those of you who talk with us frequently (or read my facebook status updates) probably know that kyle and i have been in the market for a new car.

kyle's poor car has been struggling lately, and we've come to the conclusion that we'd rather sell it while we can maybe get some money for it than drive it into the ground. which means, we've been car shopping!

and while we have time, so to speak, in finding a new car, we also have felt a little bit of pressure. i mean, the tires on kyle's car will need to be replaced soon, and we think the muffler might be needing some fixin' as well. if we were going to get a new car, we wanted to do it before having to dump more money into kyle's car.

it's been 3 years since i've been car shopping, and 3 years prior to that since the last time i car shopped for me. i've come to the conclusion that car shopping has gotten really tricky!

first, we've been trying to find a car that will fit our budget yet be reliable. no small feat, that's for certain, especially since we are prone to honda civic's. any reasonably priced honda civic with low miles gets snatched up before you can even call to check if it's still there! we've been trying to find a car that we can take a loan on but that won't cause to us to pay to fix it while paying to own it.

second, we would love to avoid going to a dealership, but we've recently discovered the challenges that come with buying older used cars. most banks won't finance an auto loan if the car is older than 2002 or if the loan amount is less than $7,500. you can get financing through a dealership, but dealerships tend to inflate the price of used vehicles to the point where they are out of our price range. hence lies the conundrum: how do we afford a vehicle that most banks won't finance when we can't afford to pay for the car outright?


but booyah! it appears we have dominated the used car dilemma and come out victorious!
(i say appears, because we will find the official word on monday morning)

last night while i was doing more used car research, i decided to search private party instead of dealerships. now, i've had considerable luck with my private party purchases - the 3 cars i've bought private party have been great for me, and in hindsight i've realized how trusting i was of the person selling the car.

last night i found online and called on a 1999 honda civic ex, white, automatic transmission, with only 75,000 miles on it that was right in our price range. this is basically the same car that my parents own and it has been a wonderful car for them for the last 10 years. we scheduled a time this morning to come test drive it, at 10:00 a.m. i know it's an older car, but the mileage is great, and most cars in that price range come with 95,000 - 110,000 miles, so this seemed like a great deal. plus, david (the man selling it) posted a link to his own full detailed carfax history report. it's been in 3 minor accidents, but they were all rear end accidents and he said the repairs were mostly cosmetic in nature.

we got there this morning and checked out the car. besides the low mileage, it's in *amazing* condition for a 10 year old car! it only has a few scratches on it, the interior is immaculate, and the engine runs so quiet that you hardly know it's on. he had a binder with all his maintenance and repair history receipts from a nearby honda dealership, which he showed us. considering his honesty in the vehicle's past repairs, the pre-paid for carfax report, and just the way that the couple interacted with us in general, it seemed like a wonderful deal.

and then we found out that he had someone else coming to look at it at 3:00. yikes!

as much as we loved the car, we still didn't have financing for it, and there was no way that we could come up with that amount of money overnight. so we got home at 10:45, and i started doing some searching. i was pointed towards a credit union, which would be the most likely bank to provide financing on older used cars, provided that you have good credit history. so i ended up driving around to two credit unions before i found one that would finance this car.

the lovely woman at vantage credit union told me that she'd send the application in and we'd find out on monday morning. i asked her to cross her fingers for us that the car didn't sell over the weekend, since he had someone looking at it at 3; at which point she said that she could run the application for me now and at least see if any glaring problems arose. she actually stayed to help me a half hour after the bank closed to do this! how wonderful!

and the best part? we are pre-approved!! and with the best apr that we could get on this kind of car, without a cosigner! and the monthly payments are beautifully within our price range (and actually less than i was expecting)! amazing - it's like we're becoming adults! *grin*

so giddy with excitement, i tore over to kyle's starbucks where he was working to deliver the good news. he was also really excited, so we called david back and asked if he would take a cash deposit to hold the car for us until we a. were able to bring the car in to our mechanics to check it out and b. got the final word on the financing on monday. he was very willing to hold the car for us, so i stopped by the bank and then ran back over to his house to give him the deposit! and now i'm looking at a motor vehicle bill of sale for our upcoming intended purchase.

if it all works out like we hope, we could finalize the deal on monday evening! how wonderful, and unexpected!

so that's the latest. if you are a pray-er, we'd love prayers that the financing works out, that our mechanics approve of the car, and of course that my car continues to be accommodating. *grin* and once it's all official, i'll be posting pictures of our new beauty.

