Less than two weeks...

OK, these last two weeks have been a little crazy. How to explain it all? As they say, pictures are worth a thousand words...

CRN	Subject	Course	Section	Course Title	Campus	Final Grade	Attempted	Earned	GPA Hours	Quality Points
12761	PE	103	591	Aerobic Fitness	Florissant Valley	A	1.000	1.000	1.000	4.00
12571	PE	131	463	Fitness Center II	Forest Park	A	1.000	1.000	1.000	4.00
11388	REL	100	650	Real Estate Sales Procedures	Meramec	A	4.000	4.000	4.000	16.00

OK, it's a bit braggy to paste in my grades. But I'm particularly proud of the phys ed classes because I really am trying to work out more and get healthier. Plus, for the aerobic fitness class, I sucked at sit-ups, so I was really worried about that one... But it's just grist for the mill, baby, fodder for the... whatever. I really improved my time on a one-mile walk in the 8 weeks of that course, so now I just gotta do sit-ups, that's all there is to it. And truth be told, I'm at least somewhat proud of the RE grade. I mean, that little puppy represents a significant time commitment, let me tell you. Probably wouldn't have taken the class, if I had know ahead of time. Besides, I've been wanting to do something RE related for years, especially after I was less than 100% thrilled with the last agent I dealt with. So it's a little bit of attaining a goal in that regard.





That brings us to: My very first vest. It was supposed to be a sweater, but the pattern was wrong. I know enough about knitting to figure out that it was wrong, but not enough to figure out how to fix the mistake. So I improvised.

I almost gave it to my friend Elyssa, as she has a 2 year old, but she said, no, she thought it was special and we should keep it (or so she said :-) ). Brian was nearby when I had that conversation with her, and I found out later he held his breath waiting for her response, because he really likes it for our future child. I just didn't like the idea of holding on to something for 3-4 years, 'cause that's probably how long it's going to take for that little vest to get used...




This next picture carries two meanings. First, that's Gally-boy in the car. We're on the way home from the vet, having just found out he's going to need surgery on a tendon that's making him limp. Fortunately, nothing particularly complicated and well worth the investment for his health, both short-term and long-term.

But next, can you see how crumpled up the rear door is, and a little bit over the rear wheel? The front door is dented, too, but not nearly as much. That's how my car looked after I got hit by a lady that ran a red. She says I ran the red. The police report says either one of us may have run the red. Thankfully, no one was hurt. Really, if it had been front to back rather than a t-bone, it would have been more of a fender-bender. Witnesses, if any, were unavailable, at the time the report was written.

The car insurance totaled it. I bought this car with inheritance money from my dad. It may sound silly, but I've always thought dad bought the car for me, and I cried this weekend for maybe the fifth or sixth time in my entire relationship with Brian at the thought of losing it. I didn't know I was so attached to that little car, but we've just been through a lot, that little car and me - we even took a trip around 14 or 15 states, can't remember exactly. Just me, the car, and my dog.

We're still deciding whether to buy the car back from the insurance company and try to repair it, or just take the total amount and apply it to a new car. The votes from friends and colleagues have come in about evenly split. Noticeably, the 2 most financially solvent people I know - my mom and my friend Ed - say to repair the car. I had put a note on the car three years ago to pay off credit card debt and had made the last payment about 2 and half months ago. Go figure. So that makes it really hard to stomach the idea of a brand new car payment. And who wants to buy a new car right before they have a kid or two, so they can urp and burp all over it?

In any case, these are some that we're looking at:

TOYOTA MATRIX



Or possibly a MAZDA 5...




I can't photo-shop it right, but imagine my little gray car up there, with a few of the dings beaten out, enough so it's drivable. Because we're considering that, too, for sure.

Of course, my sleep stuff is acting up, my usual response to stress. That's why I'm blogging at 2:34 in the a.m. More's been going on - my division was getting down-sized, so my job was on the line, but now it's not. And other things. But I'm going to try to get some rest now.