Though I got back from Nebraska on Tuesday, I didn't really have time for writing until today. It's not that I had tons of laundry to do cleaning to catch up. John managed to scrub the house down while I was gone, making me happier than I have managed to express to him appropriately. I'll have to work on that. One thing I have been doing is riding the darn bus to work, because we have to take Booie to a sitter now, and that adds commute time to my day. I also had to catch up on sleep, because I don't sleep all that well when away, and I was waking up at 6 AM eastern time every day, which meant 5 AM there. I went back to sleep and woke up about every hour until I'd finally just give up and get up at 7. That's when the rest of the house seemed to get up anyway, so we started out day at 7 every day I was there. They were full days too, so I was pooped when I got back here on Tuesday. There has been lots of sleeping going on.

The big thing I've been doing is preparing to buy a car. We first decided to get something used, and looked at used cars. But the more we looked, the more we disliked what we saw at the price we originally set, so we started looking at new model used cars. Then we starting thinking, if we're going to spend that much money, we might as well go for the special interest rates and buy new. So we went from wanting to spend $5000-$6000 on a older used car to considering spending $16,000-$18,000 on a new one. Man, I hate car shopping.

Though I won't tell any salesman, I have my heart set on a dark red Honda Civic. It had the best gas mileage of all the compacts we considered (we want longetivity in a car too, ruling out most American models), and that's near top on my list of considerations. I am so tempted to spend the extra couple thousand dollars for a bare bones Civic Hybrid, but I'm having enough trouble with spending what I intend to spend. John reminded me we can trade this one in for a Hybrid later too, so I think we'll go for the "cheaper" car right now.

And I lovelovelove the red they have. After 9:00, I will finally be able to call the dealers around town to see if anyone has the 4-door model in red. Our local dealer didn't have it, and that's what I really want. I'll settle for silver or sand, but I want red. I won't pay extra for it, but I do want it. Wish me luck.

While preparing for car buying, I got John's and my credit reports. I was shocked to find that my credit is loads better than his, but then he does have most of the credit cards and the house in his name. I also found that those fuckers at American Express haven't marked my account as being paid off. Why would I ever have thought that they wouldn't quit screwing me? Now I have to write those bastards to have them change that account's status. My credit score would be a lot better without that big-ass balance sitting on it. I really hope it isn't enough to bump me out of qualifying for the special interest rate, but I bet it will. I could put off buying the car until I get it resolved, but that means many more weeks of riding the stupid bus for three hours a day. If that's what I have to do, I'll do it, but American Express will be hearing it from me. In fact, I'll be calling them today as well.

So I might own a new car today. We'll see. I'm not counting on it, even if I am excited and nervous enough to have waken up at 5:30 AM when John had to leave to go to work. Lucky boy has a release this weekend, so he had to be at work at 6 AM. He did get yesterday off though, so don't feel too bad for him. And now that's it's after 9, I'm going to start making my calls. I sure hope this all works out.

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