Taxes, Cars, and Life Changes

Things I have been up to these last couple of weeks

1. Doing our taxes because we KNOW we have some money coming back from good Uncle Sam, and we needs the money.

2. Planning our move, because as much as we love Austin and the people, my husband can do without the heat and mosquitoes, and I can do without him complaining about them. I can deal, but to be fair, I am not as much of an outdoor person as he is. We are moving back to the SF Bay Area and renting our little home here. Sad.

3. I have started tutoring students at two different schools at the end of their school day four days a week, which makes it kind of a crazy schedule for us since The Dada teaches in the morning, comes home watches kids while I leave and tutor, and then I come home and we trade so that he can go and teach again at night. CRAZY! I wonder if my kids will ever appreciate how much we struggled to have one parent home with them at all times. They are going to have to get used to having grandma watch them for at least part of the day when they are not in school from now on. Grandma is scared with good reason, and I am thinking we will have to find someone to help grandma out.

4. We searched and bought a car with a loan from Grandpa. Thank You Grandpa! You see, our previous car was a Toyota Previa, and we loved it except that now it rattles like you have a couple of jackhammers following you around wherever you go, the radio is busted, and the AC is also not functioning which is needed for reasons of survival here, and for the impending drive we will have to make across the desert to get to Cali in the early summer. My boy is sad to be giving up this old car, since he has not yet gotten to the stage where he is worried about what his parents are driving. The older boy wanted a truck, and he could not be made to understand that it is illegal to have little boys flying out of the back of pick-up trucks. We stayed loyal to Toyota and bought a Sienna. Buying this car made me think of all the cars we had growing up: a bright yellow with brown stripes Gremlin ( who made this car anyway?), beat up Toyota pick up that I frequently rode in the back of, a brown Pinto that was once riding on only two wheels because a drunk driver was trying to push us off the rode in it and sadly met its end when another drunk driver collided with it months later. I LOATHE drunk drivers!

What cars were you forced to ride in growing up?