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Wednesday, March 20, 2013

What a week....

Last week my car, my baby, my long time friend decided to quit working.  I've driven my car for 12 1/2 years, it's been paid for over 6 almost 7 years.  It's not that I was so in love with my car as much as I was in love with NO car payments.  I wish I had enough to pay cash for my vehicles, but I can't ever get that much cash in one place at one time - too many charts, threads, canvases and fabric to buy!!   When I got this car, it was new and it took me all of 15 minutes to decide I wanted it and it has been from KY to CA and many places in-between.  It survived hitting 2 deer, 1 owl, 3 raccoons and a few other small animals that couldn't be avoided.

The engine seized up, so it wouldn't run :(  The shop said minimum $3,000 to fix it.  I don't understand it only had 214,000 miles on it, what was the matter????   In the past year I'd put $2,000 in to repairs and while it fixed it for a minute...not for long.  So I donated it to the Breast Cancer Society, the only bright spot was my procrastination in getting new tire, so it's gone on to it new life with worn out shoes.  I guess my hubby was right when he got me these tired - they were good for 50,000 and that's about what I got out of them.

So I took my shopping bags and filled them up with all the stuff that I had stashed in it over the years.   My maps (haven't used them in at least 9 years), my first aid kit that has never been used, my jumper cables - used a LOT, my blankets - what can I say I'm from the North, never know where you'll be stuck in the cold and my small tool kit.  Also found the ring and bracelet shown here.  Have no clue where they came from, but pretty sure neither one is worth anything.  Did find about $5 or 6 in change and a few bills :)...Starbucks here I come.

Now the normal person would say "OK, time to go car shopping and be done with it" - i.e. my daughter who had another car by the end of the day that hers died 4 days after mine!!.  But not me....no I had to explore all of my options

Plan B - get a Bicycle and ride to work every day - that was very promising except for the fact that my husband is taking his truck back to KY to live (not him, just the truck).  So while work is only 5 miles away for me, life isn't within 5 miles of our apartment - like the ANG meeting is 30 miles away!!  So this plan obviously wouldn't work - which lead to Plan B(2) - Bus pass now I've ridden a bus before, so to me it was no big deal, but hubby wasn't too keen on that idea since we'll be sharing our mode of transportation once he flies home in June....so on to the next idea....

Plan D - DO nothing and pretend like it never happened - that plan was very short lived, like ended the next morning when I had to go to work..... but the most economical of all of my ideas.

Plan M - Get a Motorcycle....yea this one was very appealing to me......I loved being in my 20's and dating someone with a motorcycle and riding on the back of it...oh yea, not 20 anymore, never learned to actual drive the bike myself and hubby is NOT getting on a bike, he likes doors, roof and floor around him when he's on the road...shucks  You might be saying, well it's not too hard to learn, but I can't tell my right from my left and imagine me having to remember which foot or hand controlled the brake, gas or sift...would you really want to be around me??  I wouldn't and besides my back side is a tad bigger than it was at 20 LOL.  Thought about a scooter too, but then decided it wasn't practical, we like to shop at Costco and there really isn't anyplace to put all the stuff we buy, would need a cart.

Plan W - Walking - YEA I can do that - I'm only 5 miles from work and would have 10 hrs between going to work and going home.  Oops refer back to Plan B - hubby's truck is going to KY  but if I did Plan W for  while, then maybe I wouldn't look so bad on a bike or a motorcycle.

So at the end of the day we went with........wait....wait....wait

PLAN C - get a new car!!  Mind you it took me almost a week to get to this plan, but after much discussion with myself, in which hubby interjected a few comments - like "stop talking to yourself", I decided it was time to go and look.

So we went out and looked for a car and here is my standard dialog:

Dealer "Hello, how are you all doing day?  Out looking for a new car?"
Me " Hello, we are good, yes"  wanted to say - what makes you think we're looking for a car???
Dealer : "Well what do you have in mind?"
Me :  "Cheap, where do you keep your cheap new cars?"
Dealer: "OK, our economical cars are over there, I'll be over here where the real buyers are looking at the real cars... "

OK that wasn't exactly their words, 3 dealers were very helpful and went the extra mile to find me something that would work.  But only one dealer actually got me to stay long enough to sign on the bottom line and actually buy a new car.  I hate feeling pressured into buying something I don't want and while I really did do some searching on the internet and read comments and consumer reports, the only thing I knew was what I couldn't afford.

While I would have like one that cost less, still don't know where they put the cheap cars that are advertised, figured I got a pretty good deal and I can fit more than a can of soda in the back.  I had a choice between red and black, opted for the red since I'd had a black car for 12 plus years.  If I was going to change, it was time to really change.  

No bells, no whistles, just your basic car.  Gotta use the key to get in, gotta turn on the headlights yourself, gotta shift it yourself, but actually have 6 gears to play with - my first car only had 3 :)  and while you don't have to leave it in reverse to get the key out, I do out of old, very old habits.

No power seats, or tush warmers, but hey is that really needed in Sunny California?   No sun roof - which I'll probably miss, but does have satellite radio for 3 months :)  So I'm enjoying my oldies!!

It does have the ability for me to plug in my own tunes, so will have to figure that out, but have 3 months thanks to the trial period and I should be able to use blue tooth with it, but can't figure it out.  Keeps asking for a code - what the heck.

So not a lot of stitching this past week, so not much to post  I did get a little bit done, plan on working on this some more and hope to have more to show come the next full moon.

Hope you are all having a great week and getting lots of stitching done.

Sandy







3 comments:

  1. Congrats on your new car! I loved reading all your options before finally deciding to get a new car. LOL.

    I held onto my trusty car for 16 years until I was in an accident and it got crumpled and burnt to a crisp. I went with Plan D and did nothing until my daughter bought herself a brand new car, so I took her car back for myself (which I had bought her 5 years earlier).

    I'm in Sunny Southern California, too. Would you like to join the SoCalCrossStitchers Yahoo group? We meet in person to stitch together. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SoCalCrossStitchers/?yguid=95312652

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    Replies
    1. I would love to join you all, will join your group. So you belong to the ANG or EGA?

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    2. No, I don't belong to either one (yet). Some of the other members do. In fact, I thing one of them is a leader of some kind. I just haven't been to a meeting yet.

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