11 November

Well, I missed posting yesterday. It's the only time in a November blogging challenge that I've missed a post. Yesterday was a long day, spent trying to get my husband a new car which proved challenging. It was also bitterly cold and snowing for part of the day, which added to the car buying challenge. Later, we went to a housewarming party. More of the Cranberry Crumb Bars with Mulling Spices were made. They are heavenly, people. Seriously.

In the end, not much snow accumulated, but the temperatures today remained icy cold. After church, I came home and ended up taking a lovely nap. The sun was warm even though it was so cold outside. 

So, we're now bidding farewell to our Outback. We bought this car new in our first year of marriage. My husband pointed out that this year has marked an end of that era. The puppy we brought home that same year died only seven months ago, and now the car has called it quits, too. (Another thing: the tea kettle we got for our wedding got burned and destroyed since we moved in here. It's now been replaced with an inexpensive electric model which I actually like much better for where we are in life now. In the thank you note to the person who gave me the tea kettle for my bridal shower, I promised to keep it until one day when our future children would burn it up making hot chocolate. This is actually exactly what happened to my mom's tea kettle, when we were pre-teens making instant hot chocolate. The fate of my kettle was sealed not with hot chocolate, since we make that with milk in a saucepan, but boiling water for tea. Ah, well.)

Anyway, the Outback was actually my car for most of that time. I drove it until about 18 months ago. I love my bigger vehicle, not having to squeeze my kids three across, which always made me nervous with the carseats sort of jimmy-rigged in place. But I loved my Outback, too. It represented such a happy time in my life. My early marriage, my young motherhood. In the end, it's just a car, of course. And the time had really come to bid it farewell. But I'll miss it nonetheless.

The Outback was replaced with a used Prius. It has sort of high mileage but is otherwise in really good condition. The high mileage allowed us to be able to get a low payment on it, which is good since the timing of this is pretty bad. I've always liked blue cars, though my husband doesn't, so it's too bad it's his and not mine! We are most excited about the gas mileage, and of course, the hatchback style is perfect for all the instruments and gear my husband drives around with all the time. 

So, bittersweet things here.