snow or no snow

I thought I might wake up this morning to see white stuff on the ground. Snow was predicted for today. So far, however, all we've had is a gentle rain. It's not cold enough for snow. I don't know what will happen later, but I'm staying inside mostly today to get my Christmas cards ready to mail, so it really doesn't matter to me.

Yesterday, I had a bit of a 'scare' with my car. I was running around doing errands when I noticed the temperature wasn't sitting in the middle of the gauge, but was rapidly rising! I pulled over into a filling station and opened up the hood. The oil was a bit low and the coolant level was WAY down. So I added oil and coolant and started to drive off again. The temp started rising again, so I decided to head over to the place where I get my car serviced. The owner said he couldn't take the car in that day, but he did have a mechanic look at it. They couldn't find anything wrong, but as far as they could tell, it was the low coolant level causing the problem. I had been having problems with the heater also, and he said that was the first sign of low coolant. I didn't know that, but now I do. (The heater works just fine now, after I added coolant.) They did tighten up some connections, but didn't find any leaks. He told me to watch it carefully for a while and not take any long trips. The worrisome part is that the system is a closed system, so it should never get low on coolant. They replaced the water pump within the past year, so the problem isn't there. Anyway, the car is running fine now, but I will have to remember to check coolant levels regularly. They didn't charge me anything for checking, which I really appreciated. I'm would have really been in trouble if I couldn't drive my car in the next few days. As I've said before, public transportation just doesn't go where I need to go every week.