and it only has 142,000 miles!

Woohoo! Today I bought a new car!
Um... it sure looks like the one you already had...
Oh, but looks can be deceiving, dear! I can assure you I bought it today.
Ohhhh-kayyyy. I'll bite.
How much did you pay for it?
Only $1088.88 - what a deal, right? And the mileage is only 142,076. Not bad for a thirteen-year-old car. That works out to only 10,929 miles per year. That's well within the average annual mileage range, so that will make my insurance company happy.
Yeah. Right. And what has the insurance company done about insuring the new car?
Well, you know, it's the strangest thing - my rates didn't change at all. Not at all! I did have some concern about that, you know, to have to juggle car payments with higher insurance - but I need not have worried. What a relief!
I'm beginning to think the extreme cold has perhaps affected your brain today. Fahrenheit 29, at 1:30 in the afternoon at latitude 32N is certainly unusual for this town. AND for you. We all know how much you loathe the cold.
Oh, pish posh! I bundled up real well before the shuttle picked me up to take me to my new car and, I must say, it wasn't nearly as bad outside as I had feared it would be.
Then again, maybe cabin fever has set in. You are accustomed to to coming and going much more often than you have of late.
Pish posh, again I say! On Saturday, I drove to Port Wentworth for my great-niece's seventh birthday. I even stopped at the grocery store on my way home. Sunday, I ..
let me stop you right there. Sure, you drove out to Port Wentworth, I'll grant you that. But then you had to get your brother and the Parker to give your car a push-start so you could get back here. Oh, and that bit about "stopping" at the grocery store? That was nice. You may have parked the car, but you didn't dare turn it off, knowing you wouldn't be able to get it started again by yourself.
Hmphf.
Hmphf.
Are you going to continue?
Hmphf.
You and I both know that THIS is your truth: If you cannot come and go at will, you get stressed and feel trapped. And with your car not reliebley starting whenever you needed it to for the past - how long has it been now? six weeks?
I don't think it's been quite that long -
No, I just looked it up. You blogged about it, remember? That was the Monday after Thanksgiving.
Shite.
I guess you're right.
Damn Skippy I'm right.
Damn Skippy.
(smile)
And, yeah, yesterday made six weeks that I've been dealing with the issue about the car sometimes not starting. So, I've been working around it, planning my trips and how long I would be somewhere, to give the engine time to get cold again so it would start.
lately, the deal the car gave me was one start a day. Any other starts would have to be push-starts. Period. So I better be traveling with someone or going somewhere that a friend could help out or hoping that a stranger would respond favorably to my plea for a push.
Sigh.
At least I really know now how to pop the clutch to start the car.
I always knew it in theory, but I've had plenty of practice these past weeks. Well, ever since the Christmas party on December 15th in Beaufort with the Mensans.
That was the first time.
I had stopped for gas - and the engine was good and hot - and I couldn't start the car after filling up. I waited there for twenty minutes before another woman, noticing me sitting forlornly, enlisted the aid of two men from her church to give my car the push it needed.
I didn't quite understand how the push-start and clutch-popping worked, so they had to do it twice. And I thanked them nicely and locked the technique into my brain for later.
Thank God.
Because I have needed to use that technique just about every time I've gone anywhere for the past three weeks.
But no more!
I have a new car!
No. You have the SAME car!
Listen to me. I've done a bit of research on the prices of cars and I've found that I cannot afford to be committed for 60 months or 72 months to the cost of a 2013 or 2014 vehicle. Given my present work situation, and no idea of the future status of that work, if I were to actually sign a contract and then have to default on it, I would lose the car and my credit rating and the money already invested in the car.
Not good. Bad, bad, and ugly.
However... since August of 2012, I've outfitted the car with new transmission cables and bushings, new tires, and new brakes. Today, she received a new starter, a power steering flush, a cooling system flush, fuel induction service, and her regular synthetic oil change. (So that last part is a regular item and not included in the "new" category.)
Altogether, I've invested about $2000 into her and a lot of NEW bits that should be good for at least another 30,000 to 40,000 miles.
I look at it as another three to four years of good use from a car that has served me well.
And paying off the repairs is equivalent to car payments.
So, I have a new car!
Yes, dear. At least you're putting a positive spin on it.
Yes, I am! Damn Skippy!
Damn Skippy!
(smile)

whooo whooo!

