Wows and Wows, a Ten Things of Thankful Post

 ***********************************

There's a lot to be thankful for on this Thankful Day.

First, today is the BlogBlast for Peace, hosted by Mimi Writes, and i am joining and praying for peace, as well as committing to work for peace right where i am.     

"If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." Romans 12:18     

I'm thankful in spite of so many in favor of war all over the world, more of us are in favor of peace, and i pray for the day peace wins.

I'm thankful for the wow of Angel Tree time again.  Last weekend, at our annual church service for Reformation Sunday, i got to pick my angels, two-year-old twins, boy and girl.  This is going to be fun.

The service last week, which we call the Kirkin' of the Tartans, went beautifully and i'm always thankful for the fun of the extra long, extra packed one service (instead of 3) and the lunch we all share after.

The big wow of the week takes some explaining.  A couple of years ago, GusGus Die Fledermaus, my 10-year-old Ford Focus, had a sudden problem when the whole dashboard went down.  No lights, no dials, no gauges.  I dropped it with Kevin and Lenny and they traced it to a wire which had come loose because of corrosion.

Last year in October, i got a new battery because i don't trust an old battery with winter coming.  A few months later, the dash went out again.

This time, they found no loose wires and assumed it had totally crashed.  Contacting the dealer showed there are no more of these parts available, the car is too old, but the dealership will rebuild it for me for a nice, hefty fee.

Also, i'd be without the car for 3 weeks or more while they did it.

I've been driving, very carefully, for months and trying to steel myself to be a one car family again for a while, knowing we can make it work but it's a bear.

Meanwhile, the last few months, sometimes GusGus showed more signs of transmission trouble, which was upsetting since that was rebuilt about a year and a half ago.  Sometimes, especially lately, it was slow to start and slow to allow remote entry.

This past Wednesday was one of those wild and wacky days that only happen to us.  GusGus wouldn't start.  I took Slow-Moe to work and Sweetie got one of the assistants from Kevin and Lenny's to come over and jump it.  The assistant was supposed to wait and follow him back to the shop but instead took off.  Sweetie put GusGus in gear and got halfway into the street and the car simply stopped.  The engine was running, but the car wouldn't shift, wouldn't go into gear, wouldn't move at all.

We called AAA and the tow driver came but decided to try something different before resorting to towing it.  He hooked GusGus to a huge power block and we're thankful he got it not only started, but into gear, and GusGus toodled to the shop under her own steam.

Once there, it was determined the alternator was fine, the starter was fine, but the battery was defective.  It was giving just enough power to start the car, sometimes, but not enough to run the transmission.

We're thankful the battery was under warranty and was replaced.

Then came the huge surprise, the wow thankful.  The dash is back up!

That doggone defective battery wasn't powering the dashboard, so i've been driving with no speed gauge or anything, being silly extra careful because of it, for months, and it was the battery the whole time.

Hooray!  No need to pay over $1,000 to have it fixed!

The rest of the wow thankful for this week is rEcess, because, well, it's a blast.

Please write up your own list and link up to Ten Things of Thankful, where Dyanne and her co-hosts always have a warm welcome waiting.   

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

***********************************

Today is:

Chicken Lady Day -- Miami, FL, US (in honor of The Chicken Lady, whose nonprofit organization helps people get over being "chicken" about public speaking)

Children's Day -- Malaysia

Citizenship Day -- Northern Mariana Islands

Community Service Day -- Dominica

Constitution Day/National Day -- Tonga

Digital Scrapbooking Day -- it certainly takes up less room than the other kinds!

Fall Back Night -- all areas that end Daylight Saving Time tomorrow; set your clock back one hour before you go to bed and change the batteries in your smoke alarms/carbon monoxide detectors (Bermuda; Canada (most areas); Cuba; Greenland (some areas); Haiti; Mexico (Baja area); Saint Pierre and Miquelon; The Bahamas; Turks and Caicos Islands; US (most areas))

Feast of Qudrat (Power) -- Baha'i

Flag Day -- Panama

Giorno dell'Unita Nazionale e Festa delle Forze Armate and Victory Day -- Italy (National Unity and Armed Forces Day; celebration of the 1918 Treaty with Austria)

Guy Fawkes Eve -- sometimes called Mischief Night in some parts of Australia, UK, and New Zealand, although that is more appropriate to April 30/October 30

Honeymoon Day -- reminisce about your own special trip, on the birth anniversary of Art Carney

King Tut Day -- his tomb was opened this day in 1922

Lhabab Duechen -- Buddhism (Descending Day of Lord Buddha)

     a public holiday in Bhutan, although the exact day off may vary

Ludi Plebeii -- Ancient Roman Calendar (public games, through the 17th)

