Let’s Catch Up

I do hope you all forgive my absence. I’ve really missed everyone but it’s been pretty busy around here lately. I know it’s been almost 2 weeks, but I can explain! It’s just that there are only so many hours in the day.

First an update on the car situation – I just realized as I was typing this that the flood was exactly 1 month ago today. It was actually within the hour (2:00 pm EDT) I’m posting this that they were trying to rescue us from rapidly shrinking little island we had all become stranded on at work.

See the people over on the left toward the center, kind of in the trees, can you see me? look again, I'll wave LOL & my car it's just out of the picture right next to the suv in the right bottom corner.

If you hadn’t heard my vehicle was totaled, thankfully insurance did cover it. I thought since it was less than a year old that I’d just replace it with the same exact vehicle but just a new 2010, well that was not as easy as one might think it would be. Thanks to the “clunker” program, the large number of local residents that also lost cars in the flood, the fact that 2010s were almost but not yet at the dealerships, add into all this the fact that car companies cut production because of the economy & the result was that I could NOT find a new car (well none that I wanted) anywhere within a 250 mile radius, I would have had to go to Ohio to find one I wanted. It’s not like I had a big list of wants/must haves –

#1. A mid-size to small suv
#2. 4-wheel drive
#3. Not a 4-cyclinder
that was it - nothing really extravagant or unusual.

There were no 2009s left on the lots.

The few 2010s I could find were missing one or more of the three things I wanted.

The rental car (the awful sub-compact rental car) was a week overdue to be turned in.

The insurance company had not settled yet.

If I ordered a car it was going to take 4 to 6 weeks for it to be delivered.

A friend of a friend was selling a car so… although it wasn’t exactly what I had planned I have to admit their timing in selling it was excellent. It’s a super nice car, a Mercury, it looks practically new inside & out, it’s gray so I do keep losing it in parking lots. They all look like seas of gray cars. It’s been ages since I owned/drove an actual “car” I’ve always had suv’s or something similar so that’s taking a little getting used to. I really like the fact I have no car payments that didn’t take any getting used to at all it's probably my favorite feature.