You know what’s really awesome? Waking up at 7:00am and feeling great. You know what’s even more awesome? Drinking half a pot of coffee over the next three hours and feeling even more great. I love that we gained an hour this morning. I was so tired, I went to bed early last night. I was actually ready to hit the sack by 8:00pm (sad, I know), but I knew that I’d wake up obscenely early if I did that, so I made myself stay up til 10:00pm and worked on some mindless knitting. Then I got up at 7:00am - with the time change, a 10-hour nap! God, it feels great.

Car Updates
My poor car. If you’ll recall, back in June, I had to get my car fixed. The poor thing was overheating. Again. So, I spent $1100 of money I didn’t have to fix the engine. It was fine for a few weeks, but then it started overheating again, ever so slightly. I took it back, and the guys said that unless it got really bad, I should just keep an eye on the coolant levels, and they’d replace the water pump when I brought it in in January to replace the timing belt. Well, it’s gotten bad again. The coolant levels remain fine - there seems to be a small leak somewhere, but it’s minimal, and the system’s maintaining pressure just fine. But the car’s still overheating. I’m terrified that it’s another problem with one of the head gaskets - either the same one they fixed last time, or another one. That shit’s expensive to fix. Especially since I’ve got the timing belt replacement coming up soon. If I have to replace both a head gasket and the timing belt and the water pump, that’s probably at least a $2000-2500 repair right there.

True, you expect maintenance costs on a car, and in general, maintenance costs are better than car payments. But when you start putting $1000-2000+ into the car every 6 months… You begin to wonder if it might not be worth it anymore. Unfortunately, it’s sort of a non-issue for me at the moment, since I can’t afford to buy a new car right now. I don’t have much in savings, I still owe my parents for money they lent me when I was unemployed, and I doubt my credit rating is good enough to take out a substantial car loan. Christmas will be frugal this year, since my group of friends is doing a Secret Santa exchange instead of gifts all-around, but still… Coming up with the money for this repair is going to be hard. Coming up with money for a new car is damn near close to impossible. At least for now.

Ok, so I ended up not writing nearly as much as I had planned to. Again. But… it’s getting late, and there are things to be done today other than sitting in front of the computer and typing mindless slush. So, I’m off to do some grocery shopping and webwork and all that fine jazz that has to happen on the weekends. So, for now, farewell! Do stay tuned - I promise I’ll try to be a better blogger from now on. :)