A Week in The Life of My Honda

This is the story of a car and its girl.

Thursday, February 17th 2011

I drive to Mesa to see my family on a short "vacation" Only to have my car break down on the I-10 and completely short out, with no lights, after dark. Thankfully my awesome parents saved me, my Mom called AAA and my Dad came and picked me up. It was a long night.

Friday, February 18th

We had the car towed to Gunnells Tires in Mesa because Brent has an awesome uncle who takes care of our cars there. Unfortunately after a day of working on the car he was unable to determine the problem...

Saturday, Feb. 19th

Gunnells continues to work on the car, but with all their resources combined, they are still unsure of the problem. By the end of the second day. Still nothin. So they kindly towed my little Honda to Kelly Automotive down the street, where they have an electronics specialist.

Sunday, Feb. 20th

Because I had to start my new job on Monday, my wonderful Mom lent me her car to drive home to Tucson. She is an angel.

Monday, Feb 21st

Orientation at Gadabout goes well, but it has now been 4 days with no word on my car...

Tuesday, Feb 22nd

After trying a bunch of random fixes to see what caused the short in my car Kelly automotive is getting closer to finding the problem... we hope.

Wednesday, Feb. 23rd.

Although they dont know why, Kelly finally got the car working, only to suddenly have one of the windows stop working. They fixed that, sent the car back to Gunnells for new tires and gave it to my mom with instructions that we needed to get an alignment asap. At the gas station, Mom loses the gas cap, but after all her help, who could be mad about something so small? Brent drives back to Mesa to get the car even though he is super stressed with work and school at the time. I love him lots.

Thursday, Feb. 24th

I have my car back! Its been a week, but Its all better now. Or is it? On my way home from work the check engine light comes on! Also a few of the small indicators that there were problems before the break down come back!

Friday, Feb. 25th

First thing in the morning, Brent and I drive to the closest Honda dealership for repairs. I am done not knowing what is wrong here. Lets just get this fixed right already! Hopefully it will be fixed by the end of the day. Right. Later they call me to give me the LIST of what is wrong with my car. Of course I can't afford all of it, so we picked the most important repair and give them the go ahead. This should all be over tomorrow. We'll see.

Saturday, Feb. 26th

Until I call them at 5:30 I dont hear anything. Of course my car is not ready. But it WILL be done for sure on Monday.

Sunday, Feb. 27th.

Just waiting patiently...

Monday, Feb. 28th

When I call Honda at 2:30 the car is not quite done, but they offer to send a car to pick me up so I can get the car when it is ready.

At 5:00 I get a call. One of the parts they put in the car is malfunctioning. Just my luck. Hahaha this is getting ridiculous! Thankfully the nice Honda people sent me to enterprise to get a rental car on them. SO at the end of all this stuff my car is still not fixed! But im driving around in a red Toyota Prius till the time comes that I can get My lovely little Honda back home!

Only in Tucson

Well this is what we woke up to this morning!

I knew it was much more likely that we would get snow here because of the elevation. But seriously, this is Southern Arizona! The most I expected was to see a few flakes and watch them melt on the ground.

To be clear by the time we were up there was no snow in our area, but it covered the mountains! I only saw it as I was leaving to go visiting teaching, so I called Brent and made him go outside in the cold to look at it. We both enjoyed it!

Sadly by the time we were out of church at 4pm the mountains were about 65% brown again. Oh well it was fun while it lasted!

*these pictures were stolen off the internet from people who are well prepared with cameras :)

The Good Book(s)

As you can see with my fancy new design here. I've been feeling very inspired lately. Inspired to read again. Reading has always been one of my favorite hobbies but for a long time I only read a new book when JK Rowling told me to.

