Police Escort?

I am on my way home from work last night when all of a sudden I see my battery light flicker on and off.  Then my ABS light comes on.  Then the air bag light comes on.  Then the radio turns off, the lights shut off and I have absolutely no controls.  Even though the car is moving, it said I was going zero miles an hour.

I knew there was a Jiffy Lube about a mile away and I prayed that I could just get it there.  I made it!  I explain what’s happened and three guys look at it and they say “we don’t do batteries, so you’ll have to take it somewhere else.”  They advised that the car would still run just as long as I didn’t turn it off.

So every time I am at a stop light and it’s time for me to go, it took a couple minutes for me to get going, and then I would either only be able to go ten miles an hour, or it would speed up for no reason.  I was terrified!  I called Tony and I was about a mile from our car dealership that has a service center.  He said he would meet me there.

Just then there is a cop car with a siren on behind me!  I pull into a side street.  I open my car door a bit because I have can’t use the power windows.  I wasn’t even able to put my hazards on.

So as the cop comes to my door I open it up to get out and she shouts “Get back in the car ma’am!”  I shut the door, then she comes to my window and says “roll down your window.”  I told her I had no power, so she let me open the door.  The next sentence is classic.  “Ma’am, did you know you were only driving ten miles an hour with no lights on?”

Why yes I did!  She ran my license and then escorted me the last mile to the car dealership.  Whew!  While we would have rather taken the car to our mechanic, our mechanic, while super reasonable, sometimes takes days to make the repair, which would have meant renting a car, etc.

This dealership is fancy too – in the waiting room they have six apple computers for customers to use while waiting for their cars!

Turns out it was an alternator.  But our battery was nearly dead too, but we knew we could get a cheaper one at Sam’s.  So after leaving the dealership, Tony and I went to Sam’s Club, picked up a new battery and I will drop it off this morning on my way to work.

Tony has a doctor appointment this afternoon, so I will take a later lunch, pick him up, go to the doctor and then drop him off at the dealership and he’ll wait for it to be finshed.  Oh, and then we’ll have about $562 dollars less than we had yesterday. 🙁

Yep, still haven’t gone grocery shopping and I seriously think that I can make it till the weekend with what we have on hand.  I still have to see what I threw in the freezer from last week, but I was going through the fridge with Hannah (like a good momma I made her my ham mac and cheese using shells – she feels that “shaped” pasta has more flavor than elbow macaroni!).

I showed her that there was still some pizza dough in the fridge, and she said “want breakfast pizza tomorrow?”  Um, when have I ever been known to turn down pizza?  I tried to eyeball how she was making it so I could estimate the points.  I didn’t want to get in her business by pulling out the food scale – it looked like about 4 ounces of dough, sauce on my side, olive oil (and onions!) on her side, about 2 ounces of reduced fat Jimmy Dean sausage, baby spinach, colby cheese and 1 egg mixed with 1/4 cup egg white on top.

I am estimating the whole pizza to be 24 points, so half is 12.  Super filling and delicious – too bad Hannah had to scoot to school and we weren’t able to eat it together – thanks Hanners! 😀

The sun was shining, and I was determined to get out and run/walk yesterday.  It said the temperature was 31, but felt like 21.  I was prepared.  The last time I was at Goodwill I bought a pair of under armour leggings.  They are super thin, and are tapered at the ankle, there was absolutely no wind getting to my legs. 😀  These were a score for me – I paid $5.00 for them, and they retail for $69!

The only part about running/walking in January is the ice – I almost took a face plant when I ran over what looked like just water – turns out it was a thin sheet of ice for about 5 feet!

I also had to use the median because both the sidewalks on either side had too much snow or ice.  The ground was super hard an unstable, but I think it made for a tougher workout!

And about 10 minutes in I had to use my scarf to cover my ears.  Hey, I never said I was fashionable. 😀

It felt wonderful to get moving.  I hadn’t worked out in almost a week, so it was a bit slow going, but it was awesome.  Since Hannah was Bizzy in My Kitchen this morning, I didn’t have time to put anything together for lunch, but I realized I had $$ left on a Subway gift card.

I ended up getting the turkey and ham on the oat grain bread – sammie was 7 points with the light Lay’s chips – lunch came in at 9 points.

Have you ever made ham salad?  Before Tony got sick I had cooked a 7 pound ham just to have on hand.  I added some to Hannah’s mac n cheese, and when I mentioned to Tony that there was still a lot left he said “mmmmm…..ham salad.”  I’ve never made ham salad, but it couldn’t have been easier!

In the food processor:

• 2 cups cooked ham
• 1/4 cup mayo
• 2 tablespoons mustard
• 3 stalks of celery
• 8 baby gerkin pickles (or I guess you could throw in a couple tablespoons of sweet relish)
• good pinch of salt
• good turn of some fresh cracked pepper

Just pulse until you don’t have huge chunks of anything.  Since I made it at night, and my lighting sucks ass, I think google images for this picture:

I left some assorted crackers on the counter for when Tony wanted to have some ham salad and crackers for lunch.  Another favorite of Tony’s?  Egg salad! 😀

So by the time we got home from Sam’s Club, it was nearly 7:00.  I had defrosted a bottom round steak but wasn’t really sure what to do with it, until I saw I had this:

I sliced up the round steak really thin and while I had egg noodles cooking and the gravy cooking, cooked it up for just a couple minutes.  Most people think you have to cook this cut low and slow, but it was super tender.  And doesn’t gravy make everything better?

As a side note, I am going to be participating in Lori’s Healthy Heart Weekend.  Just click on the previous link to get the info.  I think my goal will be to run/walk 5 miles in 55 minutes or less. 😀

Are you going to play?  Make it a great day!