Monday, September 17, 2012

Our New Acquisition...

To say it's been crazy here in the McNeely-Lesperance household would be an understatement. This past week was just another typical day in our out of control life.

On Thursday, I woke up to a pleasant happening in the bank account. The deposit for this academic periods stipend disbursement had arrived 2 days earlier than I had thought it would. So I call Tanya and ask her to come get me so I can go get an NC ID card. While we are at the DMV I get a call from Jimmy saying he's coming home after putting in over 3,000 miles in just 4 days. 3,000 miles in 4 days? Yep, that's right. He went out on Sunday evening and is back Thursday afternoon. OK COOL!

We pick him up, and by this time my tummy is telling me it's time for food, so off we go to get something for a late lunch. After lunch, we decide we are going to go see if we can find a car to buy. You all know we haven't had a car for over 2 years and have had to rely on someone else (mostly Tanya) to cart us any place we needed or wanted to go (or we rented a car, which got real expensive REAL FAST). Jimmy knows of this place where he's pretty sure we can get approved. Anyone with less than perfect credit can understand what I'm saying here... most large dealerships won't even talk to you if you have any type of credit issues. Off we go to the other side of Fayetteville to this car lot where they have every type of vehicle imaginable. I'm looking at some of these and thinking to myself only a midget would be able to drive this thing comfortably. Thank Goddess they had cars that were full sized as well, LOL!

We walk the lot while talking to our salesman and find one we think we might be interested in...so did another couple. And they were there before us so they got first *dibs*. We look at it anyway and decide to go inside, sit down and see what else they may have available. While we are inside, the other salesperson brings the keys to the vehicle in question and tells us the other couple didn't have all their ducks in a row (didn't have all the documentation that was required) so the vehicle was still available. It was a 03 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo. In the meantime, we have all the documents the dealership needs to get us financed and into a car. We take the Jeep for a test drive and find there is a problem with the airbag safety sensor. Not a huge problem, but it will need to be fixed. And since it's 6 PM by now, the electrician isn't working any longer, I give them a deposit and go home for the night. With a promise, they will call tomorrow (Friday) and let us know what's going on.

Friday comes, they call and tell us it's going to be a few days before the Jeep will be fixed. And we can't have it until it is fixed because this could be a real safety issue. To say I'm upset would be an understatement, I'm pissed. My plans for the weekend have fallen apart by now and I'm having to work through something I wasn't in any way prepared to deal with. Our salesman calls us back and asks us to come in on Saturday to sign all the paperwork, in case Jimmy is out on the road when the car is ready I can go over and take delivery of it. We agree and I spend the rest of Friday pouting.

Saturday afternoon, Tanya is off at 3 PM and off we go to the dealership to sign the papers for the Jeep. However, when we get there, Jimmy sees a car that wasn't on the lot when we were there on Thursday. He goes over and looks at it, finds it is the SAME price as the Jeep and as he's walking towards the door, our salesman comes out and Jimmy says we may have changed our minds. The salesman is good with that, hooks the new choice up for a test drive, (ya know that special dealership license plate and all that jazz), hands Jimmy the keys and off we go...

This one drives like a dream, it's WAY more comfortable than the Jeep, is a year newer (it's a 04) and after spending about 30 mins driving it on both surface streets and the expressway, we go back to the dealership and decide this is the car for us. BTW, we didn't find any issues with this car, nothing that would postpone delivery. Our salesman is ready for us, he has the paperwork already begun and we finalize the transaction.

We are now the proud owners of a 2004 Isuzu Ascender! (When Jimmy & I began talking about buying another car, I told him I wanted an SUV of some type).

It has seating for 7, with removable third-row seating, the middle seats fold down out of the way, the back cargo area is huge, the AC blows icicles, the stereo is banging and it drives like a dream! It gets about 22MPG on the highway, not the best, but it certainly is better than some. We went right away and bought a car seat for Miss Ravyn so if I want to go someplace while I have her, I don't have to worry about not having her car seat from her Mommy's car. I drove it to Raleigh on Sunday and couldn't have been happier. And it used just a little under half a tank of gas for the round trip from Hope Mills to Raleigh and back.



After not having a car for such a long time and not driving anywhere for over 2 years, I was a bit worried about getting behind the wheel. But as my oh so very wise husband says: It's just like riding a bicycle, you never forget... and he's right. When I first got behind the wheel here in the yard, I was apprehensive, but by the time I got onto the highway going to Raleigh, I was very comfortable.



I've saged it and added a vehicle protection spell. The only thing missing is the protection talisman I had for our Taurus. I need to make another one to hang from the mirror. You will have to take my word for this unless you've been in my shoes... I now have such a sense of peace and absolutely feel I've been liberated. This is going to make it much easier to take those little day trips we used to love to go on, and going to visit MD will be so much easier and more frequent too. I'm more than excited to have our own transportation once again and all I gotta say is look out North Carolina, Vickie has her wheels back!