Disappearing Gas, Doing Health, DI, a Disgruntled Daughter and Death Records

I guess today's post could be called the 5 D's. This morning I got a call from the hubby who was on his way to work. "I hope I make it to the office". Apparently when he got in the car the gas tank read half full (or half empty if you tend to be a pessimist like me). When he was almost to work he looked down and the gas gauge was past empty, thus the phone call. He did make it to the office and after discussing the situation with our mechanic he decided since he didn't smell gas or see any kind of leak he would put $5.00 worth of gas in the tank and see if the gauge went up. If it didn't then he would know something was wrong with the gauge and could fill it up the rest of the way and know he had gas until he could get it to the shop to get looked at. However, when he went out and got in the car the gauge immediately popped back up to half a tank. Who knows what was going on this morning. I asked him if he was wearing his glasses and he said he was. While we were in Utah the online health text book was off line being updated and so the teacher extended the class an extra week. The teenager thought this was a perfect excuse to ignore the fact that he was in summer school and not do any health, even though there were things he could do without the textbook. I mentioned to him every now and then that we should work on health, but he was always "too busy". I did manage to get him to do online indexing for family search with me for his service hours that needed to be turned in by the 14th, but that was the extent of his school work. Well, today I invited him to the computer and "gently" encouraged him to get busy. We spent over 2 hours working on projects that didn't need the textbook with him complaining the whole time that he didn't know why we didn't just do this in Utah so he wouldn't have to be wasting his time now that he was home. Why didn't I remind him that there was stuff he could do without the book? Why didn't I tell him to do health? Why am I such a horrible mother? It was so much fun to have some quality mother/son bonding time. It's a good thing I love him!! Then we tried to log on to the textbook. We no longer had access. The e-mail from the teacher said we had to re-register. We re-registered and it still wouldn't let us log on. Oh joy! Finally I called the text book support and had a nice man talk me though it. I was a little frustrated that I was the one making the call, but when I dialed the first time and got a sex chat line I was glad it was me calling and not the 16 year old son who might not have hung up as quickly as I did. I rechecked the number and I was off by one digit. I guess I shouldn't make fun of my husband and his glasses. After listening to complaining for the entire morning I was ready for a break so I went to the post office to pick up our mail that was on hold and then took a side trip to Deseret Industries. I felt kind of cheated that I didn't get to visit more of these stores while I was in Utah. I usually get to hit a few of them, but this trip I only managed to fit one in. I enjoyed browsing and relaxing for a while. All I bought was a church talk on CD about faith, but I had a good time. I stopped at the grocery store (have to start cooking again) and went home to listen to more complaining about what I was fixing for dinner. Daughter had dropped by while I was gone and left me monetary gifts in various places around the house. Last night she asked me to print off a job application for her after we got the Internet working. I was surprised that it was 8 pages long, but I do want her to get a job. After I printed it she said she needed one from 3 other school districts. I thought 8 times 3, that's 24 pages and made the mistake of saying "Why don't you print them off at your house instead of using our ink and paper?" Big mistake. Today, in her righteous indignation, she left me a 5 dollar bill on my printer, $1.50 on the bathroom counter for using the facilities, 50 cents on the cooler for the soda she drank and a check on my pillow for her phone bill. I don't know if she meant to be funny or not, but I found it rather funny. I have now started putting rental notes on her belongings that are laying around my house. One on the car parked in the driveway. Another one on the dog food in my fridge. Heck, I could get rich if I did this with all my kids! I do feel kind of bad because she did take care of a lot of things for me while I was gone on vacation, but should I feel bad when she pays the phone bill that she can't ever seem to remember to pay? No, I should be ecstatic! Tonight I decided to do some Family Search Indexing while the boys were all watching TV. I was doing death records and couldn't seem to tear myself away from them. As soon as I finished one set I would download another one. I don't know what it is I find so intriguing about learning how and when people died, but it is very interesting to me. I felt like I was part of a diphtheria epidemic (all those poor mothers who lost children) , a homicide (did they catch the person who bound and gagged that man and stabbed him to death?), a runaway team (was he driving the team or just in the wrong place at the wrong time?), a fall from a railroad trestle (was there a train involved?) a hanging (what brought that man to the point that ending his life seemed to be the only option?) and several premature births and tubal pregnancies (how grateful I am for all the advances in medicine that make surviving pregnancy and birth the norm). I guess we all know where my youngest daughter gets her morbid streak from. My son-in-law thought I was very strange when he caught me reading the obituaries in the newspaper in Utah (more than once). I think Utah obituaries are much more interesting than Arizona ones. Here they just give the basic facts - birth, death, survivors. In Utah they give you a life story, usually including what caused their death. They are much more entertaining, but then are obituaries supposed to be entertaining?? I can remember when I was in school one of our English writing assignments was to take something from the newspaper and write a letter based on the information we had or something like that. I don't remember the specific assignment details, but I remember I used an obituary of a young girl who had died of leukemia and took the perspective of her little brother who wrote a letter to the president making a very small donation to fight cancer so other little brothers didn't have to see their sisters suffer and die. I guess this obsession goes way back. Now, can anyone tell me how I can use this interest of mine as a money making vocation? 3 things I am grateful for today. A sense of humor - it makes life a lot easier to enjoy when I can laugh about things. Medical advances - that make living to a ripe, old age a reality for so many more people than 75 years ago. Family history - that helps each one of us connect to our families as well as to the time and place they lived in.