Exciting new expenditures are the order of the day, as my previously announced roll continues for a second consecutive week.

The news wasn't all bad. The car repair came in cheaper than I had expected, although a bill of more than $100 is seldom considered cheap by most people's standards.

As you may recall, I was driving to Galax, Va. after church and hit a small stick in the roadway which then flipped up under the car and damaged the fuel system, leaving the vehicle disabled on the side of the road in the Edmonds community.

I had first thought the part, a small black cylinder with lines running out of it (one of which was broken and leaking gasoline after I hit the stick), was the fuel pump. However, I've since been told that it wasn't that. The fellow who worked on the car, a friend from high school, knew better than to expect me to understand any more than the fact that it was a broken plastic thing.

I don't mean to insinuate that I'm mechanically illiterate, it's just that the automobiles of today have left me behind.

I used to tinker with my beat-up ‘67 Dodge pickup. I can remember sitting on the fender with my feet resting on the slant-6 engine while changing out the starter. There was enough room under that hood for a family of four. These days, it's hard to get the hood closed without fully tightening the oil fill cap.

I often swapped parts on my old Mustang and numerous pickup trucks from the ‘60s and ‘70s and I even rebuilt a 400 cubic-inch Pontiac motor for my 1972 Firebird. I might should note that the engine blew up a few months later. These days cars aren't made of wires, steel and standard bolts like they were then. There's more plastic, computer electronics, Torx screws and aluminum in the mechanical parts than steel.

While I might sound like I enjoyed working on cars, that wasn't the case at all. I usually messed up something, smashed my hands or ended up having to spend most of my weekend doing some repair that I'd just as a soon never worked on to start with. You see, working on cars is fun if it isn't the car you depend on to get back and forth to work. That's because you can work on it for a few weeks and then leave it alone. But when it's your only way around, it stops being fun and starts being work.

These days I find myself more likely to turn to another for such services, especially since I can look under the hood of most of the vehicles I own today and have a problem identifying much other than the battery and the spark plugs, when I can find them. Even before taking the car in for repairs, I knew my truck also had a problem. Clutch fluid had been leaking out for several months, albeit slowly, requiring me to fill up the little reservoir at least once a month.

When the fluid gets low, it tends to cause the clutch to not engage or disengage fully, which means it can be fun trying to stop or change gears. I had hoped a line was leaking, which might be an inexpensive fix. However, I soon learned that the slave cylinder, in this case located inside the transmission housing, was broken. This, he told me, means that most of the truck has to be disassembled. Furthermore, this also means that I can expect to pay him a good portion of my weekly salary next week, thank you very much. He gave details, but I toned most of it out until it got to the kicker. It sounded something like, "Broken part...blah, blah, blah...first take out transfer case, transmission...blah, blah...stuff in the way...blah, blah...cost $250 just for labor." There's nothing like a dollar sign to snap you right back into a conversation. I had expected the repair to cost about one-third that amount. It always happens like that. As soon as I fund a large expenditure, like a family vacation, things start happening to make me wish I'd saved my money.

My cell phone battery needs to be replaced, the insurance rates went up slightly and I had to finally break down and replace the vacuum cleaner. Added to the ice storm damage, appliance rebellion, car repair, gold teeth, building construction costs, Christmas gift expenses, higher fuel costs and other items on the agenda, I'm just glad to have kept my financial ship afloat, even if it is starting to take on water. "Peace, be still," I thought as I sloshed across the decks, on my way to read in my chair, which turned into an afternoon nap. Sometimes it's best to not worry about what's going on around us that can't be changed, instead focusing on what we can do better ourselves—that which we can change. While it doesn't always lead to a happy ending, it definitely doesn't adversely affect the future. Besides, it makes the journey better if I lay down my long-term concerns and just deal with "the worries of the day."

So what's next? The way things are going, I'm afraid to ask. I'm sure it'll all work out.