Two People, One Story

We still haven't bought the car. They said the loan process needs to be accepted by our preferred credit union before they can agree to the terms of our counter offer. Travis has been driving the Mazda for a few days now in the event that he needs to return it. That means I've been driving his truck. Which gives me hives. That things is SOOOO tall. I couldn't tell you what's behind me. I have to do a lot of parallel parking in my day, so it's been a rough few days.

I'm too busy to write much, so I will leave you with this enchanting video titled "Splitscreen: A Love Story".

Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths on Vimeo.

BRAND NEW

Here's the wall as of yesterday:

The white wall on the left is painted with primer. The gray wall on the right has been primed and covered with stucco. I'm bummed that we can't paint the stucco for a month, but we'll survive. There's lots to do still besides paint the wall.

This is going to be repetitive for my Facebook friends, but here you go anyway...

The car dealer we've been working with was not at the dealership last night. Without him, they accepted part of our counter-offer. They said we could take home the car we would like to buy if our dealer accepts the other portion of our counter-offer. Travis is going to call him today to see what he thinks. If all is well, then he's going to go ahead with buying it tonight.

2011 Mazda CX-7
Pearl exterior, black and tan interior

No turbo engine means less pick up at acceleration, but much better gas mileage (20/28 mpg!)

It looks like our total payments (between the car note and insurance) will be an extra $20/month. BUT. We only have to put $500 down (instead of $700 for four new tires on the Murano) and we should pay off enough in 3 years to get a new car IF we want to. I love this car so much more than the 2008 Black Cherry version. I love that there is no way it has been in any car accidents. I love that everything is new and fully functional - no stains, no smells, no scratches, no dents. Oh and it has tinted windows and a nicer sound system. Both were items Travis was going to request in the 2008.

I've got my fingers crossed for tonight. That said, I won't cry myself to sleep if we don't get it. Although I have a good feeling we'll get it for what we want. Ugh, I hate buying a new car!!

On the Fence

As of right now, I still don't know if we are going to get that Mazda. Although, we should know by tonight. Travis went up to talk money last night and we weren't too happy with their offers. They are offering $2000 less than the NADA recommends for a lower quality Murano. I am aware we've had some problems with the Murano in the past, but as far as I know, there's nothing currently wrong with it aside from the fact that it needs new tires. And those don't cost $2000.

We still have the Mazda, so Travis is taking it up there tonight with a counter-offer. If they don't accept, then we're going to decline. If that's the case, then we'll probably wait until we get our tax refund next year to put down on a new car. I'm in no hurry at this point, so it's not a big deal.

I really like the Mazda though. My biggest problem with their offer is that it would put us under for even longer. I like this car, but I would like a bigger vehicle in a few years. We wouldn't be able to get out of this car for 5 years and that's too long for me. If we wait until next year, then I might aim at getting the CX-9. It's pretty much identical to the CX-7, but it has third row seating.

My foot is doing much better today. There is only a bit of swelling right around the bite.

Things are moving fairly swiftly for me at work. I start in the new lab on Monday, but I will be coming back periodically to do work for my "old" boss, aka The Boss Man. I've been busy with training and getting signatures approving my training and that will continue for the next year probably. I'm only making the first steps now. I'm looking forward to a change of venue and daily tasks, but I will miss my old lab. I really get along with The Boss Man and I know how this lab works. The new boss seems really nice, so hopefully that lab will be just as awesome.

I keep meaning to take a photo of the wall progress, but I haven't yet. We need to buy a gallon of primer paint, which I am planning to get tonight. Travis has stucco up on about a third of the wall. I think he's getting pretty good at it!

Yeager Farm

Saturday afternoon, I hobbled over to the Yeager's house, along with my husband and son. Luke turned 2 on Friday, so they had a party to celebrate. Linsey went all out this year and arranged for a petting zoo to be set up in her backyard, along with a pony for rides. Aiden was not interested one bit in riding the horse. He did enjoy going in to see the animals in the petting zoo though. He especially enjoyed harassing the animals as they were carted off in their cages. We had to tell him more than once NOT to bang on those poor animals cages. UGH.

After food and fun, we headed into the AC for presents! The Ramby's were there:


Our friend Katie even came to take photos of the entire event with her new professional lens:

Alexey, Nadya and Kate came to see the fun as well:

All the kids watched on as Luke opened his loot. You can just barely see Luke in the middle of all the gifts. The girl standing to the left is Katie's daughter.

