| Home Again |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|06:11 am] |
Well we are home, in one piece, or mostly anyway...
I feel like I've gained about 20 lbs over the past week. I don't think I'll be taking a look at the scale any time soon. D:
We had some pretty rough hurdles to overcome on our way home.
First we drove and drove until ~1am, stopping at a rest area in Kentucky right past Louisville. We found a good spot, folded down the back seat of the hatchback and curled up in the back. We left the CD player playing, but little did we know that the stupid car also apparently had turned on its automatic headlights; they're dimmer than the regular headlights but still bright enough to kill the battery. Joe woke up about two and a half hours after we fell asleep because he heard the music stop playing-- do you know how hard it is to find someone to jump your car at 4am?? And Highway Patrol isn't even open until 8am. (And this was central time so to them it was only 3am-- that would've been 5 hours to wait for Highway Patrol!) Thankfully there was a guy in a mini van that was willing to jump our car. Lots of people passed us by even though we were sitting there with our hood open and the cables hooked up just looking for someone to give us two seconds of their time. ._.
That wasn't the worst of it though! Oh no, there is more... we kept driving through the rest of the morning and finally we were both just dragging soooo bad, we decided to drive through a Starbucks. (Remember the time I was high on the Java Chip frapp? Yeah, I was counting on that kind of buzz to get us home again.) We ordered, paid, and then had to wait a minute for our drinks. Joe put the car into park to wait. We got our drinks and Joe goes to shift it into drive aaaand... the thing slides, but the car won't actually shift out of park. WTF?? He tries again, no luck. He turns the car off and then on again, no luck. We try pushing but because it's in Park and we can't get it to Neutral, we can't get it out of the way. So here we are, blocking the Starbucks drive-thru window at 10am! AUGH! Joe called AAA, and the kids working the Starbucks window just kind of chuckled and said "Well, don't worry, we could use a little break anyway." So they closed the drive-thru as we continued to look around for what the problem was.
Joe popped off part of the console and we started from one end to try and find out what the problem was. Nothing wrong inside the console; the cables still seemed to be working on that end. We're looking and looking, and finally after about half an hour Joe was going to have me try shifting again to look under the hood by the engine to find the right cable, when he noticed... the little cap connecting the cable to the engine had simply popped off and was sitting on the little box NEXT to where it should have been sitting. O_o He popped the cap back on, we try it, and sure enough, it works!! Thankfully nothing major was wrong and we didn't even need AAA to come help us out. Joe called & cancelled the order for the guy to come out, and we were back on our way again.
We had been TRYING to get back in time to pick Reo up from the vet's, but we didn't even reach Atlanta until ~1pm, and we *know* it's at least a 6 hour drive from Atlanta (assuming no traffic/construction) so we decided not to even panic about getting home "in time" any more. We resigned ourselves to getting there whenever we got there. Good thing, too, because just after we made it through Atlanta we got hit by a really bad storm. It was pouring rain and lots of loud thunder/lightning. So we went and walked around a Wal-Mart for a while, then got back in the car and off we went.
We stopped @ "The Smokin' Pig" in Valdosta for some awesome BBQ (we had stopped there after FWA this year and loved it!) and their excellent peach and pecan cobbler.. yum! Just what we needed after a long day. (And I even have some BBQ leftovers for lunch today!)
We finally got in around 9:30 last night. Oy! What an adventure. So we slept pretty hard last night.
Otherwise our week was a good one. Sad, of course, that we had to go to Joe's grandpa's funeral, but it was good that so much of the family could be there. We also got to see a lot of Joe's mom's side of the family. Then we went on up to Michigan for a couple of days to see my mom, my sister and her kids, and my youngest sister was supposed to be there too but I think we saw her for all of three hours, and even then she was too busy being prissy to worry about her sister that she "came up from Illinois just to see." We had lots of fun with the nephews though, including getting to go with them to Chuck-E-Cheese's (I haven't been there in years!) and the zoo. Needless to say the whole week was PACKED with activity.
So now I have a week and a half to work before Ancient City Con arrives, and a week beyond that before Megaplex.
