After living all week with only one car, and officially getting rid of the Saturn on Thursday, we went and picked up the new Mazda3 yesterday!
It is glorious. It still has not really sunk in that it’s really ours. It’s weird to ride in it, and it’s weird to see Michael driving it. It’ll take some adjusting, that’s for sure! We’ll have plenty of time to get used to it when we get home from Florida. Until then, it’ll be here waiting for us.
A few snaps of our new ride:
We love it!
On Monday, Michael went to the gym, and when he came out, his car wouldn’t start. Undoubtedly a pain in the ass, but we’ve actually been anticipating this for the last two years.
You see, Michael’s car is OLD. Really old. And when you own a 1996 Saturn with 132,000+ miles on it, you expect that at some point, it’s going to crap out.
Our main reason for not replacing it before now was simply that we were enjoying having no car payments. We both work only a handful of miles away from home, so Michael was really only driving his car to/from work and the gym. For longer trips, we always took my car. We were planning to milk the Saturn as long as possible, and if all went well, we’d purchase a new car in August or early September, just before the baby is born. Well, that day came a little earlier than we were hoping, but again, it wasn’t really unexpected.
The thing is, we actually could’ve paid to get the car running again–it turned out that the problems weren’t even THAT major; it would’ve cost about $180 to fix. However, given that we were planning to replace it in a few months anyway, we discovered that we’d hit the point where it was no longer worth the trouble. Plus, we’ve been looking at Mazdas as a replacement, and as we recently learned, Mazda is offering 0% APR on their loans right now.
On Tuesday night, we shopped around at a couple of different Mazda dealers, figured out exactly what we wanted, and went home to sleep on it. On Wednesday morning, we e-mailed the dealer with the best price, and attempted to negotiate even further. We reached a deal, and during our lunch break, we went and signed the papers. A brand new Mazda was ours for the taking. We just had to wait for it to come in, since they didn’t have our exact model/color on the lot. Booooo.
On Thursday morning, before work, we drove over to the shop to take care of the Saturn and wash our hands of it. Initially, we wanted to donate it to Kidney Cars, but the shop was going to charge us for the towing (which we expected), as well as labor for what they had to do to diagnose the problem (not expected). Since we didn’t want to spend a single cent on a car that we were planning to trash, we decided to take up the shop owner on his offer to waive the towing and labor costs, and give us $50 cash. It was the path of least resistance and didn’t involve us shelling out money for a junker car, so we went with it.
We cleaned out the Saturn and enjoyed a last few laughs at its expense. Now that we were ridding ourselves of it, we could officially admit what a piece of shit it is. I mean, you KNOW you’ve driven your car into the ground when you willingly walk away with nothing to show for it except a $50 bill. HA!
Still, it was the end of an era. Michael has been driving this car since the end of our freshman year in college in the summer of 2001. We’ve been together for eight years, and he has driven it for our entire relationship. It was pretty weird to know we were “saying goodbye” to it, but we were certainly more than ready to do so.
But not without snapping a few last photos, of course!
Next to the dumpster, right where it belongs! It actually looks pretty decent from this angle, doesn’t it? Well, that’s because Saturns are made of PLASTIC. Believe me, this car was a hunk of junk.
Obama ’08, baby.
The driver’s side, with its broken, hanging sideview mirror. In December, a deer ran into the side of the car while Michael was driving it and broke the mirror (the only damage). We had trouble finding a replacement, so, well, it just never got fixed. GHETTO, I know. But oh, how it makes me laugh.
Michael, showing off our “profit” from finally selling this piece of crap. Have I mentioned that the Saturn is most likely flat as a pancake by now?
Goodbye, Saturn. Despite your obvious physical flaws, you were pretty good to us. Thanks for saving us from years of car payments!
We had our anatomy scan ultrasound this morning. It was so cool to get to see the baby in so much detail. Everything is looking perfect with our healthy baby!
Baby was moving around a lot–bending and straightening legs, waving arms, touching his/her face, etc. The neatest thing was probably seeing all of the bones in the spine and all of the ribs–wow! The heart looks healthy with all four chambers, and was beating at 154 bpm. We also got to take a look at the brain, as well as the bladder, kidneys, and umbilical cord. The tech was also able to count fingers and toes; thankfully, baby appears to have 10 of each. :)
Overall, baby was measuring exactly on target in terms of size, so it seems that he/she is growing perfectly in there! I think the head might’ve been measuring just a couple of days ahead; makes sense, though–gotta accommodate that big brain and all!
We stayed strong and made it out of there with our “Team Green” status intact. I was getting a little nervous when she kept poking around baby’s lower half from different angles, trying to get good pictures and measurements of the legs. I didn’t see any boy parts, but that certainly doesn’t mean they weren’t there.
In fact, at one point, the tech told us that she was getting a good picture of baby’s chin and nose, and I could not for the life of me see what she was seeing. Just had to trust her on that one! So clearly we are not ultrasound experts. :)
We got some video clips of baby moving around, but they’re all really short. Instead, I’ll share the screen grabs. I went in and labeled the key body parts so it’s easier to tell what you’re looking at. I knew that when I e-mailed the pics to our family, some of them wouldn’t be able to tell without a little help! Check it out:
Baby was showing off his/her guns! ;)
Showed off his/her cute little chicken legs, too!