After seeing some of Luke's gifts, I want to head back to the store to get Aiden a couple of items. But then again, I don't want to spoil the kid TOO much. I mean, we barely have room to store the toys he already has!

We stuck around for a few minutes to help pick up some trash, but then we had to get to the dealership. I love getting a new car. I do not love talking with car dealers. I think I would have preferred to stay the rest of the night at the Yeager's!

We keep making changes...

Last Wednesday Travis was working on the wall again and I mowed the lawn. It has rained enough lately the grass decided it would start growing again, and our yard was much overdue for a trim. It has been neglected lately due to all the work on this wall. While mowing the lawn, I came across two fire ant hills. The first I didn't notice until I was coming back to pass it. That was about the time I felt the first bite. By the time I could dig under the tongue of my shoe to smash the little bugger, he got me again.

I used to have severe reactions to fire ant bites. I finally went to the doctor at one point and she said I have hypersensitivity to the bites, which means that my reaction gets stronger each time I get bit. Oh and there was nothing she could do to treat it. I just had to wait it out. But after I had Aiden, my allergy seemed to have gone away. Aiden turned 2 July first. Between the time I had Aiden and now, I have been bit by a fire ant three times. And I never had a severe reaction. Until this past week, that is.

The bite itself swelled into a welt that night. Thursday morning, after my walk into work, half my ankle had swollen and after my walk back to my car after work, the rest of my foot swelled up. Friday was the worst of it. It was so swollen that I couldn't put my foot flat on the ground. It felt like it would burst with the pressure of it. This is what it looked like Friday night (with a little petechial hemorrhaging around the bite):

Every day the swelling seems to go down a little more. It gets worse when I walk a lot or when I'm in the heat for too long. Today the top of my foot and ankle are still swollen, but at least I can pull my foot up now. I haven't been able to bend my ankle for four days! Oh and I can wear shoes again.

To top it all off, I misused some crutches on Friday and severely bruised my underarms. Who does that?! The muscles in my shoulders were so sore on Saturday and Sunday. So stupid.

Saturday afternoon during Aiden's nap, Travis started looking through AutoTrader. In case you don't know, that's a website for advertising vehicles for sale. We were planning to start looking for a replacement for the Murano in December, but there are several things that need to be done on the car. Since it would be annoying to drop $1500 into a car that we are planning to get rid of in a few months, we decided to look into getting a new car now. The four main points for us are lower payments, certified pre-owned, large trunk space and NO BLACK INTERIOR. We live in southeast Texas. What was I thinking purchasing an all black car?!

We had one car in mind when we went to the dealership, but we decided to look at a couple other cars. We looked at a Mazda CX-7, Ford Edge and Ford Explorer. The Mazda CX-7 won. We liked it better on the inside and it comes with some perks being a certified, pre-owned foreign car from that dealership. (Like free oil changes for life!) The problem was it was 8:30 at night and we had Aiden with us. He was delirious since it was 30 minutes after his bedtime. I told the dealer that we would come back Monday to deal with the financial side of things. That's when he offered to let us take it home for the weekend while they keep the Murano for appraisal.

I said sure! Why not?! So here it is:

2008 Mazda CX-7 Sport

Black cherry exterior, black and tan interior

Turbo charged 4 cylinder with AWD

Seats 5, large storage space, good gas mileage and in our price range!

While we were talking to the dealer Saturday night, we let Aiden roam free in the cars. It helped corral him so we could focus more on our conversation with the dealer. Now Aiden things the car is a jungle gym.


It doesn't have all the bells and whistles that the Murano has, but I need to let go of that. Lower payments = less fancy buttons and switches. It also has less leg room in the back seat, but after we get another car seat back there (maybe in the next year?) it won't really matter. We're hoping to get at least three years out of this car before we need to upgrade to a larger vehicle. By that point, we should have two loans paid off and will be able to afford a nicer SUV.




Auntie Ariel is coming up tonight to hang out with Aiden at home while we head to the dealership to talk money and do a little haggling. I think it will be a lot easier to negotiate a few items this time since it's not imperative that we get rid of the Murano today. We have eight months to find a good deal. Crossing my fingers that they don't figure out what a piece of crap that Murano really is.

