Blessed

For months after I found out I was pregnant something I wished for was a newer, more reliable car. Since I was interning [unpaid] I wasn't able to work. And obviously you can't afford a car payment if you don't have money coming in.
After I started back to work in August, though, this thought became a little more real. It was something that I researched and thought about quite often. Especially when I found out I need a whole new set of tires. And then when my car started shaking when I drove. And then again last week when it rained for three days and my car flooded [on the inside] for the umpteenth time.
So after working up a budget, thinking looooong & hard, and talking it over with my husband, Nanny, & my aunt [my biggest supporters], we headed to the car lots yesterday.
We got to the Toyota dealership at 9 am. Looked around & decided to test drive a 2011 Corolla. It was nice. The pedals were a little too sensitive for my liking. I felt like if I barely tapped the gas I would zoom forward going way faster than I intended. Same with the brakes. It didn't seem like I could just 'ease' on them. The slightest tap seemed to induce whip lash. It seemed a little smaller than my car, but it was in my price range where the Camry wasn't.
Onward to the Chevrolet dealership.
My current car was a chevy, and until recently [11 years old, over 100,000 miles on it, & 2 car accidents], I haven't had any serious problems with it.
I had my eyes on the Chevy Cruze, so I decided to test drive it. It drove like a dream. It just felt so natural because it literally drove just like my car, the only car I have driven on a regular basis for the past 7 years. So in we went to do paper work.
After 5 hours of haggling and signing our lives away, I am the proud new owner of this:
2012 Chevy Cruze

I can't even begin to tell you all how grateful I am that this has happened. Driving an hour away for work and having my baby in tow is going to be so much less stressful now that I have a car that I will be able to depend on.

Patience is a virtue

On Tuesday, Aaron and I were pretty determined to get a second car.
Mostly because we have such different schedules, it would be very hard for us to just share my car; especially if he decides to get a job. After the not so great news we received about a lack of funds, we had to sit down and really figure some stuff out.

Once we got our P’s & Q’s straight, we headed out. We started out by going to the lemon lot [a place on base where soldiers try to sell their cars when they get stationed over seas], because they usually have really nice cars for pretty reasonable prices. Of course we found a few that we really liked, but we decided that at this point in time, they were out of our price range. One of the cars was a Mazda3 Hatchback. It wasn’t the car that Aaron originally wanted, but when we saw it, we both really liked it. But, like I said, it was out of our league for the time being.

We were heading to Enterprise to see Aaron’s sister when I remembered there was a Mazda dealership in town. We stopped by, just to have a look, and we found the one we wanted! An ’06 Silver Mazda3 Hatchback with black and red interior with only 32,000 miles on it. We took it for a test drive, and Aaron really did fall in love! He wanted a stick shift [which I have no clue how to drive], but this car is an automatic, with the ‘bumping shift’ which means it can switch between being an automatic or a manual. HOW COOL IS THAT? I basically thought this car was made for us.

Then it came down to the credit check and yadda, yadda. We passed with flying colors, and got the lowest interest rate available, but then it took us FOUR hours to negotiate. I’ll just tell you right now, I was highly irritable. I hate being places like that for so long, but it was worth it. To begin with they wanted $3,000 deposit & then $380 payment each month for 4 years. When we left, we had talked them down to paying a $1,000 deposit & $265 payment each month for 5 years. We saved a little over $3,000 on the car just by not taking the crap they were throwing at us, and almost walking away. We knew how much the car was worth, and they wanted a lot more for it, so we just sat there until they gave us a good deal. Needless to say, we left a very, very happy couple.

Wednesday, they wanted Aaron to come back to finish signing the paper work [since it was so late when we finally left], so he did. He got all the way to the dealership [45 mins away!] just to find out that since he was only 21 he HAD to have a cosigner, or we would have to give the car back. My first thought was, WHY couldn't they have told us that the night before? They knew he was only 21 because they asked him on several occassions for his birthday. They also knew that he was driving almost an hour to get there, so you'd think they would have saved him a little bit of trouble, but no. He called his dad, and asked if he would co-sign, and UNSURPRISINGLY he said no. I knew the answer before he even asked. I started to get really bummed out, because his mom has NO credit, and we knew that from past experience, so we were kind of freaking out. But my Nanny saved the day.