Last weekend, my mom and I went shopping and I scored a bunch of maternity clothes. Thanks to all who left comments and suggestions last week! I found a few things at a bunch of different places–Target, Kohls, Motherhood, Sears, and H&M. The only problem now is that I still feel funny wearing most of them. I wore one of my maternity shirts to work this week and I felt like it was still a bit too big and not flattering at all. *sigh* Soooo my wardrobe remains pretty limited. I do have a few cute summer things that I’m excited to wear on vacation, though!
I don’t think the bump has grown much from last week:
18.5 Weeks Pregnant
One thing that hit me today is that it’s getting kind of depressing to look at a lot of my old clothes. When I was gathering laundry to do tonight, I found a pair of my regular work pants crumpled up at the bottom of the closet and it made me sad to look at them! As happy as I am to be growing a baby and seeing my stomach get rounder and rounder as a result, it’s still just a strange transition. I guess I never really thought about how odd it would feel to have your whole body change shape.
Who would’ve expected pregnancy to be so life-altering? ;)
Still feeling really good. The baby is the size of a sweet potato this week, and I’m feeling it kick more than ever. I’ve been feeling him/her more during the day now, not just at night. But he/she is definitely most active once I get into bed. A cool milestone this week was that we started to be able to feel the kicks from the outside! I thought that wouldn’t happen for several more weeks, but I was lying in bed earlier this week and the kicks felt so strong that I couldn’t imagine NOT being able to feel them on the outside. I put my hand on my belly and the next time he/she kicked, sure enough, I could feel it on the inside AND the outside! At first I thought I was fooling myself, but I had Michael put his hand there and he felt it, too. Awww, Daddy feeling the baby for the very first time. :) So amazing.
The big distraction this week was that we had to buy a new car! We were planning to do it before baby anyway, but when Michael’s car wouldn’t start on Monday night, our timing for purchase was moved up a little bit. No big deal, we were only trying to squeak out a few more months without car payments. But now Michael has a nice, safe, family-appropriate car. We get to pick it up tomorrow… I’ll post about it more this weekend.
Tomorrow is a big day–it’s the BIG ultrasound! It’s not so “big” for us because we’re not finding out the sex, but we’re still really looking forward to seeing the baby in the morning. If all continues to go well with the pregnancy, this will likely be the last time we get to see him/her until birth! It’s crazy to think about. I’ll admit that the past week or so, I’ve developed a serious curiosity about whether the little one is a boy or a girl. It’s weird to think that we could know tomorrow, you know? I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t tempting, but we know it’ll be fun to keep it as a surprise and we’re committed to remaining “Team Green.” After all, September will be here before we know it. Ultrasound pics to come tomorrow, assuming we get some good ones!
That’s it for now. Next week’s belly pic will be coming to you from Florida! We leave for our trip this weekend. Life has been busy lately, and with the extra running around the car has caused us this week, I am more than ready for a vacation. Wish us luck for on-time, drama-free, uneventful travel!
Today is Tessa’s 4-year anniversary with us. April 21 is “Tessa Day.”
Four years ago, we brought a 3.8-lb. puppy into our home and she changed our lives forever!
I can’t handle the cuteness of the pose. This is when she was still known as “Little Red.”
She and I spent the first afternoon getting to know each other, but it was like we had an instant bond. She knew I was going to be her mama, and truthfully, favored me from the very beginning.
Coming home to a new family is exhausting!
(I nearly died when she first rolled over in my lap and slept like this. SO. CUTE.)
The first few weeks with her were rough. We were actually really lucky because aside from the very first night, she started sleeping through the night immediately. Can’t ask for much more than that! But when we had to go back to work after that first weekend, we’d come home to a puppy who was completely energized and would NOT. LIE. DOWN. until she completely wore herself out just before bed. Also, we had to watch her like a hawk because even though she was pretty good, she could pee on the floor at any moment. Ahh… I do not miss the days of potty training.
But look at how little and adorable she was! As big of a pain as she was, I was in love.
The other thing she would do that was super annoying was that she would attack my pant legs. I couldn’t put on pants. I couldn’t take off pants. I couldn’t walk down the hallway. Not without her biting at my legs. I could’ve kicked her into the next county, it was so frustrating.
But we stuck it out. Through the potty training. Through the ankle-biting. Through the exhaustion from trying to keep up with her.
There were a lot of nights like this. After playing with her, desperately trying to wear her out, I would eventually “force” her to lie down with me, and well, a mama-puppy dual nap would result. THANK GOD.
Things got better. She grew older. She stopped attacking my pant legs. She got the hang of potty training. And although she loved us unconditionally from the very beginning, we learned to love her unconditionally, too.
Today, we look back and can’t believe that it has been four years. We look back and can’t believe it’s ONLY been four years. We look back and can’t quite remember what our lives were like before her.
Happy Anniversary, Tessa girl.
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
