What a week, and its only Wednesday!

I have intended to be more diligent with blogging. I really have meant to keep it more up-to-date. Yet life has a habit of getting in the way. Like it has this week.

Monday was Martin Luther King Jr Day, so the school was closed. The boys still had baseball practice in the morning, at 8am to be precise. They weren't too happy to be up that early, so dragged their feet, and we finally got there only 15 minutes late. I then came home to try and get some laundry and chores done before picking them up. Two hours later and I'm back in the car to go and pick them up. On the way back home the transmission went on the car.

Now our car was 17 years old. We bought it only because we had the boys. It did run well, and had a great engine. Yet in October, less than 2 months after purchasing it we had to replace the radiator. It is part of the price for buying such an old car. However I was also a new driver. I only sat my driving test in September, and having such an old car helped me to get used to driving without getting stressed. That first car for me was just like getting a car for a 16 year old.

Then on Monday the transmission went on the car. We managed to get it to a mechanic we trust, but Rob lost several hours of work to come and help me. We kind of already knew it wasn't going to be a cheap repair, but we hoped and prayed. Then we spent Monday evening researching for the possibility of replacing our car. We both agreed that there would be no more old car purchases. We wanted a car that would have good gas mileage, and not be too expensive to purchase. Because we wanted high gas mileage we knew it would be a smaller car, and after some comparisons, we decided we liked the stats on the Nissan Versa the best. It comes as a sedan or a hatchback. The hatchback looked like a better fit for us, with a little more space in the trunk.

Then yesterday we got the call from the mechanic to say that the whole transmission would need to be replaced. This would cost us more than we originally paid for the car back in September. We knew that we also needed to put new tires on soon, and the car had so many electrical problems that could never be fixed. So we decided to not fix the car, and just walk away from the potential money pit. However this still left us needing another car to replace it.

Then yesterday afternoon, as I was finishing our ironing I got a surprise. My darling husband had come home from work early. He has a very detail oriented job, and was finding it difficult to concentrate with the car issue on his mind. We talked it over and had a look online for a new or nearly new car. Just a few minutes into our search we saw our car. It was a 2009 Nissan Versa Hatchback, at a dealer only 40 miles away. It had 21,000 miles on the clock, so is still under manufacturers warranty. Rob called to see if it was still available, and then we got in the truck to drive down and have a look. Rob took it for a test drive and really liked how it handled.

Three hours later we left the dealership with a new car. I got to drive it home, in the dark, in rush hour, in South Florida. It was the furthest away I've ever driven, and it was in a new car I was unfamiliar with. By the time I got home in one piece I was quite proud of myself. Airport runs to Orlando won't seem so bad now.