And I thought I was bored

I'd had a boring week. This hardly ever happens; the last time was a couple of years ago, I think. But here's what I noticed that led me to believe I was bored:

• I need daily conversation to keep my spirit engaged. When we live in Tucson in the winter, I have daily multiple conversations. When we come home there are not so many. My husband Art is not a big talker, so the house is quiet.
• I love being a mediator, but I've become disenchanted with those involving a divorce or a parenting plan. Where I live, if people have a contested divorce they are required to go to mediation before they go to court. Often, mediations are like a checkbox for people. There's lots of negativity between divorcing couples, and often the children are in the middle. I like to do one mediation a week, but if I don't do the dissolution ones, I don't mediate as often, and I miss it.
• I like mediating in small claims court, and now I'm qualified as lead, but that's mostly about paperwork which I'm not yet as competent at as I want. And it's only for a couple of hours every other week.
• My sister Alyx is the primary gardener this year. She does almost all the work of planting and watering. Such a good thing! And yet it leaves me with a smaller role.
• For the last year and a half I've been a watchful advocate for my husband Art's health since his cardiac arrest in January of 2014. Now he is living his own life, taking care of his own health and medications and appointments. He is quite stable and doesn't need me as an advocate now. I'm delighted about his health, of course, but it means there's less for me to do.

Even though there are good things going on too (good exercise program, lots of book reading) I was pretty sure I needed to find a few new things to energize my spirit.

And then my brand new car had a bad week.

• I went to Cost Plus on Monday and parked in their lot. Drove home with my new scarf. My stepson Pete came in and said, "Linda, what happened to the front quarter panel of your car? It's got a big dent." I went outside and, sure enough, something had hit my parked car. I have a $500 deductible on my insurance so I called a local guy to see if he could recommend someone reasonable. The next day I talked to my barista. He said the dent was from a shopping cart banging into the car. He got a rock from his parking lot and pulled most of the dent out. I can still see it if I look, and every male I've talked to told me I should have it fixed, but I hadn't decided what to do yet. We drove 800 miles to and from a family wedding this weekend, enjoying the quiet ride.
• We have a large pile of bark in our driveway, waiting to be shoveled into our yard to keep the weeds down. Our grandson Kyle will be doing that tomorrow. I pulled into the driveway around the bark and hit a landscape rock. Backed up to extricate the car. Art took a look and says there are three or four scrapes over a foot of length and four inches wide. It will need to be sanded and painted. This one was my fault.
• I was so upset I set the brake and got out of the car to rant. However, I had left the car in gear and it slid down the rain-wet, bark-dusted driveway. I leaped into the driver's seat and hit the foot brake just before the right side of the car smashed into the side of the garage. 
• That was when I started to cry.   

So, tomorrow, at least, will not be a boring day.