TP Pet Peeve

I found this picture on Google images while searching for pictures of arrays for a fourth grade computer lab activity that I am cooking up. It made me chuckle and reminded me of full out wars that we used to have at my house growing up. I found it on some site called treehugger.com. I guess that it was on this site because it helps conserve toilet paper or something like that.

People putting the toilet paper on the wrong way has always been a pet peeve of mine. I'm thinking about posting this picture above the toilet paper roll at my parents house just to prove a point. I know I'm weird, but does anyone else feel this way??


Have you ever had an argument over the direction of the toilet paper?

Rainy Day Car Shopping

With my car suddenly going kaput, we needed another vehicle to get me to work ASAP. Luckily, the art teacher at my school lives like 3 houses down from us so it was easy for me to hitch a ride with her to and from work all week. I usually stay quite a bit later than her and arrive a little earlier than her so it made it an interesting week, but I was EXTREMELY grateful to have a way to get to work.

Doug had been thinking about trading in his 2004 Civic Hybrid because it wasn't as good for his new commute that involves more high speed interstate travel rather than the stop and go traffic of his last commute. My commute IS stop and go traffic so we decided get a new car for him to drive and I would drive his "old" one.

It's never the best condition to have to buy a car when you ABSOLUTELY need it, but this was our situation. Friday after school was out, Doug picked me up and we started right away visiting dealerships all around the DC metro area. We were looking for a sedan/coupe that cost under $12K, had around 50K miles, was newer than a 2004, and was preferably a Honda or Toyota. (Doug also wanted to get a manual transmission...) We knew that it would be quite the challenge to find such a vehicle, but we weren't going to settle unless such a car did not exist.

It's been pouring down a depressing, very cold, yucky rain since Thursday, so we were the only people out looking for cars. We visited some pretty interesting places from hits that we found on autotrader.com and cars.com. Whenever we got there, the cars that we were interested in were either gone already or hadn't been taken care of. We didn't even get the chance to haggle on a car because they all stunk. They even sat us down to talk to The Manager who asked us, "What can we do to get you into a car today?" It was pretty annoying and exhausting at the same time. We left the last used car place at 9:00pm Friday night and headed home pretty discouraged.

We started early this morning hoping to have better luck at a Honda Certified Dealership up in Maryland where my parents had bought their Odyssey a few years back. We were a little skeptical because these places usually run more expensive. When we arrived, they actually had already sold the two cars that we had come to see, but we decided to stick around and test drive some anyways.

We test drove a 2007 Honda Accord SE first, but Doug wanted to try out a 5 speed. We got into another 2007 Accord that was a 5 speed, but it had some burn marks in the back seat and was more expensive. The last car we test drove was a very low mileage 2008 Honda Civic SI Coupe (2 door) that was a 5 speed. Doug LOVED driving it. I liked the first Accord, but Doug really liked the Civic. Both had their sell points...

The salesman that we worked with was much better than the others that we had encountered the previous day. He was up front with us and supported our decisions. He didn't try to push us up on the price tag by showing us cars outside of our preferred range. He was just a nice guy AND he listened. He left us for a while so we could discuss the decision privately.

I felt really bad as the wife to have to ground Doug, aka Mr. Practical, with practicality because I wanted him to be able to get the fun car. Kids or no kids, Doug drags around a bunch of stuff in his car and it would be hard to get to the back seat without 4 doors. In the end, Doug agreed with me and we decided that the 2007 Accord would be the best buy for our family.

Well, here's our new car... well, at least it's new to us.


2007 Honda Accord SE

RIP 1999 Honda Accord

Honda Accord, 10 years of age with 180k miles, died October 13, 2009, of transmission complications.

Honda joined our small family of two in the early spring of 2004 from the Brent Brown Dealership in Provo, Utah. Bought in the early days of our relationship, you were our first big financial decision made together. We toiled several hours after finding you wondering if you would be the right one for our family. After many tears, prayers, and a co-signing from my dad, you were finally ours.

The night before we took you home, we sat at the dealership in your leather seats and contemplated the big decision we were making. We were worried about the monthly car/insurance payments we would need to make on top of our rent and tuition payments as poor college students. But, we were also tickled at the thought of taking you home and gaining independence from The Bus. No more grocery trips in the roommate's car, no more bus rides to the movie theater for a date, and maybe.. just maybe, a trip to Squaw Peak to "see the stars of Provo".

We've been through good times and bad times... speeding tickets, cross country road trips (5 to be exact), and many many hours of commuting. I've spent many hours at your wheel thinking about life in general. Many important life changing decisions have been made as I have pondered at your wheel while driving the 45 minutes to and from work every day. You have been a good car.

Honda is survived by owners Doug and Jenny and a younger, more spry Honda Civic Hybrid sibling that hopefully has a lot more life in it.

Honda, you will be missed... but remembered fondly around tax season as we submit your donation to a charitable foundation as a tax deduction.

Columbus Day Weekend

Doug and I basically did nothing this long Columbus Day weekend, but it was nice to just have an extended amount of time together. Saturday, we met my parents at Five Guys to celebrate Doug's graduating from school. We saw a lot of friends that we haven't seen in a while that are in my parents' stake and it was nice to catch up. It was also nice to have a big double patty bacon cheeseburger (on my dad's tab) as a graduation present for Doug. Yes, Doug graduated from his training for work... finally! He was second in his class and I'm really proud of him for all of his hard work! Unfortunately for me, this doesn't quite mean that he's finished with his apartment. He now has some on the job training until December... but the end is in sight.

As you've read in previous blog posts, I've been having some car troubles. Last night Doug was loading up HIS car so he would be ready the next morning to leave for work. When he was unlocking the car, he happened to notice that the locks were kind of slow coming up. He got in his car to start it and his battery was DEAD. We jumped it with my car and took a late trip to Walmart in his car to buy a battery and installed it right there in the parking lot. (Walmart parking lots at night are scary places.) I had called my parents earlier to let them know that we might need a car if it was a more serious issue, but it turned out that it was only the battery. As I was hanging up the phone with them, I let them know that they might want to be on alert if something went wrong in the morning and we needed a last minute extra vehicle.

Fast forward to this morning... Doug car started up without an issue and he was on his way at around 5:45am. I was ready and out the door by about 6:15am. My car started up just fine and I headed out of the development. Just as I was pulling out of the development, my car decided to rev the engine, but not actually move forward. (I'm pretty sure this has something to do with the transmission.) The guy behind me, decided to start honking his horn at me and made me feel really bad. I was able to pull out of the neighborhood and turn around in the Squircle to head back. (I wrote about the Squircle here.) I pulled my car into the garage and called my family to have Chris take me to work. I was not going to take chances and be on the side of the road again.

My little brother, once again, needed to take me to work. I got there only 5 minutes after my students were in the door and had a nice day for the most part. The art teacher at my school lives a couple houses down from me and was willing to bring me home today. We left right at 3:00pm, yes that is about 5 hours earlier than I usually leave! All of my teammates were standing in the hallway in absolute shock as I walked out the building! :) I got a name and number of a mechanic in my town from my home teacher who happens to be located RIGHT next to my neighborhood. I was able to drop it off around 4:00pm and walk the short distance home. I'm just waiting on the call to see what in the heck is wrong with my car.

I'm hoping it's not too expensive of a fix!