I really didn't have many expectations for this long weekend. I mean, I did have a list of things to do, but in general, I assumed it would be a pretty uneventful weekend. That plan changed when I got into my car on Friday evening.
I headed out to my church where a group was putting on a play. As I'm driving down the road one of the fun warning lights starts blaring orange at me from my dashboard. Now, this is a light that has come on multiple times. Each time it comes on, I pull out the owners manual to check to see what it means and what I need to do about it. This particular light has something to do with the emissions system and if it continues to shine, then I should take the car to the dealership. So, I make the decision that I will take the car to the dealership on Tuesday and make a determination as to whether it will be more expensive to fix the issue or just trade the car in. I didn't come to this decision lightly. This light has been coming on and then going off for probably a year (yeah, I just kept ignoring it because it WOULD go off a couple of days after it turned on). The car is 12 years old and has given me 12 great years and included getting me to and from California without issue. So, Friday evening I pull back into my garage with that being the plan....dealership for diagnosis on Tuesday.
Saturday I road with my friend Jennifer and her beau Barry to the Watson's house for a chance to wish Randall a happy birthday and to meet the soon to be very famous Avery (check out everything about her arrival at her Wee Watson blog). It was great seeing Sara and Randall, and of course Avery. Sara did ask if I wanted to hold her and I immediately threw my hands up in the air and ran away...I'm really not much of a kid person. Avery is TINY, she came a little earlier than expected so even tinier than the normal baby that I would still run away from. I'm really not big on holding kids until they can manage the weight of their own head and don't require me to protect it or "watch it". And, to be 100% honest, I'm not really good with kids when they get older. I think I had 'baby pangs' for like 15 minutes in my early 30s when all my friends were having babies and I thought briefly that it would be a good thing for me to consider and that I was missing something by not having kids, but those feelings quickly diminished and I realize now that I don't really have a maternal bone in my body. I love ALL the kids that are in my life, I just don't know what to do with them and I can't relate to them, and I channel my great grandmother in thinking that children should be seen and not heard, or they need to be sent outside to play in traffic.
This brings us to Saturday evening. I still have my car on my mind....and I catch an ad on television before I can skip through the commercials that says that there are all these Labor Day specials at all these dealerships, so I think to myself, "Self, perhaps you should investigate...." So, that is what I did. I started investigating. I pulled up Kelly Blue Book to see what my car would be valued at (yeah, not much) and then started looking for acceptable alternatives.
Sunday comes around and I headed back out to my car to drive to church. This time when I started it up the glaring orange warning signal was no longer alight.....is my car trying to convince me that I don't need to get a new car? Is he teasing me into a lull of acceptance so that it will leave me on the side of the road stranded? I pondered and wondered. I decided that I wouldn't tempt fate and drive the 70 miles over and back to celebrate my nephew's birthday with the family and instead returned to my little den of vehicle investigation.
Monday morning I woke up and decided to heck with it, I don't care if my budget isn't ready for it, I'm just going to bite the bullet and get a new car. My original plan was to follow my head (after days....okay technically weeks and months and years of research because I have been thinking about this since I returned to Texas in 2009) and go to Honda and get a replacement CRV. However, I had to pass a Chevy dealership on my way to the Honda dealership and I felt that my heart really wanted me to at least look at and test drive an Equinox. Well, to shorten the story a little, a couple of hours later, I ended up driving off the lot with a pretty new white Equinox. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles that I probably could have gotten with a Honda (e.g., a sunroof, but I really doubt if I would ever open the sunroof) but it suits my needs and it is quite a bit roomier and more comfortable than my old CRV was. And, I guess I'll figure out how to make the budget work.
During the negotiations, I did text Sara and let her know that I was copying her and Randall, and she reached out to their neighbor who happens to be over the Used Car department and I don't know if strings were pulled or what, but he gave me a pretty good deal on my trade-in, so I was happy about that.
And, as a side note, I said above that I've been thinking about getting a new car for about 4 years now. When the topic first came up, my dad said that I should look at the GMC Terrain or, you guessed it, the Chevy Equinox....they are essentially the same vehicle. So, dad is still influencing me in one way or another....Now I just need to come up with a name for this new baby..... Oh, and Leo doesn't know what to think of it.
