on re-learning how to drive...

So, Ryan and I have the worst worst worst luck with cars.  I won't go into the whole back story of our sad car saga (you're welcome), but my car had a bad battery connector cable thingy and caused the battery to repeatedly lose charge.  Luckily, we realized this on Tuesday, when Ryan was still in town and available to help me, and took my car to the shop for repairs.  Repairs on a cable that were quoted to us at $300.*  Boo.

Our shop is a really nice place called Eurofix that works specifically on imports (my car is a Saab) and, thankfully, they offer a free rental if a repair will take longer than a few hours.  We were so glad to be receiving a rental since Ryan needed his car to go out of town.

The rental was a brand new Kia of some sort that was very nice and an automatic.  Now, I realize that most cars these days are automatics.  And an automatic is what I learned to drive on and what I drove the first 6 years of my driving career.  However, for the past 4 years of my driving career, I have driven a stick shift.  You would think that driving an automatic would be easier than diving a stick.  You would think.  I HATED driving that car!  I also almost killed myself at least twice.  I kept using my left foot to depress the "clutch" which was really the break, and breaks are a lot more sensitive than clutches.  So, essentially I would stomp down on the break with my left foot causing me the screech to a stop when all I had intended to do was down shift and slow down!

It was  a pretty stressful drive to work, home from work, to work again, and to the shop.  But, I have my little car back again and I am so thankful for it, problems included.

*Praise the Lord, they were able to use a salvaged part from a wrecked Saab and saved us over $100.  I love it when things like that work out!  :)

off like a herd of turtles!

I am officially off of work for the next NINE days!  I love love love my job, but I need these nine days off pretty badly.  However, we are having some delays getting the show on the road.  Our plan was to rise early tomorrow and I would take the first leg of the drive (no trouble since the latest I have gotten to sleep in the past six days is 6:30 am).  We were going to stop along the way and take our time and eventually arrive in Ft. Smith in time for my nephew's evening basketball game.

As luck would have it, when Ryan took my car for an oil change this morning we discovered that good ole Sabby is on her last leg.  Broken water pump...check.  Bad seal thing...check.  Head gasket about to blow...check.  Total estimate $2500...check.

Thankfully, we know a guy.  Our guy is doing all of the work for less than half of the estimate we got from our normal mechanic.  The only trouble is we may or may not leave tomorrow.

Really though, we will get there when we get there...  

And now I have more time to do laundry and pack and clean!