Family Size Mexican Inter-Looper

I think it's time to upgrade in the hammock arena and this may be the lucky winner. I can definitely see myself spending the few minutes after cleanup and before supper staring at the sun going down thru the upside down trees.

Woot Heat

Big ups to Brian down in Georgia for keeping an eye out on the Woot for us, because we lack the discipline and necessary wherewithal to stay on it and know a bargain when it smacks us upside the head. This here is a LifeSmart 1500 Watt Quartz Infrared Heater, complete with remote control, something we've been talking about getting for a few years now in an attempt to replace that dreaded pellet stove. We've looked online and in a few shops and just haven't been motivated to pull the trigger, but in tonight's late hour, just as we started to implement the body heating method to go to sleep, this bad boy popped up on Brian's radar and he alerted both Laura and myself. It was a short conversation, mostly between me and myself, because Laura is a victim of the moment and she just so happened to be chilly. So a quick registration and address check later and we own one. So Woot, Brian, late night snap decisions, we can look forward to tearing that pellet stove out soon and laying it to rest.

Proud Owners Of Tree

We bought trees! Finally! I've been wanting to bring some new life to the yard since foreva. And it's my birthday so this is my present.

One fuji apple tree, one wolf river apple tree and one okema cherry tree. Now I just got to kill all the deer who wander thru.

Possessing The Quest

Yesterday was a whale of a day for us, both acquisitionally and in an everyday timeline sense. Not in our lives had either of us bought a new vehicle or been remotely successful at pursuing one. [aside: I remember when I first moved down to Georgia I attempted to buy, of all things, a Ford Focus and despite my short one month history of reportable residence, lack of savings and a "real" job and a poor credit score due to joining and pooh-poohing on too many by-mail record clubs since I was 14, I was denied, unless I was able to get a cosigner, a parent suggested by the salesman, at which point I somehow ended up on the forsaken side of a dealership telephone with my father on the other line pretending I had the wrong number] The car we had most recently, lovingly referred to as Sexy Bird, was given to us by Laura's parents. The Dakota was acquired out of minor desperation, and a split-second decision deal to exchange the truck for my attendance at rehearsals in Lancaster for the season was struck. I had a Pontiac Grand Am, cursed thing, that I drove from around 2002-2006, that was bought and paid for by the Cobb County Board Education thank you very much. Before that, who knows.

Which brings us to yesterday.



The Nissan dealership is a cozy little establishment with genuinely friendly employees, several of whom awarded Yuula "Best Behaved Baby Ever In Our Dealership" so we are proud of her for that. We won't tell them she pooped on the sink bathroom and sneezed all over Ted Faulstick's business cards.



A couple dozen autographs, an unprompted lesson on the child fostering system, 3 hours of watching salesmen, mechanics and financiers run around like it was their first time in the big game and a ridiculously lengthy tutorial on how to work the temperature controls (to no avail), a new set of keys were placed in our hands and a warning of the sheet of ice underneath the snow accumulating during our wait... we were outta there. We acted as if we had stolen something.



So here she is...



...taken this morning in our driveway. A V6 that seats 7, 10 speaker Bose system, automatic doors & locks, five sunroofs, three zone climate control, heated seats with lumbar support, and our stroller fits beautifully in the trunk. Still kinda feels like a rental in a way. Must be how we actually took the fast food bags out when we got home last night or the way it took me 15 minutes in the parking lot of Morris Knolls HS to figure out how to defrost the front windshield. Guess I should've paid better attention during that tutorial.

Give us a little turn there...




And, long overdue, we said goodbye to Sexy Bird.



As we pulled out of the dealership I looked over my left shoulder to the salt encapsulated black clinker sitting alone in a row of empty parking spaces and I swear I think I saw a single teardrop of engine coolant trickle down out of the headlight, over the bumper and into the snow. We had good times. But all good things must be stripped for parts and crushed into a brick of steel. Onward and upwards folks.

It Has Orange Seats

So, turns out this car Laura found wasn't a car at all, but in fact a minivan. And a pretty good deal on a minivan, complete with Bose soundsystem, sunroofs, DVD player, automatic everything and orange leather seats nonetheless. So after a relatively quick test drive and a fair amount of some so-called haggling over money, a deal was struck that may or may not have involved trading in the one and only Sexy Bird. It was a hard decision but.... it was an easy decision. Saturday morning we go to pick up our brand new (to us) 2004 Nissan Quest minivan.

You'll see the whole thing when it's all ours.