I headed out to my church where a group was putting on a play. As I'm driving down the road one of the fun warning lights starts blaring orange at me from my dashboard. Now, this is a light that has come on multiple times. Each time it comes on, I pull out the owners manual to check to see what it means and what I need to do about it. This particular light has something to do with the emissions system and if it continues to shine, then I should take the car to the dealership. So, I make the decision that I will take the car to the dealership on Tuesday and make a determination as to whether it will be more expensive to fix the issue or just trade the car in. I didn't come to this decision lightly. This light has been coming on and then going off for probably a year (yeah, I just kept ignoring it because it WOULD go off a couple of days after it turned on). The car is 12 years old and has given me 12 great years and included getting me to and from California without issue. So, Friday evening I pull back into my garage with that being the plan....dealership for diagnosis on Tuesday.
Saturday I road with my friend Jennifer and her beau Barry to the Watson's house for a chance to wish Randall a happy birthday and to meet the soon to be very famous Avery (check out everything about her arrival at her Wee Watson blog). It was great seeing Sara and Randall, and of course Avery. Sara did ask if I wanted to hold her and I immediately threw my hands up in the air and ran away...I'm really not much of a kid person. Avery is TINY, she came a little earlier than expected so even tinier than the normal baby that I would still run away from. I'm really not big on holding kids until they can manage the weight of their own head and don't require me to protect it or "watch it". And, to be 100% honest, I'm not really good with kids when they get older. I think I had 'baby pangs' for like 15 minutes in my early 30s when all my friends were having babies and I thought briefly that it would be a good thing for me to consider and that I was missing something by not having kids, but those feelings quickly diminished and I realize now that I don't really have a maternal bone in my body. I love ALL the kids that are in my life, I just don't know what to do with them and I can't relate to them, and I channel my great grandmother in thinking that children should be seen and not heard, or they need to be sent outside to play in traffic.
This brings us to Saturday evening. I still have my car on my mind....and I catch an ad on television before I can skip through the commercials that says that there are all these Labor Day specials at all these dealerships, so I think to myself, "Self, perhaps you should investigate...." So, that is what I did. I started investigating. I pulled up Kelly Blue Book to see what my car would be valued at (yeah, not much) and then started looking for acceptable alternatives.
Sunday comes around and I headed back out to my car to drive to church. This time when I started it up the glaring orange warning signal was no longer alight.....is my car trying to convince me that I don't need to get a new car? Is he teasing me into a lull of acceptance so that it will leave me on the side of the road stranded? I pondered and wondered. I decided that I wouldn't tempt fate and drive the 70 miles over and back to celebrate my nephew's birthday with the family and instead returned to my little den of vehicle investigation.
Monday morning I woke up and decided to heck with it, I don't care if my budget isn't ready for it, I'm just going to bite the bullet and get a new car. My original plan was to follow my head (after days....okay technically weeks and months and years of research because I have been thinking about this since I returned to Texas in 2009) and go to Honda and get a replacement CRV. However, I had to pass a Chevy dealership on my way to the Honda dealership and I felt that my heart really wanted me to at least look at and test drive an Equinox. Well, to shorten the story a little, a couple of hours later, I ended up driving off the lot with a pretty new white Equinox. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles that I probably could have gotten with a Honda (e.g., a sunroof, but I really doubt if I would ever open the sunroof) but it suits my needs and it is quite a bit roomier and more comfortable than my old CRV was. And, I guess I'll figure out how to make the budget work.
During the negotiations, I did text Sara and let her know that I was copying her and Randall, and she reached out to their neighbor who happens to be over the Used Car department and I don't know if strings were pulled or what, but he gave me a pretty good deal on my trade-in, so I was happy about that.
And, as a side note, I said above that I've been thinking about getting a new car for about 4 years now. When the topic first came up, my dad said that I should look at the GMC Terrain or, you guessed it, the Chevy Equinox....they are essentially the same vehicle. So, dad is still influencing me in one way or another....Now I just need to come up with a name for this new baby..... Oh, and Leo doesn't know what to think of it.
