Chores

I am no stranger to sucky jobs. There is sort of a grim satisfaction from taking in an unpalatable task and seeing it through. This is why I like the challenge and pain of splitting our firewood with a 1-pound maul. My shoulders scream but I have a tidy pile of kindling and wood to burn later. I think this is my fine, eastern European blood talking.

It's spring and I am slowly working my way through all the spring-related tasks. Taxes. Cleaning the yard. Changing all the batteries in the thermostats and smoke detectors. Changing the fluids on my truck. ( Note that I said my truck. It actually is our only truck but I lover her so much that I have taken over sole ownership and care.)

Today I changed then oil on my Toyota. It was not fun. I used to change the oil in my little ford about 4 times a year. It was a 20 minute task since the engine was pretty simple--no ac, no power steering, manual transmission made it a dream to troubleshoot and maintain. This Toyota is then premium version which means there are wires, hoses, and manifolds filling up the entire engine compartment. It would be a clusterf*ck if it didn't run so well. To get at the oil drain plug and filter a person has to remove the skid plates. It's not too terrible of a big deal except that the driveway is gravel and the bolts were ratcheted down by someone more burly than me.

I scooted on my back on the sharp rocks under a filthy undercarriage that rained down dust in my eyes as I reefed on rusty bolts. They all came free with the only casualty of one bloody knuckle. The oil change went off without a hitch after that. It took an hour and a half. Thank goodness we only need to change oil only once or twice a year here. No roads=not much driving.

Not that I finished up that little chore, it's off to do the taxes! You know it's a good day when changing your oil counts as the fun task.

FYI. Don't google image search bloody knuckles. Urk.