Hello Car! Again...

Very excited with my brand new (to me) car!

This post has been a long time coming. 

I literally started writing it over a month ago, which was more than a week after buying my car, but there were a lot of emotions involved in writing this and it took me quite a while. More on that in a little bit.

So for those who didn't see my post in September (writing about what happened in August), basically after 6 months (minus a couple of days) of buying my last car, the engine completely conked out (dangerously, along the highway in a dangerous area, but fortunately we all came out unscathed). It was really, really, really disappointing and frustrating, and I had a lot of guilt about it, which is why it took me a few weeks to write it up. 

I blamed myself for it (something I'm very good at), blamed myself for maybe not being responsible enough, for getting a bad car, for not doing enough research... but fortunately people I care about talked some sense into me, and reassured me that it was not my fault, that it just was a case of bad luck. This had been after months of recurrent leaking near the engine, which was suspected to have been caused by the engine, but there was no way of knowing. So having paid to fix up the car for that, and other various issues, in addition to the money I spent on it... was just a huge bummer. Especially since I'd paid to fix it up some more just a few weeks before it conked out.

My mechanic, who is a sweet guy, at least gave me a refund on the new battery that he'd just replaced. He also helped me find someone to purchase the trashed car for parts. While he could have replaced the engine, it wasn't worth doing in a car that was 15 years old, given that the engine would cost more than half of what I originally paid for the car.

Lastly, I felt a lot of regret that I didn't pay for insurance that would pay for repairs if damaged, or a new car if totaled or stolen. I paid for mandatory insurance which covers injuries to another party, and extra insurance for damages to another vehicle, but not comprehensive insurance. I hadn't gotten around to doing that, because it costs more money and is more complicated to get, and I felt I screwed myself over. However, I found out that it never would have covered an engine dying, only damages in an accident, so I was able to let go of that guilt.

So now, on to the new car.

Yay! Free Books!

I want to apologize for not having posted for far too long. I feel terrible about it, like I've let you down big time. I am going to try to be more on top of posting- I'm chock full of ideas for posts, with many partially written posts, but I need to actually find the time and headspace to write, not to mention having my body not hurt too much to sit up and write.

Anyhow, on top of that, my family and I have been going through a lot lately. We're ok, but it's complicated.

My kids were out of school for a few weeks (they finally all started school again this past week), and while they were home bored, my daughters decided to redo their bedroom, something they've wanted to do since their big brother moved into his bedroom that we built last year. 

Speaking of that, a friend reminded me that I never posted a final post about his room... and the reason I didn't was that I was waiting until it was completely finished, but I still haven't managed to put up his loft bed (my body hurting, lack of time with my sons home to help me while I also had energy, needing to find the right equipment, etc...) so he's been sleeping on a mattress on the floor this past year... But maybe I'll do a nearly final picture even with the mattress on the floor.

In order to redo my daughters' bedroom (pretty much using only what we had in the house already) they needed to get rid of a lot of books that were on their bookshelf. Most of those books were books that they outgrew or that never appealed to them. So we sat down and sorted them into a few piles.

One pile was garbage- broken books, or other bad quality things that just weren't usable anymore.

Another pile was of books we wanted to keep on the shelf.

Another pile was books that no one is reading now, but we (or I) have fond memories of, some of them still from my childhood.

And then the rest went into the giveaway pile.