And not enough time to do it….

I just picked up my first NEW car completely on my OWN CREDIT yesterday. I’m driving a 2005 Ford Focus now…. and I still have the Civic. Turns out the Civic has so much negative equity in it (needs to be paid off – 6400 is the amount I owe on it + there’s about 1500 in repairs that needs to be done) that I actually did better NOT trading it in. Sure my new interest rate is through the roof and my car payment is now MORE than my old one, but my 3% raise kicks in, I don’t have to worry about fixing my old car anymore just to pass emmissions testing, I don’t have to worry about anything else that might break down, or buying new tires and uh…. yeah, that’s it. The Civic is pushing 140,000 and I’ve already had several problems (due to one malfunction that happened back 3 months after I got the car, which has cascaded into several other issues)….so all 8000 worth of problems that the Civic is….will be eliminated on Monday when I call them and tell them to come repo the car. I think between repairs and regular car payments, I’ve spent about the original value of the car when I got it (13,000). Front right rotor seems to be bent from a little incident I had with a curb about 2 months ago. Front two tires are bald as Yul Brenner.

I’ll miss Blessing. I drove that car EVERYWHERE. But the LORD has given me another blessing… in my own name. Just gotta figure out what my new car’s name will be.

The only downside…. I’ll have a repo on my credit history…

Thursday was an interesting day. VERY interesting. I went to see the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra play with some high school kids from various school districts playing alongside. All I gotta say is…. those kids make me feel like I need to go back to college for another 8 years. On sax, yes, I can hang. On anything else… HA!

I’ll definitely need an extra source or sources of income for the summer. Private lessons and working at Staples to pay down bills and such. I’m finally figuring out what ‘credit’ is really all about once you hit the 30’s.

No, I mean really. None of that silly ‘if I don’t have cash, I just won’t get it’ talk anymore. At least in the U.S., you need to have a decent credit score. That means you get a credit card, charge about 20-30 bucks of stuff on it, mail off the payment the next day, do that once a month and it’ll look like you have great credit and pay off bills immediately. 12 years too late, do I learn. But just good enough credit do I have, to purchase a new car with only $500 downpayment.

Why I am having Yoda moment ?

Okay, random ramblings done. The usual Kerry-based-stupidity is also a constant part of my life. Keep me in prayer – simil iustus et peccator is more of a reality with me than I’d like it to be.

Ma was supposed to be going to Ocean City for the weekend, but she took time to also try to help me with getting the new car – so I said I’d give her a ride to OC (she was supposed to be going on a bus at first, but by the time the bus was ready to go, she was still unpacked and taking care of granny after spending half the day at the car dealership with me). So we rode down to OC…but for some reason or another, it took 3.5 hours from B-more. Not normal.

We got there, hung out on the boardwalk from 10:30-12:30, turned around and drove home. The ride home took 2.5 hours, like it was supposed to. I got all the way to a little past Annapolis before my body finally said ‘HECK NAWWW!’ and mom and I switched and I let her drive a little before I-97 re-merged with I-695. Some shadiness about her bunking arrangements made her do a mental about-face (combined with the fact that she didn’t want me driving back 2.5 hours to B-more by myself at 11-12 in the night). I didn’t mind the drive – it was good to spend time with Ma. And even the little bit of OC that we saw, she enjoyed. We walked up the boardwalk for a bit, showed her a few of the attractions, grabbed some food and ate (my major issue all day was that I didn’t eat on time!). It was funny – the folk she was supposed to be staying with were knocked out asleep @ 11:55pm… now I’M thinking – who comes to Ocean City to fall asleep at 11:55 at night ?

Something *died* on Thursday. I’m looking around where the ‘T’ shaped hole used to be… and I don’t feel the same anger toward her I felt in my last blog entry. In fact, I don’t feel anything. Strange this turn of events is. Worrisome about it, I have become. Investigate this further, I must. During quiet time and thought. Like Yoda again, I have begun to sound. Stop typing now, I must. Hitting publish button I now must….*click*