Oh my my...

Everyone in my family makes fun of me when I hear my car make sounds or feel weird, but truth is, every time I feel or hear something, something has always been wrong. I think that maybe I am hypersensitive (is that the right term?) and notice things before others do. So anyways, my point that my car has stressed me of late was not over nothing, or my wild imagination. I noticed it after we added oil on Sunday when the light came on. Chas couldn't feel or hear anything and *he* was driving. Driving home Monday put the fear in me that I could break down at any time now. It wasn't a matter of if, but rather when. Every day in my car driving was frazzling my nerves.

So, in honor of my 8 year anniversary at work, I took a half day UTO (unpaid time off) and left early today just after lunch. Decided that since I am off early, I actually can take my car to be looked at now rather than to wait a few more days til the weekend. I had suspected it to be a fuel filter issue and probably time for a tune up. Well, yes, those things will be needed, but not right now. The main problem is that somehow I managed to have 10 extra quarts (that's 2 1/2 1 gallon buckets) of oil in my car, and the pressure had built up and forced my dipstick out of the tube halfway, and thus spraying oil all over my hood and other parts. The thing is, I only put oil in because the idiot light told me to. The bigger problem here is that I had not checked the dipstick levels for 2 main reasons: firstly because it has always been accurate, and secondly because the struts that hold my (very heavy) hood up are broken, so I have to hold the hood up with one arm, and pour the oil in with the other. Granted, Chas was with me the last 2 times the light began blinking, and gayscout was with me the night I picked him up from work. So I had my engine flushed which is basically a couple of oil changes and cleaners. Hopefully, nothing was damaged like gaskets or seals. I am still a little frazzled at the possibility of more internal damage from this, but they felt fairly confident it had been caught in time. Good news is that it cost me $55 (with gracious thanks to my father who found coupons online and faxed them in for me) instead of the $155 I had planned on spending for the fuel filter and tune up. Granted I still need to do that soon, as my car is running much better, but not as good as it used to. The spark plugs have to be replaced at 90k and I am at 88k right now, so I have a little time. Fuel injection might even come before the fuel filter as they said it was not as bad as I had been told, or had understood it to be. Gah! No more car talk for a while.

Well, gotta pay more attention to dinner, though my large micro-cooker is making easy work of my organic hamburger helper type meal.