This last year however I have read a lot of fun great books! Some were rereads of old favorites but I branched out into some fun new stuff and I've really enjoyed it. Yesterday an old friend and I were talking about how important it is to read good books and she asked what some of my favorites were. Well, Darci, here's your list of my guilty pleasures from this past year:

1. Anything by Agatha Christie- There is a reason she is the most published author of all time.

2. Treasure Island- A true classic I had so much fun reading this book.

3. Crucial Conversations- More along the lines of a self-help book, this is one I pick up whenever I'm feeling frustrated, or like I don't know how to communicate. Its all about how to get through those conversations that are so important to any relationship, be it romantic, work related or otherwise. I have learned a lot about why I feel the way I do and how to see things from other perspectives.

4. The Chronicles of Narnia- What can I say about C.S. Lewis? I love his honesty and his sense of right and wrong.

5. Meeting Amazing Grace- This is a book I would recommend to anyone who is married. It is a fictional story with very distinct lessons about setting boundaries and coming through for the people who need us. It deals with the relationships we have with our in-laws.

6. Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover- Well about 90% of my family read this book this year and we all jumped on the bandwagon together. A very motivational book with great factoids and tips about making your money work for you and steps to getting out of debt.

7. I also reread 1-5 of the Harry Potter books. I actually got bored with number 5 though and never finished it. Amazingly enough, Harry is really annoying to me after about a million pages of him.

8. Just finished reading Jurassic Park- I was suprised when my Mom recommended this book to me. But I really enjoyed it! It was exciting, scary and surprisingly philosophical.

9. The Little Prince- This is a bad movie, but a delightful book! I was impressed at how profound this book is for being less than 200 pages.

10. Alice In Wonderland- You can see now that I have a thing for children's classics, but I want to make sure my kids get to read the best books when they are young and this is one of them. Yes its got a creepy factor to it, but Lewis Carroll is great at the genre of Literary Nonsense (yeah apparently it's a real thing).

In all this excitement I finally decided to go get myself a library card and I checked out a book I haven't read for a long time. Enders Game. I'm really excited to live through this one again!

My top 5

Today I want to use this lovely little blog to talk about my

Top 5 Most Annoying Things People Do On Facebook

I'd put this on Facebook but I'd undoubtedly have friends on there who would see this and know I was talking about them. SO here we go:

5. Constantly complaining about life or constantly bragging about life. Im happy if you're happy, but stop trying to appear perfect.

4. Posting way artsy pictures of themselves. Come on people, we know you want to look cute but you don't live in a magazine!

3. Posting new pregnancy pictures every day and at like 6 weeks along! You don't look pregnant yet, take a chill pill.

2.Posting ugly pictures of other people, specifically me.

1. Dear inanimate object, I have something to say about you, and I think it's clever to post it as if I were writing you a letter. Although its over done and really annoying.

I must add to this list that I am probably guilty of at least one or more of these offensive habits. I apologize. Also, I thought it would be good to add a list of things I really like on FB so you would all realize that I'm not just bitter and cold hearted.

5. I love it when people who I never get to see wish me a Happy Birthday.

4. I am grateful for people, namely my sister Ashley who continues to post family pictures and tags me in them so I dont have to.

3. I love looking through other peoples pictures, wedding, baby, engagement, or just fun stuff. Its a fun way to catch up with old friends.

2. I love people who post quality videos for my enjoyment so I can pass them along

1. I love seeing that often my life is not all that different for better or worse than everyone else's.

Working Girl

Well I am super excited to have a second interview at the top salon in Tucson, Gadabout. I hope it goes well.

Even more exciting is the fact that now that I have a steady job, I'm bringing in money again! And way more money than I ever made at Tantrum. gotta say, I don't hate that place, but I really don't miss it either.

I really wanted to not be working at this point. I fully planned on being 8 months pregnant by now, but I am seeing the blessings we have and I am grateful for them.

I am grateful that we won't have to be dependant on the government to make ends meet.

I am grateful that at work, I have made even more friends here in Tucson

I am grateful that I am not at home watching netflix all day

I am grateful that working again has given me more confidence and self assurance than I've had in a long time.

Basically, I've just had another witness that the Lord's plan is the best one!