Happy New Year

Happy New Year, everyone!

Quite the exhausting, yet exhilarating time of the year. As it approaches, I feel all sorts of overwhelmed and lazy when I think about the work I have to do, and then I’m so happy when everything looks pretty in my apartment, and my food tastes awesome, and we’re all having a great time. And let’s not forget the feeling when you actually give someone a successful gift. So now, it’s all behind us until next year.

And for a couple of reasons, even though I was tired from all my Christmas fun, I decided to finally buy a new car. For those of you who know what I’ve been driving the past several years, please take a seat and stop clapping. I loved my Mazda 3 Hatchback, even with its faded topcoat, until I didn’t. I have to admit, once I moved to my new apartment, it was a tad embarrassing parking that car amongst all the new SUVs and sports cars. And then little things started happening that were annoying the crap out of me such as the sun visor no longer returned to its full position, the seatbelt no longer retracted properly, the “door is open” warning was pretty much on all the time. You know, things like that which just keep adding up until you say, “F this, it’s about time I got a new car.” And so it began.

I knew what I wanted and my ex-husband, Michael, and one of my sons came with me the first day. We spent 4 hours looking and test-driving vehicles. I was a wreck because I’ve been scooting around town in a car where it didn’t matter if you rode gently into a pole. But now, this was getting serious. When I decided on the model I wanted and they brought the color I chose out for me to see, I saw Michael's face light up with wonder. The vehicle was so new, it still had the protective plastic and some padding on it and when he looked under the hood and saw how amazingly clean and new everything was, he said in his whole automotive career, he had never seen that. Kudos to Michael, because I was the one who was getting the car and he was the one who was clearly more excited. That right there is a good heart.

I couldn’t test drive this one since they had to finish unpacking it and setting it up, so we went back the next day. My son wisely chose to stay home and it was a good thing because we were there another 4 ½ hours. And this is why I hold onto my cars until the cars themselves beg me to let them go. Buying a car is horrible. I wanted to be excited, I wanted to have fun, I wanted to smile and jump up and down, but my goodness. Every last drop was drained out of me through the haggle process, the salespeople fakery, and the millions of questions I had about the millions of buttons and features presented before me. I swear it’s going to take me until next Christmas to learn everything.

But I am excited now and I’m also intimidated, but eventually that will pass. I’m trying not to park at the very end of my grocery store parking lot because eventually we all know, there will be that first “darn it” ding. When I’m driving and not trying to figure out how to shut off or turn on a feature, I wonder if my new wheels make me look sexy or wealthy (Ha!)

In any event, I’m now riding in style and if you want to know what I bought, hit me up. If not, I’m sure I’ll run into you on the streets (relax, only figuratively).

Hope this year holds wonderful things for all of us and stay tuned for more blogging.