HELLOOOO SUBARU!

Throughout last week, over the weekend, and into this week, I began research into a car that was -- absolutely obsessive. I poured over websites and articles, often reading each more than once. Of course, I printed out and rehashed them all with Lauren -- the lucky lady that she is. I went over:

• Pros & cons of leasing
• Pros & cons of buying
• How to negotiate a lease
• How to negotiate a purchase
• Confessions of a Car Salesman
• Confessions of an Auto Finance Manager
• Loan Calculators
• True Market Value vs. MSRP vs. Invoice
• Lease Calculators
• New vs. Used vs. Lease
• Comparisons
• Consumer Reports
• Edmunds
• Motor Trend
• Reviews
• Ratings
• Trims
• Specs

And finally, TEST DRIVES! (I almost lost my internet allowance for this one!) Anyway, we test drove the Hyundai Santa Fe on Monday and the Subaru Forester on Tuesday. We drove the Forester home that night! That's right, folks, we're the proud new lessors of a 2010 Subaru Forester 2.5x Premium! Despite our excitement, we've only actually driven it home from the dealership.

On Wednesday, I threw my neck out...there was no driving for me. On Thursday, Lauren was sick and stayed home from work. I took the Accent in because my neck was still very sore and stiff. So that awesome new vehicle has been parked in front of the house just begging to be driven. I'm sure we'll get there soon. In the meantime...it looks great and I can't wait to drive it again!

RIP Accord

Nine years, 130,000 miles and LOTS of moving me and all my stuff around over the years finally took its toll on Brian's car. It was acting up last Wednesday. Diagnosis: a bad ignition coil. We picked it up from the shop on Thursday and had to take it back that same night because the problems had gotten worse (how the repair people failed to notice this is beyond me). By Friday we were told that the alternator and transmission were also shot. So now we have a choice: pay a ton to fix it or dive head first into the foreign world of car shopping.

Car shopping is SCARY! And slightly depressing since we hadn't really anticipated having to buy a new car in the near future. Luckily, we still have my Accent. And luckily Brian's mom is off for the summer, Brian's grandpop rarely drives now, and my parents are coming out soon to fly to New Mexico, so there are plenty of borrowable vehicles to go around if we need one. (Watch out though, we may trade yours in for something fabulous!) And super-luckily, Brian and I can still carpool to work, so we're in pretty good shape. Hopefully our ability to wait out a good deal will make us indispensible to car salespeople and we'll get something good within our price range. Or we'll win the lottery and after a long stint traveling the world we'll buy everyone new BMWs and call it a day. Whichever.

Oh yeah...Blogs need...writing

So it's occurred to me that we haven't posted anything since our mouse. Yet so much has happened! Lauren and I were in a movie...I've advanced in my lawn-care techniques...there's been some excitement on our street...and...the cats remain slightly special.

I'll be updating in much more detail shortly, but for now, we're finishing up with The Wire. We've been using Netflix to go back and watch the series in its entirety. Let me just say: Best Series Ever. Certainly most realistic cop/law show since...Cops? If you've never heard of Omar Little...you need to rent some of these episodes!

PS: I caught one mouse in a trap. Another died in an old tennis shoe of mine that I had been using to mow the lawn -- yeah, I found him when I put my foot in the shoe.