a hard time figuring out how. The worst part, I don't want to let my team down. Here's to hoping I can figure SOMETHING out.

Love and Strength,
Lindsey