I have been meaning to post for about five days now, but I have been stuck in a vortex of hellish problems in real life.

Well, nothing so serious...just annoyances. The biggest problem has to do with our car. It is only a year and half old and thus it's still under warranty. From day one when the temp drops to around 20 degrees or colder at night, it makes a strange grinding sound upon start-up the next morning, just as the engine turns over. I asked my local mechanic about it and although he didn't hear the noise first-hand, he guessed that the starter might not be disengaging quickly enough. Sounds like something that would probably be covered under warranty, right?

Well, have you ever tried to get work done under warranty when you live an hour and a half from the nearest dealership? And when the problem is one that has to be checked first thing in the morning, meaning that the car needs to stay there overnight? Let me tell you, not fun.

A couple weeks ago I finally finagled the dealership into reserving a rental car so that I could drop off the vehicle one night and return the next day and pick up my (presumably) fixed car. This was all with the understanding that if the problem was not one that would be covered under warranty, I would have to pay for the rental vehicle (which would only be $30, so no biggie). I made the appointment to drop off the car this past Friday night.

Well, Friday night was the first night in about three weeks that the temp did not drop below 30 degrees! Hence they did not hear the noise on Saturday morning. So I spent 6 hours driving back and forth, and I may be on the hook for the cost of the rental car, and my car still isn't fixed. They said I should bring the car back Monday night since it will be much colder(no word on whether I could get another rental that night or whether they would pay for both rental days). But that means another 6 hours of driving. And G has to report for jury duty on Monday, to make things extra-convenient.

Yup, I'm loving life right now. I think no matter how this gets resolved, I need to send a nasty-gram to corporate headquarters. Am I the only one that finds stress relief in writing complaint letters to companies (only when warranted, of course)?

Plus, I'm dealing with trying to set up a public hearing on a project for my work. It is a huge, stressful pain in the butt!

Oh well, enough griping. I did manage to finish Sheldon the turtle, and he's so cute that he might actually cheer me up!And, it's a great kickoff for Project Spectrum, what with his happy blue shell!
Project Notes: Sheldon from Knitty. Knit in Plymouth Dreambaby DK, colors 117 and 122.

As I mentioned in a previous entry, I love this yarn. It's so soft and cuddly! It did have a tendency to split during the fiddly DPN parts of the pattern, but on normal needles it was awesome. And speaking of which, if you don't like fiddly patterns, this is one to avoid! Not to say it wasn't fun, just not for everyone. I imagine most stuffed animal patterns are like that though, given all the shaping and little details and such. The pattern was well written, although I did make some minor alterations due to the yarn I chose not being a perfect gauge match. All in all, no complaints from me!