New Year's Beginnings...

The good, bad and ugly, continued....

Monday morning was started by meeting with a client. I brought them sample boards of a faux finish I will be doing on the walls of their combined dining room/sitting room area. The finish mimics grasscloth. They loved everything about it, the color, the visual texture, they were very excited, which makes me happy.

R. had some tree work to do and thought he'd have assistance from the homeowner he was doing it for, but the guy had to leave. I got the call for help. I act as the groundsman on his jobs sometimes. This one would be pretty easy, I'd have to lower some limbs when he cuts them. It's kind of cool. He is like a monkey in a tree. This is the first time I was really nervous about him being up there. The way the widow makers (tree lingo for branches dangling from a tree) were up there and where they were and how far out on a branch that looked unstable, made my heart jump. I've seen him up in a 70 foot tree, at the top and it swaying after large branches have been dropped...no problem, but when he's precariously perched with only his rope tethering him to another limb...I get a little nervous. But all was well, we packed up and off we went.

The adventures for the day was to go look at a car an hour away and to bring Lexie to Shelly's. I've been searching for a new car for a few weeks. When I do research, I do it obsessively. If I'm on the computer, which ends up being all the time when researching something, I'm going from website to website looking for the best car for the best deal. Narrowing down which brand and style I want, then finding one that fits certain criteria. I used to just take what I could get but I wanted a white or light blue exterior and a grey interior. The latter being the most important. I don't do well with tan interiors visually, and with dogs....well, need I say more. The only acceptable thing in tan would have been leather.

I wouldn't normally be searching only two years after the last purchase which was this 1997 Subaru Outback,

but that one ended up not being a very good choice. It was a 'I need a car now' type of purchase because it had been a couple months since my car crash and I just needed a vehicle of my own instead of using R's. We've just had to put money into it what feels like every 6 months. Now it has other things going wrong and we made the decision to not continue wasting the money and to buy something else. Something else meant something newer than 10 years old. Totally out of my category of buying cars. Spending more than $5000 on a car is scary shit, but I need reliability and longevity. I finally settled on a Toyota Rav4, 2006-2010. I found a 2006 Sport with sunroof priced $3000+ below market value.

It's very clean inside which is huge for me. It has 55k miles on it, which does not bring it over the national average per year, and I'm comfortable with it. If you've been looking for a car, have you noticed how high mileage is on them and still how much they are priced at??? I soon as I saw this one online, I knew it was the one. The guy selling it was awesome, a little used car place in Williamsburg, MA. All of his vehicles look to be in excellent shape and priced under market value.

So with that decision made, and feeling good about it, we were off. Shelly was expecting me around 2-2:30 and we were running on time. The new dogs that came in have gotten quick interest and one would be leaving, so... I was bringing Lexie there because having an intact male and an in-heat female in my small house does not work. They were crated too much and Rufus was beside himself with desire. Off we went for the hour's drive. I got to meet the rest of the crew that came in and fell in love with Macie.

Her picture does not do her justice. She is petite, cautious and sweeeeet. I wanted to take her with me, but she is in heat, too.

Tandy is Queen B

Lizzy is a cutie pie

and Emmie is still with us and making progress

I had a hard time leaving Lexie, she was so good and so sweet, but maybe it's good so that I don't get too attached. ;-) With that done, we started home -- another hour of driving.

We got a mile away from Shelly's house and the temperature gauge was through the roof hot and the smell of the radiator was coming into the car, plus we had no heat...Yup, the car was over heating, but no steam was coming out from under the hood. We pulled into the Big Y parking lot. We had to wait for the car to cool before opening the radiator cap so we went in and bought some fried chicken parts and anti-freeze and went back out to the car to eat our snack. We were starving from not having any lunch, and truth be told, this was not our smartest choice of foods, it chewed and tasted old and it was way too fried.

When enough time had passed, the radiator was replenished with fluid and off we went, remarking on the good fortune of having just purchased a newer car. Funny how things happen. Although, this car is not dead in the water, it's good to know that the back up will be here in a couple days.