I think I'll go collapse for a bit, now, before getting to work. D: |
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| OMG SQUEE! |
[Feb. 11th, 2008|03:00 pm] |
I mean, squirrel!!!
The girl who does tech support for our company brought in a baby squirrel with her. Her son found it because the nest fell out of the tree, and the cats got to the baby. :( But it is still alive and relatively unharmed (it had a tiny scratch and that was all, surprisingly!) and so my coworker has been feeding it and warming it since Friday. She brought it with and has it on a small heating pad on her desk. It is sooooo cute! *squee* :)
I never usually have my camera with me at work, but it was still in my purse after the weekend so I took a few pics. I didn't use the flash (didn't want to scare the poor guy) so they turned out kind of blurry, but I'll unload the camera tonight and post the pics some time. :)
I met Joe for lunch at Chick-Fil-A this afternoon (he had a couple coupons for free sammiches, mmm) and then stopped at Hobby Lobby next door to pick up thread. I got two spools of the heavy duty stuff. Hope it's enough. :P
Also, Saturn <3
I was driving out of the subdivision where my office is located and a guy driving in waved at me, because he was driving a silver Saturn toward my silver-blue Saturn. XD I love Saturn owners, they're the coolest don'cha know!! =) |
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| Busy little bee! |
[Aug. 29th, 2007|12:29 pm] |
Buzzzz!
I have accomplished the following:
- Paw magnets in rainbow colors baked, just need to be sanded: red, orange, yellow and green. Need to do blue, purple and white; those are priority, and if I have time I will do the extra colors from the sampler pack.
- Half the laundry is done. Awesome!
- Dog crate is in the car
- Car cleaned out: Joe's work stuff brought in, and I also wiped down the dash/steering wheel which gets all dirty since Joe uses it for a work car
- Dishes are DONE.
- Costume is all packed, waiting to go out into the car (not leaving it in the heat due to hot glue)
- Most art stuff is ready to go, except what I need to finish up my art trades and paid work to be delivered at the convention.
- Bread is started! It takes ALL DAY to make; right now the beginnings of it are cooling until 1:30. Oyy. Anyone want some tasty cinnamon bread? Right now I'm making two loaves but if anyone else wants some I'll make four! I've got the means to do so! :D
Joe is taking care of getting our new car on the insurance today. He also found out that State Farm would buy our loan from the bank we're using (which we haven't even had to send a payment to yet!) and they offer free GAP insurance. Not only that, he told me the woman said she thought they can do a little better on the interest rate. Our premium also didn't go up too much! Only an extra $300 per six months. Which means our total car payment PLUS insurance is about $200 a month, not bad.
I'm downloading some bad music at the moment. Goodness knows I've got a lot of it already, but it's like the top hits from the '90s, a lot of songs I used to listen to on the radio when I was a kid. Ahh, nostalgia! :D It's good variety for the road trip. Also, yesterday I went into the local Christian bookstore and they had the WOW Hymns album (with contemporary Christian musicians doing both older and newer hymns in a more modern style) and it's pretty good. ^_^
Okay, so now I need to gather up clothing, finish laundry, pack clothes (I've got bathroom stuff packed already!) finish up artwork and then pack the art supplies, and I'm ready to go! Woo!! |
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| Hmm. |
[Aug. 25th, 2007|08:36 pm] |
Busy the past few days. Got a lot done! Just have some feathers and beads to glue for my costume and I am done with that. Art-wise, I am not 100% with the drawings but they'll get there. I think I am not going to offer prints of most of them for right now; the new ones I'll offer as magnets. I am tight on funds for the time being, so, that will have to be enough, I suppose.
Speaking of magnets, I've got little polymer clay pawprint magnets I'll have available too. I'll have them in pretty much every color of the rainbow, and black too. :D I've been working on those (got the scratches from the dremel tool to prove it) as well.
I've just been soooo drained lately. Of course, I've been working on a LOT. And going nuts while at work, too. All's been quiet since the kids went back to school, so, I'm there with nothing to do. Dusting gets done within the first hour and then there are hardly any people, so, I get time to snatch a couple paragraphs here and there in my book. :P I wish I could better bring my art projects with me. Clay would get squished, and markering is no good when you're constantly being interrupted. The most I can really do at work is sketch, and at this point, I don't want to "waste" my creative energy on sketching instead of finishing what I've got!
