So, here I am. Hello blog.
Since my last post Danny and I have moved into a new apartment and bought a new car. How very adult of us.
I think I will focus on the apartment in another post. Now, I would like to discuss automobiles.
Danny and I had a car full of personality. His name was Mill "Lenny" M. Falcon. We called him Lenny for short. This car lived a long and happy life in the Bakker family. Danny's grandpa bought the car back in 1992. A week ago last Monday, Lenny died while Danny was driving to work. To summarize, the repair was just too expensive to do on a 20 year old car. So we donated Lenny to a charity and bought ourselves a shiny new car.
Here is Lenny being taken away by the charity.
This is our new car. A 2011 Hyundai Sonata named Kenobi
I am in love with that color.
Danny and I had been planning on getting a new car soon anyway. Lenny was to be our second car. Now we still only have one car but, as my family has expressed, they do not worry about us being dependent on this car. By 'us' I mean, Danny having to drive so far to get to work.
Danny and I had a few stressful and emotional days. Stressful because buying a new car is stressful. Period. It was emotional for a few reasons:
1: Danny had this car in his family for a very long time. It is the type of sadness that accompanies something comfortable and familiar not being around anymore. (part of that is true for me too. I knew the car for almost 4 years and it was our first car together)
2: I am crazy and get attached to inanimate objects. Of course calling him Lenny and joking about him having a personality did not help things. I had to remind myself that 'it' was just a car and did not actually have feelings. Hey, I'm just being honest here.
3: There was stress. Stress is an emotion. So I guess stressful and emotional is a bit redundant.
This experience did have some high points. I was able to observe some blessings in our life.
1: Lenny lasted a long time. We did a major repair on the transmission that bought us 2 1/2 more years. He lasted just long enough for us to be in a situation where we could afford a new car. That is what we hoped and prayed for while we were in school.
2: Danny's family giving him the car to begin with.
3: Danny's fantastic coworkers who were so willing to give him rides. Especially the coworker that lives near us and took Danny to and and home from work.
4: My wonderful parental units who drove us to car lots and took me grocery shopping and helped me do research. And Danny's dad who has much car buying knowledge. He gave Danny some good pointers and info.
5: Being able to buy a car on the last day of the month and the last day of a quarter. Because of the timing we were able to get all the financial stuff how we wanted. (Danny was an amazing negotiator!!)
6: The auto-shop that offered to allow Lenny to stay in their lot until arrangements could be made and the Dallas Can Academy that picks up cars in any condition.
And that is that. Everything happened fairly quickly and within a week the old car was gone and the new car has happily taken its place.
In case anyone is curious, we originally intended to get a gently used car but with some discounts and the Sonata not being an expensive car to begin with, we decided to get a new car with only 15 miles on it as opposed to an older one that already has some wear and tear.
We will always remember Lenny. We have some fun stories about him that we figure will be our version of "walking uphill in the snow both ways". Come to think of it, we DID walk uphill in the snow both ways to get to school!
I promise to post apartment pictures soon.
