[Janet]

Shouldn’t the discussion topics relate to sewing?

[Anonymous]

This is the “News and Current Affairs” thread, where we can discuss things not related to sewing.

[Tamara]

I had an intersting and rather scary journey home from spending the weekend in the city with my daughter who is away at school.

I was travelling home with the two younger children and the car started wobbling like crazy!

I managed to wobble into a town which is on the way home and discovered that my front passenger side wheel was hanging on by one nut! Fortunately I stopped at a tyre place and they rectified the situation which enabled us to get home safely and at a normal speed.

Had I not stopped, we would have had an accident!

[thejennigirl]

My husband returned to work yesterday following vacation time off, with a freshly altered and repaired uniform shirt.

We had plans of a small trip during his time off, but 2 days before his vacation started, he was attacked by a pitbull while checking on a report of a domestic assault. He’s going to sport a lovely scar on his upper left arm, but the damage was much less than it could have been. We would likely have been able to continue with our travel plans, but it was decided that a rabies vaccination would be necessary, which meant 4 trips to the ER in 11 days for the vaccine series. He returns to the ER today for the final vaccine dose.

On the upside, workman’s comp is covering the entirety of the medical bills and antibiotics, and he’s been promised a few extra days off to make up for the vacation time lost while seeking treatment. I’m also grateful for our family’s twisted sense of humor, because as frightening as the whole event was, having someone leave a recording of who let the dogs out on his voice mail and the werewolf jokes have helped ease the stress of the whole issue considerably.

Hopefully, that was our only bit of unwanted excitement this summer!

[thejennigirl]

@justsewit, how frightening! And probably a little frustrating. I’m quite certain that the repair shop locked the lug nuts on very tightly for you, considering. It’s so frustrating to have car troubles when traveling by yourself with small children. Not to mention having to pay for vehicle work to be done. So glad you were able to repair the issue before your tire took a trip of it’s own :/

[Tamara]

@jennigirl Thankyou. The great thing was that I didn’t have to pay a thing. Those guys were fantastic. But it was very embarrassing just the same. I really do feel out of my depth when it comes to machinery.

The thing is my husband did a tyre rotation before I left for the weekend. And because of his injuries, his muscle mass is not as high as before the accident and so he is much weaker than before the accident. So what the guys did was to take a nut from the other wheels to get me home. Because it was a tyre place and not a mechanics and because I drive what is considered not your average run of the mill car, they wouldn’t have had any spares so this was the only option.

Our car is normally very well maintained but this caught me for a six! It was a rather dramatic way to enter a town! And going only 80km/hr for an hour and a half proved to be the slowest trip home ever! I was able to go normal speed after though thankfully. And the car has new tyres so the nuts were tightened again!

[Tamara]

@thejennigirl I had no idea it took so long to have a vaccination for rabies. We don’t have rabies in Australia (thankfully). It would have been very scary indeed! My Aunty had her eye ripped out when a small child by a dog that lived next door to them. It was discovered that the children walking to school would tease it. She went to play with this small dog (a terrier I think) and it attacked her. Fortunately she had her eye saved but her vision was of course impaired.

So I am very glad for your husband’s sake that it wasn’t much worse!

[Tamara]

I just had a very lovely long distance phone call with my 21 year old nephew who is studying Physiotherapy in Canada. He’s coming home to see us in a little over a week! Can’t wait!

[needlewoman]

That’s great news, T. So pleased for you and family. Chloe will love the extra attention.

[Tamara]

Thanks @needlewoman he wants to surprise Imogen when he gets to Perth which will be thrilling. He will be rather busy though. He has to sort out selling the house he inherited from his grandfather (it’s the house he lived in with his mum before she was killed). I think we are going to be busy helping him sort the garden out and to organise some regular maintenance. Then he is going to be participating i. A wrestling competition in Perth where he is hoping to qualify for the next Commonwealth Games. So all in all he’s going to be rather busy and his “holiday” will be rather jam packed.

Still I am excited to be able to have him home again.

In other news, we are getting a new workdog! Our current dog is still going but getting old but this is not the reason for the new arrival. He is a half trained pup from a few towns away and was in danger of being put down if a home wasn’t found. Being a pure bred Kelpie and half trained with sheep we had to take him. The owners went out of sheep and this is why he needs a new home. I hate the very thought of them putting him down when is a healthy animal. So we expect to have this young chap by the weekend. We don’t know alot about him but what we do know is that he’s been training to whistle commands. That may have to change or he’ll be training us!

[Liesl Gibson]

Out curiosity, when does school start in your neighborhood? I think some schools have started already, yes?

[Anonymous]

The schools here start next week.

[Deb]

Most schools in Ontario (Canada) go back after Labour Day on September 6th.

We call the Labour Day long weekend, “Bad Furniture Weekend” because that’s when the highways are full of parents driving their kids off to college towing some fairly horrid looking furniture for residence.

[Liesl Gibson]

Ha! In New York, you can always tell it’s the end of the month because all the bad furniture has been left on the curb for pickup. You can find some treasures, but there’s always a risk of bedbugs, which have become a real problem.

We don’t start school in Spain until September 8, either. Suddenly, summer isn’t moving quite so quickly as it seemed now that we’re home and have an entire month ahead of us…

[Mama_Knowles]

Our children start school this next Thursday although September dies sound much better! This summer here was not as fun as it normally is with my leg surgery. It was much tougher than i had thought. I have not really sewn in over two months! It’s driving me crazy so yesterday I picked back up some smocking.