Car Chronicles: Part Seven: Our Day Comes

We got the car! I’d have to say that my hubby is pretty excited. I got to take it for a bit of a spin. The clutch sure is funny. I guess because it is new. It will just take a bit to get used to its engagement point. Anyway, have the car. La, la, la. And the insurance is insane! The fact that it is new and that hubby is commuting a lot next year, the insurance is DOUBLE of what it was on the Golf. Maybe it is time to take collision off the Dodge. (Considering it costs us an extra $200 per year and they’d probably only give us about $1500 for it.) I’m not sure why we even had collision on in the first place. Or was that comprehensive? Man, insurance is getting expensive. Maybe if we all learned to be courteous and realized that it is expensive to bang into each other, we’d stop doing it.

A story I am working on seems to be set on being a short one. I even added a second character perspective and it is still acting like a small story. Although, it is just the first draft. Yet, the one I finished before this was twice the size. A friend read it and liked it. (Whew. She’s going to give me some feedback this weekend. Since she is an English teacher as well as the market for the book, I am glad she didn’t say it stunk. Then again, maybe it does but she worries about remaining friends. Har, har.)

I pre-plotted the story I am working on now and it is sitting around 50,000 words with maybe another 10,000 to come. The one I finished before this was a whopping 110,000 and is acting like it wants a sequel. That one I wrote by the seat of my pants and was so much FUN to write. I loved writing that one. So what is my preferred method? Good question. I think it is writing it as it comes.

Car Chronicles: Part Six: Someday Our Yaris Will Come

So we thought we were picking up the Yaris on Friday, after Wednesday’s cancellation when they discovered that they were missing air conditioning parts. We had our fingers crossed, but alas. Still no Yaris. Hubby is getting a bit antsy in the pantsy.

So we wait, and wait. We are moving into week three now. On Friday, my hubby was like, “Hey, let’s go to Mazda!” I was a bit tired from laying cement sidewalk blocks and was like, “Groan.”

So, we went to Mazda. And we drooled over the sexy Mazda 3 sedan. Sexy, baby! And then we test drove it. Humuna, humuna. Very cool car! I LOVE the way it drives. We seriously contemplated dropping the Yaris (they haven’t even taken our deposit over at Toyota). But, it comes down to money. Do we want to spend $21,000 (plus 6% GST) on a new car? No. That’s why we went with the Yaris, because you got a new car for a used price. So, to spend an extra 5-6 grand for a nicer car is tempting, but then you think, well, this is actually a third of another Yaris and the Yaris is more economical and the government will give us a grand back when we buy it because of its ‘greenness’. And well, we are cheap buggers.

So, life lesson: don’t go test a nicer car when you’ve already decided on a basic, economical one. Especially when the little things that we weren’t thrilled about in the Yaris, the Mazda had.

Oh well. Maybe next week we’ll get the Yaris. (Hope so, dad takes his car back so we’ll be back down to one.) And did I mention that irony of ironies…the Shadow seems to have a gasket leak? (The Golf had one too.) Argh! It never ends! (And dad’s car seems to have developed a tire leak.) I think I am cursed.

Side note: Dad is at Grandma’s cottage and just set up his webcam (and high speed Internet) on his laptop down at the dock. That’s not all. He called us on our computer so we could see him go jump in the river. Just to rub in the fact that he is there and we are here. :)