National Candy Day -- guess they're thinking you still have some left over from Hallowe'en

St. Charles Borromeo's Day (Patron of apple orchards, bishops, catechists, seminarians, spiritual directors/leaders, starch makers; Joliette, Quebec; Lombardy, Italy; Monterey, CA; Rocca di Papa, Italy; against abdominal pain, colic, intestinal disorders, stomach diseases, ulcers)

     a Bank Holiday in Andorra

Unity Day -- Russia

Will Roger's Day -- especially in OK, US; related observance

     Use Your Common Sense Day -- because "Common sense ain't all that common."

Waiting for the Barbarians Day -- internet generated, and i thought they came and took over a long time ago!

Anniversaries Today:

Taking of the US Embassy in Teheran, Iran -- 1979

Discovery of King Tut's Tomb -- 1922

Abraham Lincoln marries Mary Todd, 1842

Mary II of England marries William, Prince of Orange, 1677 (ruled jointly as William and Mary)

Birthdays Today:

Sean "Diddy" Combs, 1970

Matthew McConaughey, 1969

Andrea McArdle, 1963

Ralph Macchio, 1962

Jeff Probst, 1962

Kathy Griffin, 1960

Markie Post, 1950

Laura W. Bush, 1946

Robert Mapplethorpe, 1946

Loretta Swit, 1937

Doris Roberts, 1930

Martin Balsam, 1919

Art Carney, 1918

Walter Cronkite, 1916

Will Rogers, 1879

Augustus Montague Toplady, 1740 (wrote the hymn "Rock of Ages")

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Crimes of the Heart"(Henley play), 1981

"One Man's Family"(TV), 1949

"Prince Igor"(Borodin opera), 1890

Symphony No. 1 in C minor(Brahms Op. 68), 1876

Today in History:

The Flood of the Arno River causes massive damage in Florence, Italy, 1333

Joan of Arc liberates Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier, 1429

Thomas Wolsey, English cardinal, arrested, 1529

Mozart's Symphony No. 36 is performed for the first time in Linz, Austria, 1783

The Erie Canal is completed with Governor DeWitt Clinton performing the Wedding of The Waters ceremony in New York Harbour, 1825

Benjamin Palmer patents an artificial leg, 1846

Dentist John Beers of San Francisco patents the gold crown, 1873

Tonga adopts a constitution, 1875

James Ritty patents the cash register, to combat the pilfering of the till by the bartenders in his Ohio saloon, 1879

London's first deep-level tube railway opens between King William Street and Stockwell, 1890

The Italian unknown soldier is buried in the Altare della Patria (Fatherland Altar) in Rome, 1921

Nellie Tayloe Ross is elected the first female US State governor, in Wyoming, 1924

The rebuilt Vienna State Opera reopens with a performance of Beethoven's Fidelio, 1955

Two-thirds of Florence, Italy is submerged as the River Arno floods; together with the contemporaneous flood of the Po River in northern Italy, this leads to 113 deaths, 30,000 made homeless, and the destruction of numerous Renaissance artworks and books, 1966

Genie, a 13-year-old feral child is found in Los Angeles, California having been locked in her bedroom for most of her life, 1970

The Netherlands experiences the first Car Free Sunday caused by the oil crisis, as the highways are deserted and are used only by cyclists and roller skaters, 1973

First conference that focuses exclusively on the subject of the commercial potential of the World Wide Web, in San Francisco, 1994

Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated by an extremist Orthodox Israeli, 1995

Chinese authorities arrest cyber-dissident He Depu for signing a pro-democracy letter to the 16th Communist Party Congress, 2002

Barak Obama is elected President of the United States, 2008

In Australia's Northern Territory in the lands of the Jawoyn people, archaeologists discover what is believed to be the world's oldest example of a stone ax, estimated at 35,500 years old, 2010

The body of the last missing victim is found on board the wrecked Costa Concordia, during its dismantling in Genoa, 2014

Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, becomes the first African-American Senator from the south since the Reconstruction, 2014

Justin Trudeau is sworn in as Canadian Prime Minister with a cabinet split equally between men and women, 2015

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigns in a shock TV broadcast from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, amid concerns he is being forcibly detained, 2017

According to the International Energy Agency, the COP26 climate pledges, if kept, could help limit the global average increase in temperatore to 1.8 °C above pre-industrial averages, 2021

Astronomers announce the discovery of what they now believe is the closest known black hole to Earth, just 1,600 light-years away and 10x more massive that our sun, 2022