yay!

literally.  i think whoever first said that was thinking about st louis when he said it, cuz it doesn't just rain here.

it's pretty rare, actually to have a day of gentle rain (in my 2 years experience of living here).  it's either sunny, or it's downpouring, complete with thunder and lightning.  st louis is actually kind of funny in that way - it's such an extreme city.  i mean, really, where else can you experience an earthquake, tornado, the worst winter in 15 years, and a hurricane (yes, hurricane gustav was still rated as a hurricane when it struck our fair city), all within one year? 

but that's besides the point.  this isn't really a blog about the weather.  it's a blog about our cat. 

our little scaredy-cat luther.  he's so funny, because he's really just a big wuss.  calvin is usually the first one to run up and check something out, and luther will hang back until he sees that calvin doesn't die.  but the first alarm after he moves up, he scampers out of the room like his tail is on fire.

and when it comes to thunderstorms, he literally crawls under the bed and refuses to get out. 

if he can't get to our bed, he will wait by our bedroom door and meow in the most pathetic sad voice a kitty has ever had.  and as he runs around trying to get to the bed, his body is low to the ground which clearly demonstrates his terror, and his tail hangs down close to his body. plus his eyes are always wide open and his pupils are super dilated. and i think it's funny.

like this:

see how calvin's tail is up in the air?  luther's tail is usually up high and proud as well in a question mark shape.  but not this morning, my dear friends.  not this morning.

look at how he's all crouched up!  poor funny kitty...

and finally.  safe haven at last.

my delight at how he acts when he is afraid concerns me.  am i going to be a horrible mother who laughs in the face of her child's fear?  or is it different when it's a cat?  

i don't know.  i just don't know.

but here's a video of luther freaking out. sorry that it's so dark, but you can usually at least make out outlines of luther.  if you turn the sound up, you can hear the thunder in the background and me laughing at him. 

*sigh*

 

there's just something about country music.  

so this was a really productive weekend!

friday night, kyle and i were going to have a date night, and i suggested that we head out to st charles (which is one of my favorite areas in/around st louis - it's so cute, and reminds me alot of grand rapids!).  i wanted to check out the trailhead of the katy trail, so i would know where to park and start running on saturday morning, and i thought we could use the excuse to hit up the trailhead brewing company.  oh, the delicious beer!

so kyle was down with that idea, and after dinner, we headed out to st charles.  once we were about 1 1/2 miles from our exit, we saw that the right lane, the lane we needed to be in for our exit, was completely stopped.  so we skirted around, exited elsewhere and turned around, having no idea what we were getting into! 

turns out st charles was celebrating their annual festival of the little hills!  that explained the crazy traffic backup, and instead of taking 5 minutes to figure out where the trailhead was and parking and everything, it was more like 30 minutes to weave our way around cars and people to sort it all out. 

it was alot of fun just to walk around and see all the little booths set up, people selling some crazy things.  and the beer was delicious, of course, and extra good when coupled with a heath candy ice cream pie!  totally worth the drive, right there!

saturday morning, i was up at quarter to 6 so i could get ready for my long run.  my friend becka joined me and we headed back out to st charles and started our 12 mile run.  becka was a rock star - prior to this, she had never run more than 4 miles at one time, but she did great!  and it was so much fun to have someone to talk to and enjoy the beautiful day with.  it was about 65 degrees and sunny, and a wonderful atmosphere to be running 2 hours and 40 minutes in!  we had a great time.  i think she needs to sign up for the half marathon and run it with me - if she could handle 12 miles (and in some ways, handled it better than i did), she's all set for a half marathon!  just think about it, becka...  *grin*

all in all, it was a very encouraging run.  i'm pretty sure we ended up going 12.2 or 12.3 miles, in 2:40:25!  that's basically a 13 minute mile, which would mean i would finish the half marathon in about 2 hours and 50 minutes.  right on track! i do think i'm pretty much ready for the half marathon, but on the other hand, i'm glad i don't have to run that far again for 3 more weeks.  if i had to run 13.1 miles next week, i think i would be a little more concerned.  but i'm happy.

i spent about 3 hours after the run resting, showering, recuperating, and napping.  after that, i started working on my dress (see previous post for pictures).  while i did that, kyle did alot of work clearing off the upstairs and downstairs desks so we could switch them out, and he got a friend to help him move the desks around.  the living room looks much better now - cleaner and more organized.

yesterday, kyle and i had to play at church, and i was in a fair amount of pain sunday morning.  oh, the hip.  stupid stupid hip.  but the more that i walked around and moved, the better i felt, and today i feel just fine!  and then yesterday afternoon, i worked on the dress alot until i could actually put it on, take the pictures and post them on my blog.  so i feel like i did alot this weekend!

i did realize that i forgot to post one picture of my unfinished dress.  so here it is now:

this is what it looks like if you fold all the seams together - just a nice square!  i think the problem with the back is due to the fact that two of the sides are shorter than the others, and i sewed the front of the dress on a longer side instead of a shorter side.  oh well.  i'll figure something out.

