What Ana Does

For a very long time, David has been dreaming about buying a Jeep Wrangler. Just a fun third car to drive to the pool or beach, out for ice cream. Have his girls' hair blowing in the wind and enjoying a summer day out. For reasons only he understands, this dream took on some movement while we've been in Paris. He's been scouring ads for months, understanding pricing, milage, wear-and-tear, etc. and all there is to expect from a used Jeep. Yup, it's our first weekend in the States and he found one that fit in his criteria. It's a 2008 in olive green and it was love at first sight. For a used car, it's looking pretty good. Soft top. Manual transmission and all. My argument was, this is as good as it's going to get, it's in the budget he set aside and it's ready to go. I'm not spending all my Saturdays in the States going from one dealership to another looking at subtly differences in used cars. After long deliberations, it's ours! And ...

In a nutshell, my diesel Jetta is involved in the VW scandal and, according to the news, I will be soon be parting with it. ( My post from when I bought the car ... all happy and excited about the "cleaner" engine. Pshf. ) Honestly, I'm not thrilled about shopping for a new car. When we bought this car in 2013 I was looking forward to at least a decade of NOT car shopping. All the time and thought into the different options, MPG, color -- weighing all the advantages and disadvantages. And dealing with car salesman! Ugh. There are work camps in Siberia that are more fun. But, here we are. So I've been starting to give it some thought. What I like about my car. What I'm missing. And looking around parking lots at models that are cute. As of today my must list , which sits on top of the usual new-car features, is: 1. heated seats 2. sun roof 3. room in the trunk for a bag of soccer balls, four chairs and four backpacks. 4. fuel efficient Additionally, I...

Many years ago, my sister Liza and I bought the SAME EXACT BIKE (model, color, etc.) at about the same time. She used it for navigating Georgetown, where she was studying. And I (with David) picked mine out for "riding" in the Bay Area on weekend. (Mostly, though, it just hung in the garage. Let's be honest.) We always thought this was funny and weird. Our tastes just match-up in some things, I guess. The day after we purchased our new SportWagen (see earlier post) I get a call from Liza. Guess who also owns a VW Jetta SportWagen (in a slightly different color) that she bought last weekend? Yeah. We spent 10 minutes oohhing about the moon roof and comfy seats. Scary sister connection!

This weekend, because it was the absolute worst weekend to spend in a car dealership (but that's just how we do these things -- we leased a car the weekend we got married, for pete's sake!), we turned in our leased Prius and bought a Jetta SportWagen TDI. This Totally Looks Like Illinois! The lease to our 2010 Prius was just about up, and while I loved it, there were two main issues we need to correct: First, the Prius, which is light-weight for ultimate fuel economy, was not built for Illinois winters. A strong wind had me gripping the steering wheel. And the snowy, icy commutes home from work stressed me out. I wasn't confident I'd stop at lights or stay on the road. And when the snow piled up on the driveway, the sad little car no longer made it into the garage. One night, it got stuck midway so we just abandoned it for the night -- in the middle of the driveway, in a blizzard. The other, is we simply need more cargo space. But not THAT much more. We weren...

The Rental. Would You Call That Mini? Long story short: this young girl hit my Prius in the parking lot and put a little crack in my bumper. This resulted in going to an autobody shop and having it fixed, thus forcing me to rent a car for the two days.  The rental place only had a van. He called it a “minivan” but there was nothing mini about this vehicle. The kids loved it, of course, and I left work a little early to pick them up on the first day – so I could watch the joy in their eyes as they jumped in. “These people,” Alice said motioning to the other cars on the road, “think this is our car. They don’t know that we have to give it back.” After two days of driving around I find it incredulous that people actually own these monster vehicles and use them on a daily basis. I didn't trust my blind spots, so drove slower. I had a hard time parking in urban Evanston. I lumbered around turns and there was almost no pickup when entering the highway. And I was so distracted b...

At a birthday part for a friend, Alice had the need for speed! Alice the Speed Demon!  Relate posts: More more and more Alice