Lazy Time

I've been feeling a little drained from this whole flip-flop job situation, so I haven't been up for much. As of today, my salary is covered through August. Whenever September comes around, the highest bidder wins as far as I'm concerned. I really prefer to be in control of my life and this whole not-knowing-who-or-where-I'll-be-working-next-month thing is taking it's toll. Looks like it'll be another month of not knowing.

Due to my lack of enthusiasm at the moment, I spent a lot of time watching movies this weekend. Sunday, we left Aiden with the sitter and met Ariel and Robert for dinner at Chili's. After dinner we saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. I'm a huge Potter fan, so of course I recommend it.

Throughout the rest of the weekend, I watched movies when I had time. Those films include: Eat Pray Love, Prince of Persia and Did You Hear About The Morgans? I was not disappointed with a single one of them. So I guess I recommend them as well!

I watched a portion of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie with Aiden on Monday. He really liked it. I'm hoping this will be our segue into potty training. We have a pirates potty book and corresponding stickers. It would be nice if we could find some way to get him excited about this whole using the potty thing. He's such a stubborn kid. I have a feeling he will fight it all the way to the end. I still haven't pulled the potty back out of the closet, but he has finally started showing some of the signs that he's ready. SOME. He knows when he's got a poopy diaper. Sometimes he'll get me a clean diaper, the wipes and the baby powder. He doesn't claim to be very aware of peeing though.

Maybe I'll pull the potty out again in a couple weeks. We can decorate it with stickers and make a big deal out of it.

A Few Changes

My dad left Wednesday night after we had all gotten home from work. He wanted to drive through the night (less traffic, means better time) so he took a couple naps throughout the day to prepare himself. Ariel, Travis, Aiden and I all waved goodbye as he and Callaway drove off that evening. Aiden started screaming crying as soon as Callaway and Gpa climbed into the car. Callaway sat in the back seat and just stared at us with his tongue lolling out to the side. Travis was upset to see him go, so of course Ariel and I started crying as well. It was all very horrible. ON my birthday. Ugh.

We ordered pizza for dinner and tried to forget about it. In the long run, I know it will be good for us. Hell, it's good for me in the short run. Most of the times when I think about Callaway are the times I had to take care of him: feeding him, him waking me up first thing in the morning to be let out, him knocking Aiden over trying to get in the back door when we get home at night. I also think of him when I see his race tracks in the yard and the dog bombs he's left behind, or when I see the trellis he tore out from under the house, or when I see the crappy flower pots I'm using because he broke our nice ones.

I'm sure this all makes me sound like a complete asshat, but that's the relationship I had with Callaway. Travis is the one who had anything more than that and it makes me sad to think he won't have that. I do get a little sad when Aiden opens the door to the garage when we get home and yells for Callaway. Or when we drive away from the house, Aiden still says, "Bye, Callaway!" Oh that one breaks my heart the most.

I think Callaway will be better off with my dad. As much as Travis loved Callaway, he didn't have much time to spend with him. My dad works from home most days and when he has to go to a job site, he just takes Callaway with him. My brother his home from college for the summer, but when he goes back to school, my dad won't be alone now. He'll have Callaway to take care of, and that makes me feel so much better for the both of them.

The other big thing going on in my life at the moment is my job. My future changes every other day. One day I'm moving to another lab, the next day I'm going to take an administrative position. As of today, I'm staying with my current boss, but getting paid from a different group, meaning my work might change a little. The reason things have been changing so frequently is because everyone has to arrange for funding me, and sometimes it doesn't work out. With less than two weeks until my pay ceases, I am getting more and more anxious about my status. I have confidence that I will have a position here at UTMB come August 1. I just don't know where I'll be.

Travis has spent every other day working on the wall. Most days he doesn't need my help because he can do the stuff himself faster than he can tell me how to do it. I plan to help tonight though, since we'll be putting the plywood up on the other side of the wall. I can always hold up a board without being told how. Travis ran electrical through the wall so we can eventually put up lighting and outlets.

The wall looks great so far. I think our biggest test will be with the finishing touches. If we do a bad job putting on the stucco, then we'll have to stare at it for as long as we live in this house. I really hope this looks as amazing in real life as it does in my head!