Poor Penelope

For those of you who don’t know, my car’s name is Penelope Protege… that will help you through the rest of this story.

Over the holiday weekend Will and I went to his parents’ beach house at Sunset Beach. We got on the road around 3:30pm on Sunday afternoon planning to arrive home around 6:00p. A friend was having people over and we were going to stop by to hang out for a while. Well, after I took a little nap on the road we were about 20 minutes past Wilmington… the battery light comes on in my car. Within about thirty seconds the check engine light comes on… then Will noticed the temperature needle was way high. He decides to call his brother Jamie and his wife since they left after us. Just in case we needed help they weren’t far behind us. THEN while Will was on the phone with Jamie, SMOKE started coming from the engine!!

We’re flying down 40West and we have to pull over really quick before the car explodes. I literally jump out of the car because I thought we were about to catch on fire. We have no clue what to do and we look at the smoky engine but have no idea what’s wrong. There were no leaks, no hoses missing, no spraying except the mysterious smoke. We decided to let it cool, tried to crank it again and it didn’t sound so good. We wait about thirty minutes until Jamie and Whitney pull up behind us and we decided to try driving to see if we could at least get off the side of 40. Two miles after we set out smoke comes out everywhere again.

Thankfully Jamie has a membership to AAA so we call for a tow truck. After about an hour a guy comes and tows it back to Wilmington where Penelope is still waiting to be worked on. She hasn’t needed too much work the last eight years I’ve had her so I can only hope she’s handling it alright. The mechanic told us yesterday there is a hole in her radiator, she needs a new water pump, and numerous other belts and parts need replacing. This wonderful total comes to $1743.42… AAAH!!

Did I mention that I haven’t gotten a paycheck in two months and we’ve been pretty tight lately??! Well after an evening of debating Will calls the mechanic back and tells him to fix only what is necessary…  We are hoping to get about another year out of Penelope before we have to sell her.

She has been my only car since I learned how to drive. How many people can say they still have the same car they got when they were sixteen (unless they’re currently seventeen or something)? She’s been the best little car. And I don’t care what anyone says, the monkey front plate and the Tweety bird floor mats are perfect for her.

For now I am driving my dad’s second car which he kind of gave us for our anniversary… just not legally ours yet. Just pray that she can get fixed and it won’t cost us our entire savings account! And pray that she will last a long long time once we get her back.

Anniversary in Charleston

Will and I celebrated our first year anniversary last Monday. May 5, 2007 we got hitched and it was the coolest wedding ever so we had to celebrate a year later with a pretty awesome trip to match. We are very short on money these days so we decided to stay at his parents’ beach house in Sunset Beach and take a day trip to Charleston.

Staying at the beach house was great beause we’ve never been down there by ourselves. We’re usually with the whole family when we are able to go. Here is a picture of the living room. The house is actually on a golf course a couple miles from the beach but we managed to get completely sun burnt anyway. We spend four hours on the beach Thursday and since it was cold and cloudy, we both roasted. Crazy how that works.

Friday we woke up and drove a long three hours to Charleston. On the way we stopped and purchased a fashionable hat to protect my face and shoulders from the sun. It was too hot to wear sleeves so a hat was a necessity. I got some interesting looks but hey, I didn’t roast anymore so it was well worth it. We walked for a few hours and saw all the cute little things that make up Charleston. Oh, on our way in we accidentally took one wrong turn and ended up in the hood. It was scary even at 12:00 in the afternoon. We made sure to stay clear of those streets while walking around. All in all it was a whole lot of fun! Check out my hat!

Saturday we woke up and had to clean for quite a while before leaving. Everyone that stays at the house has a strict list of chores before you can leave. If the next visitors don’t think you did a good job cleaning you’re not aloud to come back! So we vacuumed, cleaned bathrooms, washed sheets and towels, brought in the deck furniture and all that good stuff for a couple hours. Then we managed to get on the road where I was able to sleep peacefully most of the way home. My family has always picked on my ability to sleep in cars. My dad always says I would be asleep before he got out of the driveway when I was little. I don’t know what it is but you get me in a car, especially in the sunshine, and I’m out cold for quite a while.

So anway, we had a great anniversary. We’re still recovering from the amount of sunburn we received but at least we’ll be looking really really tan for quite a while afterward.

Cooking Lesson

One of my grandmothers is in town for a couple weeks from Atlanta and when she visits I always try to find something to do with just the two of us. Last visit she taught me how to make yummy buttermilk biscuits from scratch. This time it was a cooking lesson on Fried Apple Pies.

You kind of have to know my grandmother for this to take effect, but she is a woman who can sit in a room for 8 hours without moving, without speaking, simply reading or just looking at the room. She’s the most peaceful person in the world and never ever expects anything from anyone. She truly is a remarkable woman and I am so very proud to one of her four grandchildren (five, counting Will). When my dad was growing up my grandmother would get up every morning and make eggs, bacon, and biscuits. She told me today that she loves cooking but since she lives alone now she doesn’t really get the opportunity to cook too often. Granddaughter to the rescue!

From now on I will refer to her as MaMa, (pronounced MawMaw), since this is what we call her anyway. This is a picture of MaMa making the first pie as an example for me to follow. There are no photos of myself making the pies because MaMa doesn’t really know how to work a camera.

Then I made the remaining nine pies and took pictures of them before and after the oven. I think they turned out pretty good. The first six are a little crispy because apparently my dad’s oven runs a little warmer than MaMa’s. We fixed that with the final four.

Overall I had a really good time learning how to make this little pastry thing. I told her I could open up my own bakery and all I would be able to make would be biscuits and fried apple pies.

During my lesson I learned a great deal about MaMa and her childhood. She gave me a little summary of she and her siblings and the things they used to do. There were nine brothers and sisters and she was number six. The oldest three are no longer living but the remaining six are totally awesome. Apparently they all lived in a three bedroom house and she shared her bed with at least one sister at all times.

There’s something about older people that I just love. I never really cared much before but since my uncle died in February I’ve realized how important family is and I really appreciate where I come from.

If anyone wants to know how to make a killer fried apple pie just let me know. It’s pretty simple if I can do it!