closed until spring

Yesterday, I closed off the sunroom. No more cold air streaming from that corner of the house and permeating every other space.
I also closed the door to the guest room. The peace Guy is gone, away in ATL with a new love, and I doubt he will return anytime soon. I closed off the vent in that room, too. No sense in paying to heat that area when no one will be in there.
Closing off the guest room didn't bother me, though. I simply shut the door. That was much as Joe had done, when he thought the room was too messy for view. That was not anything new to me.
But closing off the sunroom... that is another story all together.
No more bright and cheery sun-yellow walls to look at while I wait for the coffee to percolate.
No more enjoyment of that space for morning breakfasts.
No more artificial enhancement of the size of my kitchen.
I shall miss this room.
I missed it this morning. Even though the sheet is a light blue-green and has pretty flowers on it and allows much of the light through, it is a reminder that winter is here.
But spring will come... and I will anticpate that delight.

braving the cold

I am so very proud of myself. For two mornings in a row, I have thrown myself out of my warm house to venture into below-freezing temperatures.
Sure, I can hear it now: “People do that all the time, that isn’t anything special.” Well, perhaps people do sally forth into such temperatures all the time, but “I” do NOT.
I am fortunate enough to have been born a Georgia peach, meaning I did not have to acclimate myself to such harsh weather conditions as a child. I am fortunate enough to have lived my life within six degrees of this latitude for my years as an adult, with only two exceptions. For two years I was in Panama, basking in warmth which never dropped to less than seventy percent of body temperature. Savannah is thirty-two degrees north of the equator; the Canal Zone (now an extinct area) in Panama is only nine degrees north of that imaginary line and has beach weather all year – ah, bliss!
I’ve had my chances to move farther north. Before my first marriage, the Navy was set to send me to Ireland and my soon-to-be husband to Panama. As my future duty station was designated a better selection (due to its location in Europe), there was no possibility of him being able to join me there. So, after informing the government of our impending wedding, I released my choice assignment and choose to accompany my spouse to Central America. Good decision!
This discussion of my first marriage brings me to the second exception to my living at thirty-two degrees north. He and I met during the brief span of time spent at school near Waukegan, Illinois, at forty-two degrees north. I had arrived there in mid-April from Orlando, Florida, and was shocked by the cold temperature. I had to forget about my halter tops and shorts and don my knee-length greatcoat and gloves again. By the time of my departure from that area in the first week of August, I was again clad in my greatcoat.
I found it difficult to believe that people would CHOOSE to live under such conditions, but then I married the man from Oregon, who had lived his life just a bit more north of that latitude. I should have known that he would want to eventually return to the upper west coast and its climate. Although his longing for home was not the reason for our divorce, I must state for the record that I am sure it was a contributing factor. We did travel there once and spent much of the month of another April in its rainy chill, perhaps made more daunting after the bliss of Panama life.
Oddly, my second marriage was also to a man from a latitude which is forty-plus degrees north. Fortunately, his time in the military had allowed him to discover the (almost) snow-free existence of life in Savannah and he was not interested in dragging me off to Michigan. He did try to encourage me to seek employment in northern states after I obtained my degree, but I resisted mightily. Honestly, I believed then – and even more so, now – that life spent in that harsh environment would be miserable and just might kill me.
Now that I have hypothyroidism, I am even more sensitive to the cold. Every year, as the arctic blasts wreak havoc, I seriously consider moving farther south. Maybe one day I will, but that day is not yet arrived.
For now, I am proud of myself for simply braving the below-freezing temperatures for two mornings in a row.