Alice and I finally got our "Hand and Foot" card sessions started with one of our friends from Church. We played from 1pm to 4:30.  I enjoyed it immensely, but we'll only play once a month, so as not to extinguish Alice's enthusiasm for the game.  Linda (our friend from church) said she'd be happy to join an evening group as well and we could play two weeks after each afternoon session.  So now all I have to do is find another 2 people to play in the evenings. 

Good News!  The "check engine" light was on because they had taken the door off my car and left it off for 22 days (waiting for parts) and unhooked the battery since the door was off.  All the dealership did was take a diagnostic read on my car and when nothing was wrong they reset the light.  All it cost me was an hour of my time and a 30 mile round trip.  Now I'm having to re-familiarize myself with the dash board and controls on my car, because I've been driving the rental for so long.  I turned on the windshield wipers twice today thinking I was putting the car in gear. 

I'm sure you're all sick of hearing about the car, but I finally got to pick it up today.  It looks great and they cleaned the inside and it actually has that new car smell again.  How'd they do that?   Tomorrow I'll have to take it to the dealership, because now the "Check Engine" light is on and won't go out.  I don't think it's because the oil needs changing, because I should have 3000 miles to go before that needs to be done.  We'll see what they find out. 

I was told I'd be able to pick up my car this morning after 10AM, but when I called at 10:30 to make sure it was ready . . . it was not.  I should call back after noon.  So I called again at noon to see if it was ready, and again it was not . . . but it definately, absolutely would be ready for me at 5PM.  I was just finishing my walk through with my builder at 5 minutes after 5 so I called the body shop to find out what time they closed and if I could make it to their location to pick up my car before they closed.  They said they didn't close until 5:30 so I should go ahead and head on over.  I got there, paid for the repairs, and was about to drive the rental car back to Enterprise (just 4 blocks away) where upon they were supposed to drive me back over to the body shop to pick up my car.  A young man from the body shop came running out to the parking lot to inform me that my car was actually not done.  There was a piece of trim that wasn't painted the color of my car and could I please come back tomorrow.  I was supposed to return the rental car with 3/4's of a tank of gas in it.  It had 3/4's of a tank last Friday when I was supposed to get my car back, and again today it had 3/4's of a tank when I headed out for the body shop, but I don't believe that I'll bother with topping off the tank again.  I'll let the body shop pay for the gas. 

I won't be getting my car back until Monday morning.  But, I guess in the grand scheme of things another 2 or 3 days won't make any discernable difference. 

Looks like I won't get my car back until this Friday.  It will be nice though when it actually happens. We only THOUGHT all the parts were in.  There's one more part that should be here by tomorrow.  I sure hope it is. 

We had our garden club meeting today and as usual it was a pot luck luncheon . . . and as usual I ate too much.  There were sandwiches and quite a few different kinds of salads, all of which were delicious.  But my real downfall was at the the dessert table. There were just too many kinds of desserts: pies, cookies, ice cream, cake, cream puffs and cobbler . . . and of course I had to try them all.  Shame on me!  That's going to take at least 5 extra miles on the tread mill to work all of that off.  But it sure was good.

I called the body shop this morning and hooray, the parts are in to fix my car. So let's see . . . they said in the beginning that it would take 3 days to fix it so that SHOULD mean that I could pick up my car by Wednesday evening or Thursday morning.

I called this morning to see if the repairs to my car were done and the young man who talked to me said that he was so sorry, but the parts were not even IN yet for my car. He quickly explained that he should not have scheduled my car for repairs until after the parts were in.  He apologized and said that his company would pick up the rental car charges starting tomorrow, since they had originally said that it would only take 3 days to repair my car, and that when the parts did come in he would see to it that my car went immediately to the head of the line.  So now I'm looking at probably not getting my car back until next Wednesday.  I thanked the young man for being honest with me instead of trying to lie his way out of his mistake.  He owned up to the error and took responsibility for it along with doing all he can to make me happy.  As disappointing as it is not getting my car back, I can take it in stride when I'm not being lied to.  You can bet I'll not have a second thought about taking my car back to this body shop.  Honesty makes for loyal customers.