Sick, Car Shopping, Depressed and Celebrating a Birthday!
Right in the middle of these crazy six weeks, our family was super sick. I was first to be sick, vomiting and.... well, let's just say I spent a lot of time in the bathroom. It was awful. I stayed in bed for two days drinking Gatorade and ginger ale. After I was better, my six year old son started... I was up all night with him, shoving a bucket under him every 15 minutes or so. No sleep for me. The following night it was my two year old son's turn... and another night of no sleep for me. For the next five days, my two year old would be fine one night and sick the next. When he was finally well, my eight year old daughter was the last to be sick. For two weeks, this awful sickness swept through the family but thankfully never made it to my hubby. He was able to avoid us and go to work!!
Before we were sick, we spent the first two weeks of February car shopping. Not what we wanted to do... however, my dear sweet hubby was in a car accident. He was fine, maybe just a little whiplash the next day, but overall perfectly fine. It was a simple fender bender. One driver cut off a line of cars resulting in the chain of cars slamming on their brakes and my husband just couldn't stop in time. The car he hit had one tiny scratch on the bumper, so we didn't think it was a big deal. We have excellent, full coverage insurance so we figured our car would go to the shop, we would get a rental while it was being fixed and then all would be well. In the end, our car was totaled. Basically, since the car was 13 years old, it would have cost more to repair it than it was worth. Yikes!
Oh man, this was not the news we wanted to hear. What were we going to do? We are not in a good credit position since we have been struggling with my income loss and possible home foreclosure. Financing a car was going to be difficult. The small amount of money we were getting from the insurance company wasn't enough to find something reliable with low mileage from a private party. Neither my husband nor myself are mechanically inclined, so buying an old, used car that could break down was a scary thought.
Of course, I was praying that God would send the right car our way. I searched online, in the paper, had family and friends looking, but what we found just didn't make us comfortable. We went to a few dealerships and left more depressed than before. Searching for a car consumed every spare moment we had each day for two weeks. Until finally, we found someone willing to work with us.
We were able to find a 2011 Toyota Corolla. Super cute, clean, a little high on the mileage, but the main thing was that we found a dealership that was willing to help us buy this car. When everyone else said no, they told us that they would make it work. It was a great commuter car getting great gas mileage which was on the top of our priority list since my hubby drives 100 miles a day for work. Since the car that was totaled was a 13 year old car, we worried it would break down at any time. Although it was not an ideal time to shop for a car, a newer more reliable car sounded fantastic!!
I was incredibly happy our car search was over..... until......
(stay tuned for part 2!)
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