I've been loving the new car. It's been great to have an extra hour in the morning to get stuff done, and to be able to be more flexible when leaving work. (I no longer have to stress about letting Joe know when I'm done!)
So, I guess that's the latest from me.... I guess I'd better get back to it! :3 |
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| A-questing we will go |
[Aug. 22nd, 2007|05:34 pm] |
Today I wandered all over town - or at least US-1 - because I could. Yayyyyy :D
I went to Wal-Mart (gasp!) for the first time since November, to pick up some spray paint. I was also going to look for some car stuff but they've reeeeeally cut back on their automotive section there. (As well as crafts; they hardly have ANY craft stuff any more.) I think I'll be avoiding Wal-Mart again now for another nine months. :D
Then I went to Michael's to see if they had any better spray paint colors. Of course they didn't, so oh well. I went on to Target to pick up some more stuff I needed, and found some Turtle Wax leather cleaner/conditioner for the interior of the car, actually had the lanolin in it. (WalMart only had ArmorAll stuff and while it said it was for leather it didn't say ANY of the ingredients.) I also got Joe some of the Mountain Dew "Game Fuel" flavor. He likes it. :P And, they had nylon ferret hammocks on sale for $1.50 each. I don't really like them, but they're easy to put in and take out, and they're washable, instead of the old towel that I *had* been using, which is tied in there pretty good and a pain to get out.
After I got home I cleaned out the car pretty good. I used wipes to clean all the plastic, since the Saturn dealership didn't feel the need to clean all the gunk off of the seat belt clasps or buttons, or anywhere else. Of course I had to clean out the sticky from the cup holders and inside the console - let me tell you, Grandma must have liked her candy. ;_; Then I set to work using the leather conditioner. The poor front seats were pretty tough. I went over all the leather upholstery pretty good, so hopefully that will help. Now all that are missing are my "Apple" computer sticker for the window and my pawprint bumper sticker. :P
Mmm, off to work some more on art stuff. I dunno if I can get it all done! Waahhhh... |
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| zOMGcar |
[Aug. 21st, 2007|09:22 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | car | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  excited | ] |
So we were going with the intent to look, not buy.
Same story with when we went to the humane society to just look at dogs, and ended up bringing home Reo. :P
Car buying... well, you know how that goes. Actually, this went pretty well. :3
We went in to look at the Saturn wagon, since it's a year older and 6-cylinder instead of 4, but essentially the same car that we've been happy with.
What we found was a car that only had one owner, low miles, and had towing hookups on the front and a valet key. Yes, this car belonged to some old people that brought it along as their vacation car.
Naturally, being that it was towed everywhere, it had a few scratches, but Joe negotiated for some free touch-up paint to go with it. It also was missing the pull-screen in the back - which, when Joe mentioned it to the salesman he had no problems taking one out of another used wagon for sale and putting it in ours.
( Babbling about the car-buying experience; possibly as painful as if you were there! heheheh )
So, long story short, I've got my own car!!
It's a light silvery blue. It has the upgraded soundsystem which means it has CD/cassette as well as a subwoofer in the back. It's got a leather interior. It has seat heaters. (I know, in Florida, right? Actually it'll be nice if we travel north in the winter!) All in all, it's a really nice car, almost exactly the same as our first one. I'm glad we've got it! :3
Pictures tomorrow, maybe. ;) |
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| Carrrrr! |
[Aug. 13th, 2007|10:43 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | car | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
Here more for my personal reference than for your reading pleasure, but step in and offer advice if you have it I guess. ;)
I was peeking at some cars online last night to get an idea of what we would want to look into. Ideally we would like something $5,000 or less but willing to go up to $7-$8k if that little bit more means a much better vehicle. As my credit card is going to be paid off and my student loan ends soon, that's two monthly payments we won't have to worry about, and more we will be able to devote to a car payment.