She agreed to co-sign, because she said that even if Aaron defaulted on payments, she would just finish paying it off and give it to me! HA! Notttttt that he will do that, but if it happened, at least we have a back up plan. Thursday we went BACK to Enterprise to finish signing all the paper work.

After days of going back and forth with the dealership, and stressing out about finding a co-signer, we are now the proud owners of this lovely little car:

A not-so wordless Wednesday

I was tagged by Mommy of Many Faces to do this picture post! It looked fun, so I thought I’d try it out.

The directions said to go to your pictures and open up the first folder, to the 10^th photo, and post it, then tell a story about it.

Here is my picture…

It’s Matt and I circa 2004. I swear I didn't have a black eye. Anyways, we were sophomores in high school, and we were at the band banquet. This was before we declared ourselves ‘best f*ing friends forever’, but we were well on our way. He just happened to be dating my ‘best friend’ at the time, they broke up, and eventually our [the girl's & mine ( i don't know if that is grammatically correct, sorry)] friendship kind of decayed. It’s funny how some friends come and go, isn’t it? But Matt and I are still bfff’s; so that’s all that matters.

I'm not going to tag anyone for this picture post, but I welcome anyone to do it!

Today was the first day of classes, and by 2 pm I already had my mind made up that I was dropping a class. Did I mention that I am taking 18 hours? Yea, and by two o’clock I was already assigned to do three lesson plans, and two time consuming projects [due by monday]. It’s the first day of school, people, and I still have 4 classes that I haven’t even been to yet, and I’m sure the teachers are sitting patiently waiting for me [& everyone else] to arrive so they can throw their load at me us, too! Well, 15 hours is enough for me, so one has got to go. Plus, I already looked at my check sheet [the thing that tells me how many classes I have left before internship] and according to that, I only have 12 hours next semester, if I keep my 18 this semester. So why not drop one this semester, and add it to next semester, so I will have an even load of 15 each time. Right? Doesn’t that make a little more sense? You all should know by now how stressed out I get. I need this :) My mind is already made up, I just have to get it approved by my adviser.

*sigh* enough complaining to you all!

Now for the good stuff. Since I burdened you with my sob story yesterday about not being able to get a new car, I am pleased to announce that we did get a new used car. And that issue will have it’s very own little post for you all to hear about, possibly tomorrow. Until then, I’ll leave you with a word of gratitude, and a doodle, [that perhaps only Matt will understand] *I just want to thank all of you who read the blog and sent nice words my way. I really believe that it helped [along with all of the praying/pleading I did with God yesterday]. *

Fear will hold you back If you believe in that

Oh, what a weekend! First of all, Happy Easter, Everyone!

Aaron and I headed up to Auburn on Friday afternoon for what we thought would be an eventful weekend. And we were not disappointed. I dropped Aaron off at his friend's apartment, and headed over to Matt and Frisco's place. We played a little Kung Fu Panda, and then headed out to Tiger Town for dinner. It was such a beautiful day, that none of us were expecting the Tornado warnings. We sat in the garden section of Target with a lot of strangers while waiting for the storm to pass. Eventually, we got tired of sitting there, and decided to ride out the storm together. It was seriously the scariest 10 minutes of my life. But we made it home safe.

Saturday was a whole different ball game. We chilled all morning, then got ready to go shopping. When I got in my car, I saw a note on the windshield. A guy hit my car, but didn't have time to stick around, so he left his name and number. I was automatically in a bad mood.

I don't even want to hear 'it's not that bad', because to me, it is.

Luckily, the guy who hit my car was a stand up guy. He did the right thing, we called the cops, and got it all settled.

Shopping was kind of a bust. I did get my watercolors, but couldn't find my choxie. The rest of the night was pretty good; made taco salad for the guys, caught up with an old friend, watched the video of our senior year of high school, and made cookies.

Did I mention temp tats?
Yea...





Yep.
The Giraffe got one, too.

Unbelievable.

It snowed yesterday in Southern Alabama. I know, some people are wondering why everyone is making such a fuss about it. But really, I only remember it snowing here once before when I was a little kid, and I remember Nanny not letting us go play in it because she was afraid we'd get pneumonia. The snow yesterday, though, wasn't even sticking to the ground. Just roof tops and cars.



This was the best I could do as far as pictures were concerned. I don't love cold weather, so I wasn't going to venture out in it. Time for class. Hope the weather gets warmer, soon, since Spring Break is next week!