Kia, Alaska, and Buick Oh My!

June, what a month this has been for us. It has been crazy in many, many good ways and crazy in...well...sort of bad days. I have written many times about our lovely car, our Kia. Oh, what a joy this car has been for us. In the short time that we have had this car, we have had plastic melted on it (driven off the lot like this), we have had a sliding door get stuck open (and due to the dealership's unwillingness to come tow it though it was only a few months old, we had to drive it down the freeway with said door stuck open in a HUGE rainstorm to said dealership), had to have all door handles replaced, and many, MANY more issues.

The latest is simply an unacceptable issue when you live in the area of Houston...our air went out. Now, it went out several months ago, but it took a while for them to diagnose this latest issue in the ever growing list of problems. Diagnosis? Well, something to do with the condenser and a hose or whatever....I stopped listening when they quoted $1000+. It should be noted that they originally quoted about $350 stating that seemed to be the average cost of most cars with this problem....not so with Kia, though.

Now, the Kia is almost to 100,000 miles and the ultimate thing would be to trade it in, but we are still a bit upside down on it...this particular model has practically no resale value. So, the wiser thing to do would be to hang on to it until we can pay it down and than trade it in, but the resounding opinion of most was NOT to put $1000 in repair on this car.

For 12 years, almost exactly, Matt wrecked out 2nd car ("technically" his fault and only insured with liability). This was when we went down to 1 salary and it wasn't much of a salary at that. So, for 12 years, we have had only one car. We have not made the wisest of decisions in this respect, but it is what it is and I have been a taxi driver. For 12 years, I have taken Matt to work, done errands around town, picked Matt up from work. I have had to revolve everything around him and his schedule, often cooking dinner in the morning hours just so I could not run into issues with when he gets off interrupt the cooking. My menu for each week has to be planned accordingly, which has been quite a stress. His work is between 20-30 minutes away and often he would say he would be ready at 5:30, but then I sit in the parking lot for 20 minutes waiting. It's crazy.

So, with this latest a/c issue, my in-laws, graciously, offered to give us the second car they had just acquired from Matt's grandmother. OH MY...this is an INCREDIBLE blessing in so many ways. Matt can drive the van to work and back...I can drive the car where I need to go (mainly in my small world I stay in within 5 miles of my house). I mean....WOW!! It did not take us long...ok, we did pray on it for a few days...but we accepted this generous gift. And, my father-in-law being the type of guy he is, offered to drive it to us from North Carolina to Texas because he knew how stressed Matt was at his job. He drove it in....he cleaned it, had it inspected, oil change, and title and than flew back to North Carolina. In my garage right now, there it sits...our second car. It's a 2001 Buick Century and it is wonderful. Today, Matt drove himself to work...and I didn't take him!! Today, I got in my car and drove around to get some errands done...tonight I will make dinner at my leisure.

It has been our life for 12 years and it has worked. It has been stressful...church Wednesday nights has been one of the worst...dinner, Matt's work, and getting there....Oh, the scheduling issues!!! No more!! We will save tons of money on gas (the van is a GAS GUZZLER), save loads of time (mostly mine), save loads of stress on Matt (trying to get out earlier than he really needs just to pacify me and my own duties), and many more benefits.

So, what about Alaska?? Well, I may just have to blog about that another time. BUT, I will say that while the majority of this was going on, Sierra was in Alaska. In fact, she missed seeing her grandpa because she was in Alaska having the time of her life. Oh yeah, I must blog about this at a later time!!