I just came back from picking up the family minivan from the shop. I suppose you could say that reality has set in once again. Just when I started dreaming of the possibility of not being a minivan mom for the rest of my life, my hopes and dreams were shattered in one grand swipe of the Frontier Mastercard. Yet another dose of reality hit today. I am doomed. . .doomed to continue to ride in a dirty, trash filled, chicken nugget and fries covered house on wheels for quite a few more years to come. And how do I know this? Well. . .I just paid it off. . .
And of course, the inevitable thing happened. . .People always think that once you pay off your vehicle all of a sudden you will have all of this extra money to put aside into savings. At least that was my original plan. The money would happily sit there and gain interest each month until the coveted day arrived when all of the kids were out of car seats. One day soon they would be able to sit side by side without causing us to have to detour to the emergency room. In my imagination, the days of the dream car were just around the corner.
But today reality set in. And this is the reality of my day. . .I paid off the silver Chevy minivan last month and then. . .you guessed it - a few leaks all of a sudden needed to be repaired. . .$1100.00 later. . .and I STILL own a minivan. . .a leak free minivan, yes. . .but still a silver Chevy minivan!!!!!!! And I understand fully tonight that I am doomed to continue on as a minivan mom for lots of years to come. . . (I mean, how do you justify putting $1100 into a vehicle only to get rid of it in 6 months time?)
So here is a picture of my home on wheels.
It is a common little van that sucks gas and smells like soured milk on some days and sweaty gym clothes on others. But it's mine. . .fully mine. And I am blessed to have it. For it is far better than the lavendar car that Kevin once drove (though we loved the blessing of being given that great little car) and it is far more gas efficient than my dad's big truck. It can hold an entire army of kids - 6 car seats to be exact. And it gets me where I need to go. . .so I won't complain. But you better believe that I will continue to dream. Someday I'll drive the cool car. Hey, maybe Kevin would like a minivan for his birthday this month. . . .????
1 comment:
When a new car was not in the budget for my wife and I we found that renting one occasionally helped scratch the itch. Enterprise has 'neighborhood' locations with some incredible weekend deals (i.e. sometimes around $25/day). It is a splurge, but it is worth it sometimes.
If you 'shop around' you might even find a specific model of car you want to rent. This allowed us to 'test drive' the car we eventually bought. 10 hours in a rental on a trip was a better test drive than anything the dealer could offer.
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