For the Love of the Car

So I'm not sure any of you knew exactly how much I loved my car.

Matter of fact, I'm not sure I even know how much I loved my car.

If you read the previous post you know that a tragedy struck yesterday.  But you may not know the whole story...

So my brother and I woke up one Christmas morning in high school hoping to get things like CDs and clothes and cake decorating things... When we finished opening the presents Jared and I got a little wrapped tin (like the kind for gitcards) and we opened it to find 2 KEYS!!

As we got really excited (there was never any previous talk of getting a car), really really excited, my dad said, "we made you keys to mom's van so you can drive it more!"

Really. Oh we felt horrible. Then my dad got us to go try out our new keys, and after getting way too excited about keys to mom's van we figured we probably should humor him as to not make him feel bad for not buying us a car...

And we walked into the garage to find (maybe you guessed it) THE SATURN! It had a huge red bow on it and I think I fell in love right then.

See most people wouldn't think of a 1997 Saturn SL as luxury. But it really is...except for well, Kyle and my Dad and anyone else over 6 feet tall because they wouldn't fit in it.  But it's got a CD player that my mom and dad put in....
and well, like I said it gets 35 miles to the gallon...
and it doesn't have power locks so if I lock my keys in the car twice in one morning and I accidentally forget to lock the back passenger side door, I can just open the door and get my keys out... (happened, twice)
and when everyone else is upset when their automatic windows go out, I can just use that bicep muscle and crank those windows up.

It's basic. It's made of plastic. It gets 35 miles to the gallon. And I love it.

And I had no idea how much until today.  Today I called the tow truck to take my car to the shop and when the guy showed up I met him outside.  I waited for him to hook up the chains, and I winced when they clanked against the car! I watched him lift the car up on the platform and I worried that it could fall or what if someone hit the tow truck on the way to the shop and my car got hurt?

And then I stood there and watched him drive away until I could not see him anymore.

I was like a mother sending her only son away to the war. I was like a mom dropping her baby off at daycare on her first day back to work. I was like... crazy.

I talked to the guy at the shop and I asked a million questions. What were they replacing, how would they replace it. What does compressor or PCV (yep, not PVC) mean and would my car be okay?

He told me the Saturn had a great engine. And I was actually proud.  He told me that the Saturn was repairable and a great car.  Maybe he was buttering me up, but he knew just how to do it.

And then I thought, oh my goodness, what will I even do when we have kids?!?

Worse Sound I Ever Heard.

So I was driving to work today in my trusty 1997 Gold Saturn SL. LOVE this car. It gets 35 miles to the gallon and I tell everyone about it...

And today when I started the car the RPMs revved up without me doing anything. But then they went down and I started on my 45 mile journey to work.  I thought the car may have sounded a little funny, so I rode the entire way without the radio. And then I told myself I was being silly.

But.

As I pulled into work and the noise of the road was diminishing, I heard it. The clanky clank sound of death coming out of my engine like steel clowns were juggling tin cans.

(Then I decided to wait until the end of the day to worry about it because I was "too busy" at work)

4:30pm. Called Dad. Called Kyle. Ran around the office to see if anyone lived anywhere near me and would let me hitchhike home with them... No time today to get it looked at, but we'll check out the repair shops in the area and see if they say anything other than the Saturn's Eulogy.

I wanna think about how we close on a house on Friday and my car breaks down this week. I wanna think about how I painstakingly checked the oil every time I filled up. I wanna think about how I got the oil changed on time, and how even though I waited too long to get the tires rotated...I still rotated them. I wanna think about how I took care of this car better than most people and it still may die today. ...we'll see.

But really I need to just think about how grateful I am. For the fact that my husband doesn't need his truck this week. For the fact that we have an emergency fund. And for the woman at the front desk that drove me 20 miles out of her way to get me home. And who told great stories about her own cars while doing it. I am eternally grateful.

Exhibit A

I'm afraid the new busyness of fall has gotten the best of me blog-wise.

BUT.

I'm proud to report that fall busyness has not gotten the best of me all together.

I feel as if our lives have been more put together recently. Maybe it's because I don't move 923 miles ever two weeks. Maybe it's because school keeps me on a tighter schedule.  Maybe it's because even when we travel out of town every weekend and have random events pop up on a moment's notice, something about fall feels more stable.

And somehow things are happening. Well, it's more than likely the Lord being faithful.

Exhibit A: Grass
In the 105 degree weather of the East Texas summer, Roomie Lindsey and I failed at our attempts to grow grass.  See we just have a yard of dirt, nope not dead grass, literally dirt. So Kyle and I and the remaining seeds went to work with water and love and more and more water. And today...

Grass.

Exhibit B: Laundry
So we're not all the way through the pile of laundry, but I have done multiple loads this weekend and now you can see the floor in the bedroom. :) But I edited a cute chore list from Pinterest, and I think that will help. {Note this one isn't mine, I changed it to me more Hess Family friendly.}

Exhibit C: the Thesis
My thesis got approved by the hospital. BIG STEP. Now I can really start running all the fun statistics and collecting data! Nerdy? Yes, but really really exciting in the Hess house.

