The Early Bird and The Late Bloomer
I woke up at 5:30 yesterday morning. The sky was just starting to turn pink and I made the mistake of looking at my phone. My post hadn’t gone live, although I checked and double checked. When I went in and looked, it was just sitting there like a truck stuck in the mud. All it took was hitting a button and off it went through the ether. Amazing, isn’t it? Our grandparents wouldn’t know what to think about all this and how we spend our time.
Since my mind was wide awake by this point, I decided to put everything away in the camper and get it ready to haul to a rest area that has a dump station. I finished and had Grace parked in her home campsite by noon. Next up was cleaning and photographing the interior of the Lincoln for the insurance company. I have learned so much from Mr. FixIt about how to BE in the world. There are things I never knew how to do as a doctor’s wife. And even as Mr. Virgo’s wife. He taught me a lot of things, but not mechanical things or other practical daily living things.
Mr. FixIt is a unique breed of individual. He’s a West Virginian…born and bred. He’s resourceful. He has worked since he was 7 years old when his father bought a movie theater and put the boys to work sweeping floors and popping corn. He can do anything. In the past, if I ever had to make an insurance claim, I was instructed to get an estimate. I submitted it to the insurance company and they either paid me by check or they paid the body shop. I did not know I could negotiate with the insurance company. I always just took their word for it. But like almost any other financial transaction, this is negotiable.
The initial estimate for the car being totaled wasn’t nearly as much as the car is worth. That’s because the adjuster looked at privately owned Lincolns with the same mileage. However, if it were a dealer car, the amount would be much higher. You could EAT off this car’s engine. It in no way looks like a twenty-one year old car. We cleaned it up and took a bazillion pictures to show just how cherry this little Continental really is. Now we send the photos to the insurance company and wait to see what they say. If it’s still not higher, we will insist they send an adjuster to us or we’ll find our own. We will exhaust all avenues because a few thousand dollars means a lot more to me now than it did when I was a Domestic Goddess.
It’s funny. Now that I’ve turned 70, things are different somehow. I haven’t had an anxiety attack in a year or more. I’m strong and confident and my BS detector is locked and loaded. I’m becoming a force to be reckoned with and that is completely foreign territory for me. I love it!
I’ve always known I was a late bloomer, but I swear I never dreamed I’d just be blooming now!
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“Joyful is the person who finds wisdom, the one who gains understanding.”
Proverbs 3:13 NLT
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The most prominent image I have of autumn in West Virginia is walking to school…shuffling my feet through the fallen leaves on the sidewalk. It always felt so cozy and comforting. This mug shows the beautiful colors you can find in… #AlmostHeaven
