socks, cars

Today's lesson: Always carry a sock-in-progress. We lost power in our building at work today and I sat around for half an hour while we waited for them to get us back on line. I could have been working on a sock!

Last night I did my second short-row heel ever. I think it looks good with this sock. I don't exactly know how it will fit--guess I'll have to work on the foot tonight so I can try it on and see.

Today's projected high of 87 degrees turned into 93 with a heat index of 101. Naturally this was the day I'd made an appointment to look at cars.

I drove a Malibu Maxx home. No, I didn't buy it on the spot, I'm just seeing if the Ts will fit into it. Here's the Edmunds review on it: http://www.edmunds.com/chevrolet/malibumaxx/2006/review.html I liked driving it--it's "agile," as they say, good pick-up, nice ride. And lots of goodies. I have two reservations: whether the Ts will fit in and whether my knees will deal with getting in and out of a car, rather than a higher-up van. It's also got more mileage than the Ford Freestar (see below) , almost 50k. So I asked if I could bring it home overnight, see if the Ts fit, read the owner's manual, play around with it a little bit.

The other thing I'm looking at is a 2004 Ford Freestar van. It's a nice light/mid-green sorta sage color, 30k miles, and has many of the things I'm looking for--rear heat/air, traction control, tilt, cruise, CD. It's bigger than my van, taller and longer both. It's got captains chairs instead of a middle bench seat, but maybe I could work around that. The 3rd row seat is stow-and-go, which I love, and there are metal thingies you could really secure a crate to so you wouldn't have to worry about it sliding around. You sit up higher in the Ford--even higher than my van, I think--the sound system is better than the Maxx, and I could keep my GSD VAN plates. And of course there's lots of cargo space (and it has lots of neat little cubbies). But it doesn't drive as well--the brakes were way soft and the pick-up was sluggish--I'd think two or three times before I tried to pass on a two-lane road (yes, we still have them around here). I think they're going to let me bring it home when I take the Maxx back.

Yeah, both of them cost more than I wanted--I'd be looking at 6 years of car payments (I don't want to tell you how old I'll be when the thing's paid off). But at this point, I'm about resigned to it. There were a couple of things that are more in my original range--one was a Taurus SE, which definitely doesn't have T-room, and the other was a Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo, which I like the looks of, but I bet it's a gas hog extraordinaire.

I told her I would decide by the end of the week. At least I don't feel as desperate as I did with the other van--I guess the feeling is if I have to buy something new I might as well get something I really like.

I'm going to be so poor for the next 6 years. *sigh*