Ramblings

 I've been kind of aimless recently, so to focus myself better, I made a list of goals for the week. It included things from housework, yardwork, paperwork, and personal matters. In addition, it included all of the week's commitments, including appointments and work. It's not a comprehensive list, just something to make progress on things that aren't shouting, "I must be done now!"  I love to cross things off a list, so this should work well for me. I won't bore you with the details of my goals, but one of them was to write at least one blog post this week. So here I am.

Ward's latest puzzle. 

The great thing about a blog post, especially on a blog where you're not trying to make money, is that you can write about anything. Or nothing, which is what I seem to be doing thus far in this post. 😀

We finally have a new car. We're still wading through the insurance paperwork and the paperwork to title it in the trust (we have resigned the papers 3x now), but we have it. However, I'm still a little gun-shy about driving it. That's what happens when you're in a crash, but you gotta do what you gotta do. 

Boy, our life is boring. Or I have a bad memory because I can't think of anything else to write about. Let's see. We continue attending dance class and learning the cha-cha and waltz. We're slowly meeting people there and having a good laugh as we try to copy what the instructor is doing. It was recommended that you get dance shoes that are flexible and have a sole that lets you both slide and stop on the floor. Patches of suede on the soles supposedly accomplish this. However, dance shoes are expensive, so we got little slip-on sleeves that go over our shoes that help accomplish the same thing. For the level that we're on, they work just fine.

There goes my timer (12 minutes today). I have to leave now to see the allergist. We'll discuss whether I need to continue with allergy shots now that we don't have any cats. He once said that it takes a good six months to get rid of most of the cat's dander, even with thorough cleaning. I'd be happy not to have to go for allergy shots all of the time.

I hope you're enjoying some nice spring weather, although I see on the news that much of the western half of the country is having snow. Today, we're having a warm day, and I'm hoping to take advantage of it between my appointment this morning and my work tonight.

Until next time...

This and That

I'm definitely not a morning person, especially if I don't get a good night's sleep, like last night. So everyone in my house has come to an understanding that I'm best left alone this morning as we go about getting ready for our day, a don't-poke-the-bear kind of self-preservation. I just need a little time. But I'm happy to use my waking up time to catch up with all of you and tell you about some of the this and that that has been filling my days.

Yesterday, we bought a new car. A new used car, that is. Ward's car is 10 years old, but has no major problems and we hadn't thought about replacing it. But a friend of Uncle Billy's was selling a newer car that had a lot more of the safety features that we were interested in, so we decided it would be a good thing. The process took all day yesterday. The workers at the DMV were doing their best to be efficient and friendly, but it just takes time to process thousands of people. We now have a shiny "new" car that will be safer for Ward to drive to work every day. I feel fortunate that we were able to do this.

The day before that was a fun day when I had a cookbook party here with friends from work. We all chose a different recipe from the same cookbook, cooked it, and brought it to the party to share. It was a great way to sample several different recipes to see what you thought about them. There was not a dud in the bunch. All delicious. But someone made a comment that I think is even more important. "How nice that you like the people you work with enough to socialize with them outside of work."  I am very fortunate.


Speaking of work, it is going well, however, I am definitely still in the adjusting and learning phase. A couple of people have told me that it will take about a year or longer until I will feel comfortable. I have a ways to go then. Among other things, I am learning about storytimes and am starting to take part in them. Learning and performing them are exhausting me at this point, but I am really enjoying interacting with the kids. Many have said that I am learning under the best children's librarian in our large library system. I am very fortunate in that way.

A couple of weeks ago, Ward and I went to Phil Wiggins concert. Who is that you may say (or not)? Phil is a renown harmonica player who helped develop the Piedmont Blues sound. I have only recently discovered him and am very happy that I did. It turns out that he is married to Jerri, someone I went to school with and recently connected with on Facebook. I was going to meet Jerri at the concert but unfortunately she got sick and couldn't come. But we were fortunate that she hadn't passed her illness to Phil and he did come and give a great concert of music and storytelling.

I am still tired, but I have to move onto other things. I think Ward and Theo have left for the day. How fortunate for them. :)

Until next time...

Car Shopping

There comes a time in every car's life when the repairs cost more than the car is worth. And when it's not safe to drive because you just know the transmission is going to fail at any minute, even though the two different shops you took it to can't seem to repeat the symptoms you're describing to them. Well, that just happened to one of our cars. Thus, we recently went through the dreaded process of shopping for and buying a new car. And during this process, we encountered some of the worst and the best people in the business.

We started to visit dealerships after we had narrowed our choices of what we wanted. At the dealerships, we were approached by a sales person as we walked in the door. I think they take shifts on who is on front-line duty as we were only approached by one person in each place. We saw the cars, asked our questions, and took the person's card because we wanted to honor the time they spent with us since they work on commission.

In between these onsite visits, we registered with Costco and True Car program through our credit union. Dealers have agreed to honor set prices for those participating in these programs.. After your online registration, sale people start contacting you either by email or phone or both. What all this means is that we had several dealers contacting us about buying a car, some we had seen in person, and some we hadn't. Whatever the case was, we tried to honor the first point of contact.

And here's where it gets interesting.  At one dealership, we had only spoken on the phone and exchanged emails with Kevin, so we asked for him when we visited. The person who approached us as our front-line contact said Kevin wasn't there that day and proceeded to wait on us. We listened, took his card, and left. Something didn't feel right, so we sat in the parking lot and called Kevin. And guess what? Kevin was at work that day.

On the other side of town at another dealership, our first contact was in person with a very nice young man, Mike. Later we got a call from Barry, who represented the Costco program there. So when we went back, we weren't sure who to talk to. Barry stepped up and started to work with us. However, do you do you know what Barry did? He called over Mike and showed him how to handle the paper work. Also, Barry said that Mike could have all of the commission on this sale. They were both so nice and such a contrast from our earlier encounter, we wanted to buy a car from each one of them.

But alas, we didn't. And we didn't buy from Kevin or his dishonest co-worker, either. We bought from a third dealership where we dealt with a low pressure, friendly, knowledgeable salesman. Turns out he had the best car and the best deal.

So there you have it. How we got our shiny, new car that doesn't surge every time the transmission changes gears. And how we learned there are a lot of nice, honest people out there, but you have to keep your radar on just in case.