Adventures in Vivianne

Admittedly, buying our house has limited our travel of late, but it certainly hasn’t squelched our adventures both grand and not-so-grand!  One of the things we’ve been excited about lately is prepping our flower beds for the warm summer ahead.  We’ve been carefully trimming back the Northwest native plants while laying slaughter to the invaders – one after another they meet their match — the uncompromising bulb smasher Maylene.  This has left us with a lot of empty beds and grand plans for restructuring the yard that won’t take shape for some time.  In the PNW, we call that time for mulch!

As small business owners, we recognize we have ultimate control over our schedule.  That’s why today, when the first item that popped up on Craigslist in the FREE section when Maylene checked at noon was for cedar wood chips — we jumped at the chance to grab them, knowing we had to scoop all the other Craigslist lurkers or our booty would be gone!

Throwing on a “play” shirt, old jeans, and slippers for good measure, we jumped in the car and headed as fast as we could to Inner NE to scoop the pile of wood chips – giving only secondary consideration as to how we would get it home — the most important thought was to get there first!

Pulling up to the address we were so excited to find that our mid-day adventure had paid off with at least a yard worth of beautiful, free wood chips.  That’s when we realized there was no other way to get the chips home than in the back of our Pontiac Vibe, Vivianne.  Don’t get me wrong, she is an amazing little car and she’s held a lot of things over the few years we’ve had her, but I just hadn’t seen filling her like a dump truck as an option.

Vivianne, our Vibe was named after an inspirational friend — a solo world traveler, Vivianne was the perfect name for our Vibe.  And we’ve grown to quickly love her – both the namesake and the car (fully folding back seats are now a requirement).

Endearingly known as our mini-SUV or best pick-up truck ever, we move everything in Vivianne.  Recent accomplishments include a loveseat and on a separate trip requiring off-road galavanting through the forest down dead-end gravel roads on the hunt for a 60 year-old beauty — a full-on chest of drawers and matching nightstand.

But none of those adventures could out-do the beauty of a car-load full of wood chips.  Seeing them being shoveled in by an as-yet unused snow shovel made me giggle.

So I’ve decided we must document all of the marvelous wonders we find on Craigslist and shuttle home in our best-little-car-ever, Vivianne!

Just in case you’re wondering, we did manage to get all the chips in the car and home safely – unloaded and placed throughout several cleared beds – ’cause Vivianne’s awesome!