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cars and work and cleaning
Dec. 19th, 2005 09:29 pmMy husband is perusing online car sales websites. Guess why! (This is a clue that something may not going swimmingly chez yayer. as a matter of fact, it might be a clue that said something is sitting like a bump on a log beside the road somewhere, which is the opposite of "going swimmingly", indeed.) He called me this afternoon to let me know that his car had broken down in an intersection in Lexington and he was strolling around on the grass so as to not be in said vehicle if someone came along and didn't notice that it was sitting there in the intersection.
This changed the plans for the day.
So I headed off to Lexington, where the car was in the process of being pushed to the grass beside the road with the help of a friendly ex-employee of the boy. (Ex in that M is no longer a supervisor, thank our lucky stars, not the other way.) Once there, we kind of decided that we should take the whole "if you have lemons, make lemonade" thing to heart, so we ate out and did some shopping. Actually, we've been in surprisingly good spirits all evening, given that one car is dead and we.. well.. kind of need two in order to like, work and stuff. I don't know if we'll fix it or start looking for a new car, but I guess it's just hard to feel that sad about the demise of the Oldsmobile (the vehicle without a working heater and a passenger door that doesn't open from the outside and a screwy transmission and that wasn't that pretty to begin with.) We paid $2,200 for it three years ago. It had 122,000 miles on it, and we've put 73,000 more on it. (Three cents per mile! Whew! Math!) If we had leased a new car three years ago, making $300/month payments, that would have been $10,800, or fifteen cents per mile. (Although you could argue that my math doesn't take several important things into consideration, like how we spent money on fixing a few things in the Oldsmobile that we wouldn't have had to fix in a new car. But still! We don't have to have full insurance coverage on a used car, either, so that more than makes up for it.) Not that there's any reason for going into all of this except that.. having inexpensive cars makes it easier to deal with getting new ones. And really, the boy loooves looking for cars. (I actually hate it when he does this because he expects me to have opinions and as long as the wheels go round and round then I don't really, much of the time.)
In other news, we had an excellently productive weekend. I kept talking last week (month) that I needed to clean the house and it was really bothering me, but yet we kept only doing enough to get by. Part of it was getting sick but most of it was just being lazy. But we actually worked very hard on Saturday, getting the whole house cleaner than it's been in ages. Then I promptly messed the living room up royally again yesterday during my little present-wrapping party. But most of the presents have been wrapped now, and the house is ready otherwise for Christmas, so life is good again. Except for that whole going-to-work thing, which is interfering with the Christmas season. My mommy is going shopping in Lexington tomorrow and if I didn't have so much to do at work then I might have taken the day off to go with them. But a) I probably wouldn't have and b) I do and c) if I was going to take a day off for Christmas it would have been next week, when taking three days off nets you eleven days off in a row. But still!
Also, I printed out my flex schedule calendars for next year today and highlighted my days off for the first quarter (The every-other-Monday thing) and I realized that I should probably not complain about work interfering with my real life. Today was the last Monday that I have to work until January 30. (I'm thinking of taking this day off just so I can say that the next Monday I have to work will be in February. Thinking of taking it off in that no-way-am-I-actually-planning-this sort of way. It would just be funny.) So, for the next month and a half, I have four (or less!) day weeks. Continual three-day (or four-day) weekends. For six weeks! Not too shabby. M, on the other hand, has plans to beat me severely on every single one of those Mondays. He's just jealous of my state job, though. ;)
This changed the plans for the day.
So I headed off to Lexington, where the car was in the process of being pushed to the grass beside the road with the help of a friendly ex-employee of the boy. (Ex in that M is no longer a supervisor, thank our lucky stars, not the other way.) Once there, we kind of decided that we should take the whole "if you have lemons, make lemonade" thing to heart, so we ate out and did some shopping. Actually, we've been in surprisingly good spirits all evening, given that one car is dead and we.. well.. kind of need two in order to like, work and stuff. I don't know if we'll fix it or start looking for a new car, but I guess it's just hard to feel that sad about the demise of the Oldsmobile (the vehicle without a working heater and a passenger door that doesn't open from the outside and a screwy transmission and that wasn't that pretty to begin with.) We paid $2,200 for it three years ago. It had 122,000 miles on it, and we've put 73,000 more on it. (Three cents per mile! Whew! Math!) If we had leased a new car three years ago, making $300/month payments, that would have been $10,800, or fifteen cents per mile. (Although you could argue that my math doesn't take several important things into consideration, like how we spent money on fixing a few things in the Oldsmobile that we wouldn't have had to fix in a new car. But still! We don't have to have full insurance coverage on a used car, either, so that more than makes up for it.) Not that there's any reason for going into all of this except that.. having inexpensive cars makes it easier to deal with getting new ones. And really, the boy loooves looking for cars. (I actually hate it when he does this because he expects me to have opinions and as long as the wheels go round and round then I don't really, much of the time.)
In other news, we had an excellently productive weekend. I kept talking last week (month) that I needed to clean the house and it was really bothering me, but yet we kept only doing enough to get by. Part of it was getting sick but most of it was just being lazy. But we actually worked very hard on Saturday, getting the whole house cleaner than it's been in ages. Then I promptly messed the living room up royally again yesterday during my little present-wrapping party. But most of the presents have been wrapped now, and the house is ready otherwise for Christmas, so life is good again. Except for that whole going-to-work thing, which is interfering with the Christmas season. My mommy is going shopping in Lexington tomorrow and if I didn't have so much to do at work then I might have taken the day off to go with them. But a) I probably wouldn't have and b) I do and c) if I was going to take a day off for Christmas it would have been next week, when taking three days off nets you eleven days off in a row. But still!
Also, I printed out my flex schedule calendars for next year today and highlighted my days off for the first quarter (The every-other-Monday thing) and I realized that I should probably not complain about work interfering with my real life. Today was the last Monday that I have to work until January 30. (I'm thinking of taking this day off just so I can say that the next Monday I have to work will be in February. Thinking of taking it off in that no-way-am-I-actually-planning-this sort of way. It would just be funny.) So, for the next month and a half, I have four (or less!) day weeks. Continual three-day (or four-day) weekends. For six weeks! Not too shabby. M, on the other hand, has plans to beat me severely on every single one of those Mondays. He's just jealous of my state job, though. ;)
