99 Ford Taurus

When it rains…

| cheriarmour

Firstly, my trashy television watching has hit an all-time new low. As I write this, I am watching this horrible, terrible show called ‘Party Down South’, which is like the country version of ‘Jersey Shore’. The clothes are much worse, the accents are much harder to understand, and one episode featured the girls taking their credit cards and going on a shopping spree…at Plato’s Closet. [Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with Plato’s Closet, mind you, but generally when you think “shopping spree” Plato’s isn’t typically what comes to mind, right?]

Dead BatteryI told you guys last week that I rolled out of work one day, only to have to beg a jump off my boss, because my poor car wouldn’t start.

So we replaced the battery blah blah, and I went on my way.

Wellll isn’t it the case with cars, I scheduled an oil change on Saturday morning, and $669 later, yes, you read that correctly, I have spent the weekend without the car, and I will drive off with new brakes, new rotors, and god knows what else.  Also, one of the techs either drove my car around or accidentally dropped something on my hood because I am sporting a nice new dent on the front.

Blah.  I hate car stuff, and I’m really thankful to have Austin to tell me when it’s time to go in, or when he can just fix something himself, but I already am really trying to be a budget person, and it’s really freaking hard when something always seems to crop up and wipe you.

But oh well.  It’s certainly not the worst thing in the world to be without a car on the weekend of the 4th, right?  I swear, in our travels this past weekend, we saw no less than a million people pulled over for goodness knows what, so I’m taking this weekend as a time to save on gas, see what it might be like to share a car, should we ever be in a place where we need to do that, and hang out around the house, where lord KNOWS I have things to be getting done.

And at LEAST it’s not the transmission like it was with my poor old Taurus, right! $669 is WAY better than dealing with a whole new car 🙂

Anyone else having car troubles?  I hope not! 

100 POSTS! ERMAGAHD!

| cheriarmour

I officially had to let go of the Taurus yesterday, btws.

I actually whimpered as the tow truck driver, an actually ridiculously nice man, of Ochoa towing, pulled out from behind the transmission building with my poor car on the back.  I had to go in and retrieve my Barry Manilow tickets from the glove box.  And then I said good bye to the car that took me through high school and beyond.  RIP Taurus.  You served us so exceptionally well.

Taurus

Okay, so to commemorate 100 posts, I have to make public the ridiculous thing that’s been floating around in my head for three years. Almost three years ago, during my first stint working as a Zumba instructor at camp in PA (more on that in the future, but camp is amazing), I was enthralled by Lindsay Birchfield’s blue jacket.  I didn’t know anything about running, about races, about what I was capable of.  The blue jacket was actually a jacket from the Boston Marathon, and I decided then and there, that I would run that race so I could wear that jacket.

My first marathon was slow.  But now that I have my first taste, I want to work a little, no, a lot, harder and qualify for that race.  So what I have to shave over an hour off my marathon time (eek!).  Stranger things have happened right?  So today, I’ll say this.  I’ve done one marathon.  I’m planning one more in the fall, I’ll train a little harder, and get a baseline for where I am.  Once I do that?  We need to get this Boston ball rolling!  Who’s in?

Death of Green Monster

| cheriarmour

Yesterday, my baby decided he wanted to go be with the Lord.

Taurus.

After a rather difficult day yesterday (guess who got another job rejection!) I climbed into the Green Monster to head home. Got going and….my car won’t shift out of first gear?!  So I tried everything.  I talked to him.  I stopped and started him.  And when all was said and done, this Mama was crusin’ down Wade Avenue barely faster than I finished my first marathon.

The Green Monster is now in a medically induced coma down at the transmission shop.  There he sits, waiting for me to decide if his transmission is worth a reboot, or if it’s time to move on, and buy a car that most other grown-ups find acceptable.

At any rate, whatever I decide, if I do decide to let him go to the great junkyard in the sky, Green Monster was…no is….a great guy.

    • My sister crashed him like 10 years ago, and he lived to tell the tale.
    • He came up with me to my first stint in Pennsylvania, where we traveled all about the Northeast, without a care in the world.
    • His AC stopped working a few years ago, but I still accepted him as a family member.  I just rolled around with that 4-60 AC system. 4 windows down, 60 mphs at all times.
    • I used to sleep in the back of that car on my lunch breaks during my internships with the window down juuuuust enough so I wouldn’t suffocate.
    • If you go under the drivers side seat, not only will you find a wide array of quarters, great for any quarter emergency you may find yourself in, but you will find a rainbow of pretzel M&Ms, still good enough to eat.  (I can’t eat a bag without dropping one).

I’m taking the evening to reflect on our time together and to decide whether I think the Green Monster is worth taking for another spin. Buy at any rate, you were a good Green Monster. And thanks to your “death,” I will be running to and from work, until I find someone, not as good, but more alive than you are.