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Tatteredleaf

January 2023

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The long hunt for his car is over. Meet No Name, my son's new car! (he does not name things). As is so typical, all the cars I've been researching had one thing or another wrong, were overpriced, too many miles, or the dealer was so shady as to have F ratings with the BBB. Finally I randomly plunked 'used ford focus fort worth' and voila, a listing for Bankston Ford came up--a dealer? So far, I'd only seen overpriced cars at dealers. This one happened to be right near the house and on the way home, so I took a look at it--and it said "2002 Ford Focus Sedan" - but the picture was a two-door hatchback.

So, I called and a salesman named Walter came on and said he hadn't seen the car, it'd come in that night but he would check re: the discrepancy. He called me back and said it was actually a bright blue, and was still available...and had some really nice sporty features. I said we'd be there by 6:15.

Ran home, got the son, grabbed checkbook, and we headed back. As we walked in we thought we saw it--a really clean blue Focus with nicely-tinted windows (love that look), spiffy alloy wheels, and I already knew that it had a super-nice audio system with a six-cd changer in it. Kelly's eyes lit up...and the price was right too, 3999.

Finally, a 'too good to be true' car was NOT too good to be true. We did all the paperwork, his name will be on the title, I wrote my check and they happily cleaned out my checking account lol, and it'll be ready sometime tomorrow. YAY!! They hadn't had a chance to detail it, do an oil change etc. Oh nice things--NEW tires, and really nice ones too, and inspection and registration not due until next year.





Check out the wheels...


Perfect for an 18-year-old boy, I think. Yes? :)
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So, I put this one twitter too...

I have 4k (plus TTL), I have an 18-year-old son. I need to buy him a car with said 4k, and I'd prefer to get a good 4-5 years out of it...

Suggestions? And...know anyone who has a good used car they want to sell for cash outright?

Yo! Let me know!

In other news...I am a very happy person today! Just because! I am! Smile.
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I hate cars. I really do. They are expensive to run, maintain and with a teenage son, insure. My daughter has just about completely taken over the responsibility of her car, but that doesn't lessen my worry and responsibility (making sure she gets the oil etc. changed, takes care of the tires, etc.). And now I have to add another, for my son. He will be helping--has no choice there--but the bottom line is we need to get him a car, which makes THREE cars I have to fret over.

My credit is 'good' but low-good, should be able to snag a loan easily enough. But, loan on his car means full coverage, which means higher premiums. Alternative is to give him my car, but uh, I don't think so. I don't want ANYONE to drive my car ever again. Something always happens to it! It is banged up right now because of his fender bender that only hurt my car, not the other guy's. Sigh.

So, onward I must go to find a car for no more than 5k, that doesn't have a trillion miles on it, that won't break down completely before it is paid off, and won't saddle me with a huge payment. I can afford around 150 tops, so of course anything I find will be more than that.

I wish I could win one, or someone would just say HEY! I got a spare, take mine! (dreaming).

I hate cars.

Been down alot lately--not sure why, probably mostly the single-parent, I-can't-do-enough thing. The post-seeing-Nick thing. I'll deal, no choice yes? Trying to shake it all off though it isn't that easy. But at least I am writing again! I've got three big writing projects going, and will start keeping track of the word counts soon. One of them is my Loose-Id fic. Yeah, remember I quit working on it? Well, I am back to it again, at least considering it. I'd written myself into a wall, so it was easy to walk away. I think the answer though is to work out an outline, a map to lead me to the end. I have that for the other two projects, and it does help alot. Just printed it out and will zip through it and see what I can do with it to the end. It would be very helpful to have a sale this summer!

Have a writer's group meeting tomorrow, and our bi-weekly one Wednesday. First meeting of that went off great, even though we ended up talking three hours to a Narcotics officer from Florida--one of our members is a local Narcotics cop herself, so it was a crazy three-hour discussion, whoa. That dude could tell a story, and he told A BUNCH. We were captive, but happily so. Quite a character.

I have not worked at all today, btw. Just haven't felt like it. I think I will keep on with this bad attitude this afternoon and plunk down an outline. :)
Okay I should say that everything IS going to be okay, no one was hurt...but just when life was settling down and I was starting to panic less about being a single mom of two with two in college (ok son not yet, but soon enough), of course Something Else Had to Happen to knock me off that, in the form of my son wrecking the car tonight. Fortunately, he hit a BMW SUV, it was a slick-road-because-of-rain type of accident (braking for a stoplight, on a hill), the BMW didn't have a single mark on it, the driver was nice about it. It happens. Kelly is not a crazy teenage driver believe it or not, and he started to brake, and slippy slid right into the BMW SUV. That thing is a tank! A sensor was knocked out--probably less than 100 to fix it. No problem. Gave him the insurance information and that was that.

But, sigh, my car. Mind you, this poor car has a big KICK ME sign on it or something. It's been hit twice on the passenger side (Nick was in it the second time), a stick took my driver's side mirror out, a recalled computer proved it indeed needed to be recalled (just when my daughter's car was in the shop from being hit), and now this. WHAM! *cries* I love my car and am tired of it being abused! It is a Sport Corolla, navy blue, and is a very nice looking car. I love it. I really do. So I am Very Very Sad it has a boo boo now. A big one. Sigh.

I will look on www.monsterparts.com tomorrow to replace the grill (dealer would probably cost 400 for a 40 dollar part, uh no thanks?), and I'll take it by the guy who did such a lovely job on Tiff's car, and get an estimate for what it would take to straighten the hood back out. I actually popped part of it back into place myself, and don't anticipate it will cost much. It won't open now though (which is okay--better than it not latching at all) so it isn't dangerous to keep driving it. Whew!

So, we'll deal with that part after the trips. Son feels terrible, he prides himself on his good driving, but slippery roads happen everywhere. It happens. I'm calling the insurance company tomorrow and putting full coverage back on my car. Of course, I'd just taken it off. Stupid. Cars oh cars, you eat me alive, but here we have to have them.

Otherwise--everything is great, really. The kids' trips are paid for (Tiff paid for her own), and they're getting way excited. They'll be gone ten days to Italy. The long wait for me to see Nick again is almost over too, and I can't express how much this means to us. I don't talk about it much, and we make it look easy I think, but it is so damn hard being apart all the time, and we have to jump through alot of hoops and plan a heck of a lot to be able to get our barely over a week or so every nine months thereabouts together. It is worth it though, it is worth giving up other things, and make sacrifices in order to spend those magical days together (and see really amazing places too I never, ever thought I would get to see--Berlin! Berlin again! Hamburg! Cardiff! London! and here in the States, San Francisco! Universal Studios in Florida! Austin! San Antonio!).

In order to chill, calm down, and stop myself from screaming, Nick and I watched Shark Attack 3 together. I have to admit for a terrible movie it is so very entertaining. It really is good for lifting the spirits and making one smile when smiling seems elusive. Oh JB, you crazy man, I am glad you did that movie. LOL. The dialogue was horrid, the audio sucked, the special effects? OY! But I laughed, and that's all that mattered.

Sigh--what a night. What a night.
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