Here were a few that were interesting to me last night:
http://www.getauto.com/vehicledetail/adid-10294761/1999/ford/taurus-se/jacksonville/fl
http://www.getauto.com/vehicledetail/adid-9892451/2004/saturn/ion-level-1/jacksonville/fl
http://www.getauto.com/vehicledetail/adid-9941332/1998/saturn/sl2/jacksonville/fl
http://www.getauto.com/vehicledetail/adid-10032637/2002/saturn/sl1/jacksonville/fl
We're leaning more toward another Saturn because that's what we currently have and it gets great gas mileage. We haven't really had any problems with it at all. (just squeaky brakes as of late..) I am not necessarily keen on Fords because if they are not taken care of, they can suck... so a used Ford might not be great. (My family all drove Fords except my dad's Toyota pickup; my mom really abuses hers and it's in awful condition!) Toyotas are another good option IMO because my dad's truck lasted (and is still lasting) forever, and Joe's old Camry wagon was a good car too.
If we're buying for me, it'll have to be an automatic, as I just KNOW that I would abuse a manual, I can't drive those very well at all. If we come up on a great deal on a manual, though, we will get the new car for Joe.
We are just trying to get some ideas, toying with them, we'll see what we end up getting. Personally, I would like to buy from a dealer because it's just plain risky getting a vehicle from a private owner selling the car themself... yeah I might be able to get a better deal on some things, but I don't know exactly what I am looking for so I would more trust a dealer (an actual dealer, not a used car lot) to help us out a little.
I had a few more cars I was looking at, but can't link to them here because the web sites won't let me. Augh, search options and stuff. :P But basically, we are browsing, and trying to get an idea. We'll likely be waiting until after we get back from Memphis to actually *buy* the vehicle. |
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| Car-shopping! |
[Mar. 16th, 2007|09:53 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | car | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  curious | ] |
Joe's new job will have him keeping different work hours. Instead of what we've settled into, he'll be working from 8am until 4:30pm. It'll be nice for him to have late-afternoons off! However, seeing as I don't usually work until 11, this presents a teeny little problem.
I can still get to work no problem, because my bosses live two streets over and they've offered to give me a ride in the past. This time is no exception - when I let them know about Joe's new job situation they offered to bring me in to work. Since they're usually at the store first thing in the morning anyway... and Joe will still be able to drive me on Saturdays and if I work on a Sunday, so no troubles there.
Eventually, though, we would like to look into getting a second vehicle. We're not moving forward with that yet - truth be told, we'd like to keep paying down the credit cards a bit more first - but it's something we're toying with right now. Joe's 25th birthday is also coming up in May, which means lower car insurance rates - yeah! With him getting a higher rate of pay, and us getting potentially lower car insurance rates, means we may indeed be able to look into something else.
We wouldn't mind a "clunker" because all we would need is another vehicle to get me into town and then back home again. But we stopped at the "Auto Fest" being held at the mall this evening, and they had a hybrid Civic (Joe's dad has one of those) and it was just a neat little thing... how I would love to get 50mpg in-town. :P (Can you imagine the money we'd save on gas on road trips? Joe's dad I think only had to fill up once on our trip to Ohio from NC. We had to stop a couple of times.) but for right now we're only dreaming. :P
So I know a lot of you guys have had experience buying cars... any tips or hints? Joe doesn't want to buy from a dealer because dealers "know how to sell cars" - that is, their own personal income depends on it and so they're not always going to be the most honest people, they'll try to pressure you into buying something you don't need. (I know they're not ALL that way but eh.) Any tips on places to look, what to look for (questions we might not think to ask) or advice on financing? Just something I would like to be prepared for, when the time comes for us to get a second vehicle. :) |
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| Better than MySpace! |
[Jan. 15th, 2007|09:45 pm] |
My sister ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) cest_la_vie_221 talked me into getting a Facebook. Is anyone else on Facebook? Figured I might as well ask. I don't plan on updating it too much, but like with MySpace, a good number of old high school friends are there. So I figured I might as well. It seems alright so far, and none of that annoying music embedded into MySpace pages. :P
We found out what the horrible smell coming from underneath our car was. Somehow a plastic bag got caught underneath, and kind of melted. Whoops. You'd think it would have burned off by now but it hasn't. So tomorrow morning Joe is going to pluck at the remains of the bag and see if he can get rid of it. I hope he can, because it smells awful. This means I can bring the dog downtown.. dunno if I will, though. It would also be nice just to not worry and take it easy. Plus, why waste the gas when the only reason I'd be taking the car, is to take the dog for a walk? I can do that on the beach. (Plus, I need to find another shark tooth!!)