Exhibit D: House
We may be closing on the house this week. Are you kidding, we could be homeowners... and then I have more excuses to Pinterest :)

{Not my current home... only inspiration.}

Things are going. We're real live people and although there is no 'regular' to our lives or schedules... it's a good Fall. And I've got some projects coming... not to mention the whole decorate your home thing or the whole write your thesis thing.

What about you? Fall happy?

Bonus!?

So we just pulled into town after a busy weekend and didn't make the healthiest choice... but the Long John Silvers just reopened in town...

When ordering the smallest fish meal combo they had...

We also got a "free/complimentary 10-piece chicken bucket?..."

 

The guy at the window didn't say we were the 100th customer, or that it was a promotion for the new store. He just handed us a huge bucket of chicken and said it was "complimentary." Hmmm...

Did we mention it was one of those KFC/Long John Silvers.

So we ended up with the least healthy meal possible... and a lot of leftover chicken.

And did we laugh at how huge the bucket of free chicken was? Yes, yes we did.

(Stories and Pics of our crazy wonderful weekend soon to come :)

Oh Crazy Life.

So life has gotten crazy again in the way that life gets when you have things like homework...

But you really wanna play around on Pinterest... or read the new manual you found to your new kiln for your new hobby...

This is my life.

Note the tabs at the top:
"Ceramic Class Free On Line"
"PSYC 542": AKA My Statistics Class
"Amazon.com": Tracking the location of one of my books for my statistics class.

Or maybe the bottom tabs:
"Windows Task Manager": Because I have the slowest computer you've ever seen.
Mozilla
Microsoft Word... PSYC homework.

That's my life right now, lol. Until we have the interns over for dinner! Or until we go to a Nebraska football game IN Nebraska! Or until we hear back everything on the house!

But of course, if you're busy today, take time to relax after all the work is done. PSYC homework complete: I'm headed to relax :)

Garage Sale FIND!!

Oh my goodness!

We bought a kiln!

Could not be more EXCITED! And it was such a great deal, you have no idea...love garage sales!

P.S. - in case you are thinking, what is a kiln?! It's like a big oven for making pottery or porcelain... and this one came with molds!!

What'd you find at garage sales today?

Productive!

Okay so I know I promised pictures... but our camera is at a friend's house. Ooops.
Luckily Kyle got a fancy smart phone and he just emailed me some pics :)

My and my awesome sister!!

 Yay for Victory! (Sorry my elbows bend weird).

But I'll wait for all the stories of awesome Labor Day weekend...

But I just had to update everyone because I'm coming along so quickly on the fall list, and it's not even fall yet!!

A.  I joined Pinterest. I'm not sure all of how it works yet, and the server is slow if you log on at peak hours... but I think it's going to do wonders for our future home..

B. YEP! We may have a new home!!!! It's pending inspection right now, but things have been signed and we cannot wait to see if it'll really be ours! (Then I'll spill all the details).

C. And we even had a Labor day BBQ, and went to some fun dinner and parties already! Oh community, how I love you.

D. And SCHOOL started today! My last first day of school. Statistics started today, and it's my LAST class :)

 So our fall is really productive. And there's even more to come. Really. So many things. I think fall may be my favorite, did I mention college football started too ;)

What are you doing this fall? You know the wonderful weather's made you think about it...

Arlington here we come!

So we're headed to Arlington right this minute..

For the LSU GAME!!

We could not be more excited, we even bought new LSU shirts and everything. (Harder to get in Texas than Louisiana). And I tried to teach Kyle the fight song, and I serenaded him with the Alma Mater ;) And we ate boudin this week...

And I even watched videos online so that I know what to expect from the game... because we all know I don't follow LSU in the off-season. And it being the first game of the year I have nothing to go off of.

Weird part: the players are now younger than me and it makes me feel old. On the other hand: some of the players that were playing when I was at LSU are still there... making me feel young again!

Awesome part: my sister will be on the sidelines working her tail off... look for her on TV, she'll be the really gorgeous one carrying water bottles ;)

Geaux Tigers!!

(Pics to come of course!!)

And we wait.

I distinctly remember the last time I continued to repeat outloud, over and over again, with no self control whatsoever, "This is Crazy!"

It was almost two years ago, and Kyle had just asked me to marry him. You can ask anyone who was there, or anyone who has seen the embarassing video and they will tell you, "yes, all Brittany did was jump up and down excited saying, "this is crazy!"

Which gives me a good feeling about this. Today, we made an offer on our first home.

Yep, we're real grown ups and sitting in the realtor's office early this morning I had to continue to tell myself 'don't say it again, you already said "this is crazy" 15 times.'

And we're excited and nervous and all kinds of anxious to know what the seller will say. Will they accept our offer, will they want more? It's a good exciting though, one where we know our ducks are in a row, our financial calculations met, and we really do like the house. And really if God for some reason doesn't think this house is good for us, well, we pray they don't take our offer at all.

Our realtor said we could hear back in 2 hour or 2 days...

The 2 hours is up and we're waiting. Yep. Can't think about anything else at all and waiting.

And yes, it's so crazy!

( If all goes well I'll surely put up pictures... however, what if you're the seller reading this and you see the picture of your house and you see that we really want it, and you ask us to spend way too much?? :)