 

last weekend, i set out to do an 11 mile run.  thinking it would be fun to run to kyle’s work in time for him to bring me home from his job, I mapped out an 11 mile run.  here's what I wanted to do:

 

 

sure, it’s hilly.  sure, it’s very hilly.  if you can't see it well, there's about 100 foot elevation gain from the center to the top of that chart, and 100 foot elevation decrease from the center to the bottom.  but I thought I might just be crazy enough to pull it off.

 

morning of the 11 miler, and I overslept.  that's 1 strike against me there.  checked the weather forecast, and it was already in the 80’s.  and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.  2 strikes.  yikes!

 

Still thinking I could get it done, and with kyle’s agreement that he would wait for me at his work until I got there, i got on the road around 9:15.  and it was hot!!

 

the first mile wasn’t horrible, but by the end of mile 2, i felt like I had suddenly contracted asthma or something.  that hill at the end of mille 2 was a killer.  and I had to walk a long time to recover from that.  after getting  over the small hill in mile 2, I was beat and ended up walking a lot of the flat section of mile 3.  I think it was then that I knew I was doomed.  I had signed up for too much, I wasn’t going to be able to finish.  strike 3.  kat was out.

 

I pushed my way through to 8.  here’s what I actually ended up doing (although I walked the last 1.5 miles, I think). 

 

and then I felt like crap for the rest of the day.

 

that is a crappy, crappy feeling.  this was only the second time I had set out to run a distance and not been able to finish.  thankfully, it was only the first time on a long run (the other time was on a midweek 4 miler), but I had a lot of self-doubts after that.  I mean, if I was struggling at 2 miles, how was I ever going to finish a half marathon?

 

fortunately I have some lovely, lovely people in my life who helped talk some sense into me.  after all, the half marathon won’t be nearly that hilly.  A gradual uphill climb is better than up, down, up, down.  the uphills wear me out, and the downhills are just as wearing because I’m either running faster than normal which is tiring, or I’m trying to slow my body down from the normal course that gravity wants me to take.  either way, not my favorite thing.

 

also, in the grand scheme of things, if you had asked me 4 months ago if I thought I could do a 6.5 or 8 mile run in 85-90 degree heat with the sun baking down on me, I would’ve said absolutely no way.  so that’s really a huge accomplishment, right?

 

*note:  i do not write all this so you, my faithful readers, can start patting me on the back. that'll come later.  i just felt like i needed to write out my thought processes on what a weird emotional week this has been, all because I couldn’t finish my long run for the week.

 

and as kel says, i ran the prior week’s 10 miles really well.  and if i can run 10 miles, i can run a half marathon.  sure, i’ll be feeling some serious pain at the end, but i could still do it.  so i’m trying to focus on the good things here.

 

that's how i can make punny jokes like my title.  get it?  it's like the one that got away?  yuk yuk.

 

i actually had an awesome 5 mile run on tuesday (again, I never would’ve thought I could say I enjoyed a run so much!), and so tomorrow, I intend to take on the furthest distance I’ll be running prior to september 13: 12 miles.

 

but I’m excited.  I have a running buddy, which tends to keep me more motivated.  I also discovered the katy trail, which is a rail trail that extends 225 miles across the state of missouri.  It’s a beautiful thing, because here is the elevation chart for the area we will be running tomorrow:

 

 

 

we’ll start in st charles and turn around at greens bottom.  and in between, we will fight and struggle our way up that 3 foot elevation gain.  I’m hopeful that the flatness will help boost my confidence, and enable a better run.

 

and for those who are interested, click here for the elevation chart for the half marathon.

 

so if you see me on Sunday, expect to see me limiping around with my silly inflexible half-hip that gives me pain on long-run distances.  and if you see me smiling despite the limp, give me a pat on the back please. 

 

(here is where I am asking for that back pat.  unashamedly, too. *grin*)