My new cell phone battery isn't very good. I charged it fully, but it couldn't even handle two days on standby with a half-hour conversation with my mother. Guess that's what I get for buying a $10 eBay battery, but at least my phone has been resurrected for now.
Also, today I went into Sally Beauty and got a ConAir hair clipper. I got this so I can become a beauticiancut Joe's hair, instead of having to make time to go, and instead of paying $10 each time. He can tip his stylist in other ways. Like chocolate. :D
Contemplating DDR tonight. I'm real tired. I probably should, just to keep up routine. Right? |
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| Exercise and the beach. (Not together!) |
[Jan. 14th, 2007|08:17 pm] |
Okay, so after I realized I gained five pounds over the holidays (the poundage hasn't gone away, at all - it's consistantly five pounds over what USED to be my consistant weight) and my pudge re-arranged itself to be a little more visible on my front, I decided I was going to exercise a bit. Joe and I already have been trying to eat better - we stocked up on Lean Cuisines (we got them dirt cheap when they were on sale at Publix) and other than our usual walks we've added DDR to the mix. So far we've only been playing for a couple of days, but I would like to get back up to, if not past, the level I used to be at. I know I've said this before, but in our old apartments, we were either upstairs, or in a manufactured unit where sound carries, so we tried not to disturb our neighbors and you can't do much active DDRing without making a lot of noise. So in our new place, which is solidly built, and has PLENTY of space in the living room, we've got the DDR mats out and are easier able to just pop in the CD and go.
Tonight and the night before last (last night we skipped because I worked late) I worked up a sweat. I am glad to see I can still play songs like "Hysteria" without tripping up too bad. We just need to get new mats - we've had these ones for years and they aren't as accurate any more. (Anyone know if the "higher quality" mats like the Red Octane mats are actually better, or do they fall apart just as easily?) We considered making hard mats but you can't really play barefoot on hard mats, and that's when I have the best flex, is when I'm barefoot. *shrugs*
This morning, Joe and I were getting ready for church but neither of us was feeling very good. So we took our devotional book and our Bibles out to the beach and read out there, spending quiet time together instead of going to church this morning. Then we walked the beach for a while, it was a beautiful morning. Cloudy at sea but sunny over the beach, warm with a cool, gentle breeze... And Joe found his own shark tooth this time. His is even longer than mine. ;_; We didn't see any more than just that one, so we are guessing that noobs only get one shark tooth a day. We have to go to the beach every day to collect our rare item. ;)
Work was alright today. Lots of stupid people, and lots of childish grown adults today too. But I found out the reason for the grown men acting like they're ten: there's a boy scouts group in town. :P It was a quick day, though, thankfully. Tomorrow I work too, and then I'm off for THREE days! Woo hoo!
Earlier today, Joe went and got the car battery replaced. It had been leaking, and making a mess. We thought it was the source of a smell that smelled something like burning rubber. But even after the battery got replaced, the car STILL smells like burning rubber. We couldn't see anything immediately smoking or dripping, just a horrible stench after the car's been running a short while. (It was so bad, when we drove downtown it caused one man to look curiously down the grate in the middle of the road, and caused another lady to check both her shoes for doo.) We are going to drive it as little as possible and then take it up to the Saturn dealership. We aren't going to be taking it to the one we usually go to, though; it turns out that the Saturn at the Avenues has not been topping off our fluids, nor have they been topping off our tires if needed. This is part of the reason we HAD been bringing it in to the dealer for an oil change: their oil changes cost $30 rather than $15 at Wal-Mart, or even cheaper than that if we do it ourselves, but they're supposed to "complimentary" top off everything else, and give everything a quick glance to be sure it's in working order. Since they hadn't been doing that at this particular location, we're going to take it in to the Saturn dealership at Regency. I hope THEY will do their job... |
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