105 Express to Downtown
I don't have full update on the furnace/oil leak problem yet, but upon further investigation, it appears that things are not what they seem. I'm going to wait until I talk to the oil people before I issue an update.

Also, I haven't been writing about my insomnia this week because that topic is even boring me but I'm operating on low sleep this week. Last night, about 45 minutes after I went to bed, my dear husband decided that it wasn't a good idea for me to be sleeping in a thick cloud of heating fuel vapor so he woke me up. At first we were going to sleep in the basement with the windows open but after further discussion we decided to go to my mother-in-laws because at this point in our lives we can't afford to kill any more brain cells and in a worse scenario, who wants to be the people who die in their beds because of their heating oil?

So at 10:30pm I put on a sweatshirt and slippers and grabbed my purse and off we went. Luckily her house is about 3 minutes away. But then I couldn't get back to sleep and then I woke up at 3:30 and then the alarm went off at 5am so we could get back home with enough time to shower, etc. and now the bags under my eyes are dragging on the floor.

Here's the deal with the bus. I am now taking the bus and I would love to tell you a whole back story on this but this isn't the time or place. The express bus between Vancouver and Portland is awesome. It's quick and easy, not crowded, nice people, nice drivers. The Portland stop is 1.5 blocks from my office. I have no problem with this method of commuting.

The problem is the bus between downtown Vancouver and my house. It runs about every 45 minutes. It also takes 45 minutes to walk that distance. I don't mind walking at all except when it's dark, raining and/or 40 degrees and that's what it's going to be for the next many months. The rain part, all the time. Forty-five minutes is a long time to wait for a bus, especially if the weather is crap or it's dark. (In case you're wondering: there's no free parking near the Vancouver transit center and there is potentially neighborhood parking but still at least a 20 minute walk away.)

I've been trying it out this week. The afternoon bus connector bus is at 4:40 or 5:25. On Monday I left the office and took the 4:35 express bus. There wasn't a speck of traffic and we rolled into Vancouver at 4:50. "Screw it," I said. And I walked.

Yesterday I was record-breakingly productive at work and barely took 15 minutes for lunch so I decided to leave early and take the 4:05 express and there was a giant traffic jam and we pulled into Vancouver at 4:42. "Screw it," I said. And I walked. It's a nice work out so we'll go with it while we can.

I only have to do it 3 days a week and Bob can pick me up on some days. I'm going to see if there's another route that has a stop near my house where maybe I have to walk further from the bus stop but won't have so much waiting.

Update: Our tank didn't leak. It was overfilled. They're coming out to deal with it. The funny part is that we didn't know they were out there and since the fuel gauge was on empty, I assumed we had a leak. I guess the overfill somehow disconnected the gauge. That wasn't the funny part, the funny part is that one of my pumpkins is growing in front of the fill pipe on the outside and when I got home I noticed it looked moved and I thought maybe some kids were messing around with it.