Goals & Broken Lug Nuts

Equally determined to not have to change my oil myself and to not spend a ton of money having someone else do it this weekend, I stumbled upon a coupon for a $20 oil change, brake check and tire rotation.  Not too shabby, considering the alternative involved me operating a jack and laying on my in-law's cold concrete garage floor.  So we dropped it off at the shop Tuesday morning, I came home and made cookies, and Hubs dropped me off on his way to work so I could pick it up and carry on my merry little way.

Then I found out they broke a lug nut.  Which, contrary to most things that you might lug around, is actually quite small, but it apparently holds your wheels on or something important like that.  They are also apparently not interchangeable, and quite difficult to find within a 15 minute radius of this particular car shop.

Thus beginnith my adventure.

While some poor kid had to drive 25 minutes away to purchase one lug nut for my wheel, I found myself with time on my hands.  So, I did what any stranded damsel would do.  I dug into the free magazines.  After flipping through last month's Shape magazine, I had learned that I should be doing strength training to make my arms all cute for summer and that the Kardashian family is apparently using some crazy weight loss pill that still makes their boobs grow even bigger (seriously, it's a wonder they don't fall over from the weight imbalance).  Then, realizing it was going to be an even longer wait than my magazine perusal could stand up to, I struck up conversations with my fellow stranded damsel and friendly repair man and learned that being retired and having a friend with a vacation home in North Carolina is awesome, and that the repair man's church also has a gym and it has opened up some really cool ministry opportunities.  Eventually, the retired vacationer's car was ready and the repair man had to go back to work.  Running out of entertainment options, I shamefully hid an OK magazine inside the Shape one that I had been reading and looked at all the ugly clothes that celebrities wear.  I could try to justify this all I want, but I won't.  There's no excuse for tabloids or the fact that I enjoy mocking the fashion sense of the rich and famous.

After all this, I still had more waiting to do, so I made a list of goals.  This is a peek into my inner rebellious-within-the-rules side.  I don't always like to conform to status quo, but I keep that a secret, lest I not fit in.  Like the time in high school when I thought just having 2 ear piercings was lame, so instead of something actually rebellious (like a nose piercing or belly button ring, which my father would have ripped out with his own bare hands), I got a third ear piercing.  Pathetic, I know.

So, without further ado, here are my nominees for Goals To Be Accomplished in 2011 Just In Case The World Ends in 2012.  And the nominees are:

1 - get down to 150 lbs.
2 - look good in every pair of jeans I own (can you tell I had been reading Shape?)
3 - help my mom get her Nickelodeon-Green craft room organized and functional by Thanksgiving
4 - finish a quilting project
5 - pay off my credit card

I'm most excited by #2 - I am really looking forward to this new permission to get rid of my old, saggy, faded jeans!  #3 is going to be a lot of blood, sweat and paper cuts, but it'll be worth it to give my mom a place where she can have space to accomplish all the projects she's been dreaming up!  And #4 is going to be just plain enjoyable, because I'll get to hang out with my mother in law and soak up her years of quilting experience.  Plus, it will hopefully enable me to make my new niece or nephew a cute blanket before they've graduated high school.

So those are my goals.  What do you think?  Can you help motivate me towards any of them?  I'll be taking donations for goal #5.  :)