Happy Fall! Another season has come and gone, and another month almost over. Yes, I think time does go faster when you're older.

We've had an interesting week, very busy it seems. But since the last couple of weeks have seemed very long, this was a good thing. We saw some of the grandkids Tuesday. I picked 2 up from their after school tutoring (one gets tutored and the other is a tutor) and then 2 more showed up for help with homework. He needed to look some things up on the computer. It was total chaos for a while!

Wednesday was Amanda's surgery and we did go to sit with Ryan. Bill made the decision to go. The surgery was a success and she got to go home that same day. She's a little sore yet and will be for some time. The hospital is new and in many ways it reminded me of Mayo, including not enough handicap parking, or regular parking for that matter! We had quite a hike from the car to the door and then across the lobby to the elevator. But, slowly but surely, we made it!

As we were coming home from Jonesboro Wednesday afternoon, I just happened to look down and saw smoke coming from the dash! I also realized that I was smelling something really acrid! I pulled over and we popped the hood, but couldn't get it all the way open. But no smoke was coming out there. So, I turned off the air conditioner and opened the sun roof and the back windows some and we came on home.

The car had also done something strange the week before, lost most of the electronics (air, radio, wipers, direction lights, headlights, backup camera) as we were driving down the road. When we got home (we weren't too far away) and I put it in park, everything came back on! With both of these incidents, there were no warning lights or bells.

I talked to a friend of ours who manages the service department for the local Ford/Nissan dealer and he had no clue to what it could be without running all of the diagnostics. Since it was time for an oil change we decided to go to the dealer we bought the car from and have them check it out. While we were on the way there we were talking about things starting to go wrong and it was only 4 years old and out of warranty. Anyway, we turned it over to the service department and went into the showroom and, bought a new car! I really hated to because the other one was paid for, but, this is our travelling car. For my peace of mind, we didn't need to be taking chances. When the salesman asked what I wanted I told him I wanted what I had and he found one...in Kentucky. But, no problem, because the one we had came from Iowa. We got a good trade, decent financing, and I hope a good car because I haven't seen it yet! It was supposed to be delivered to us yesterday but apparently they got back with it too late. No problem, I'm driving a 2014 off their lot now so I imagine they will want it back!

Bill has done well through all of this but he got really tired at the dealership. They were short handed in the document department so it took quite awhile to get things going. We had left home at 11, got to the dealership at 12:30-12:45, and didn't leave until almost 5. We stopped at Applebees for dinner and got home a little after 7. We were both pretty tired and slept good.

Bill did have a couple of nights with leg cramps again. But, he still won't listen to me about drinking. He didn't have any Wednesday night, but he drank lots of water that day.

All for this installment. Hopefully the car will come this morning!