How Was Your Summer, Part 1

2016 was eventful on a couple of fronts. I had already planned to take a serious look at replacing the Jeep. Built in 1997, it was entering the end of its life. I said, back in 2002, when I bought it, I would probably drive it until it died. I'd saved and I had my budget ready. September is when cars are, historically, priced lowest because the new year's models are coming and dealers have inventory they want to move. I would start the process then.

I didn't spend much time looking at cars when I bought the Jeep. There wasn't much, in 2002, to find on the Internet. I had done some research, but all I knew is that I wouldn't be buying new. That new car smell makes me physically ill. I picked a street where I knew there were a huge number of car dealers and just drove along. The Jeep was parked by the street in a Volkswagon dealer's lot. My mechanic gave it a green light and it was right in my price range. The whole thing took 3 hours from start to finish.

Buying a car is just not fun. In spite of all the "helps" from various sites, like Carmax, it's still not a fun experience. But I knew I would have to do it. It was in the back of my mind every time I took the Jeep on an excursion. I headed west, to Bangor, Wisconsin, at the end of June. Things were going fine, until they weren't. The Jeep died as I was getting off Interstate 90 at the Bangor exit.

Now, you have to know this area of Wisconsin is a cell phone nightmare. There are so many hills that dead spots for cell phone service are everywhere. I couldn't raise my towing service but I remembered, from the day previous when I'd come this way, there was a car dealer, Wehr's Truck and Auto, a walk down the road. I headed that way.

I explained my problem. They arranged for the Jeep to be towed to a mechanic with whom they worked because they had no room in their repair shop to even look at it. I could hang out in their show room until he'd had a chance to look at the car. They overheard me talking to the homeowner whose house I was to inspect. They knew him and loaned me a car so I could get his inspection and an adjacent one done. I had an inspection for later in the day and they were fine with me just hanging out.

So, I got the inspections done and came back to the show room. There was still no word on the Jeep and it was now 11:15. The dealer called the mechanic and was told there were "issues" but they would have an answer in an hour. They called an hour later and said the best they could diagnose was the fuel pump. I should come talk to them about the problem.

The dealer said a fuel pump is an $800-$1,000 repair. "In a Jeep of your age, they have to pull off the gas tank to get to the pump. In later models, the pump is off to the side to make it easier to repair. Then, they would need to test it to make sure it's the pump. He's tested your electrical system and the battery, but they cannot get the Jeep to start." I was crestfallen. "I don't know what to do," I said. "If it were me, I'd say put that money toward a new car. Of course, that's going to sound like I'm itching for a sale, but I'm being honest. You don't have to buy from me. You can go back to Chicago, but, really, get a new car. We'll take the Jeep, as is, for $150 toward a car off the lot. Go talk to Jason and have him walk you through the process."

I took their rental and went to the shop. Jason was nice and he showed me what they had done and what they had and had not been able to determine. "It's an $800 job, assuming the fuel pump is what's wrong. Also, I can't get to it for a week." He gestured around his shop which was full with three cars sitting outside. I thanked him and went to get lunch, to think.

On a napkin, I wrote out my budget. I had leeway, but I was secretly hoping to get the Jeep through to September, so I'd have more money for a down payment, to cut the amount I'd need to borrow. I could afford car payments of a certain amount. My credit is still not very good, thank you Fifth Third Bank, but I would be able to get a loan through my bank. I called them and waited. I was approved for a loan. I just needed to tell them how much and give them the VIN of the car I would buy.

I went back to the dealer. "I've done the budget and let's see what you have." There were several used cars from which to choose. He suggested a 2011 Jeep Compass. I took it out for a test drive and loved it. Room. The SUV part would be great for the few times I am on construction jobs or have to go into a quarry. I didn't drive anything else. "Sold."

There was an issue with paperwork. My bank does not have a branch close to Bangor, Wisconsin. The dealer handed me the keys and my copies of the paperwork. "Take this to your bank tomorrow. Get your loan and have them send everything back to us. Include the title of the Jeep. I don't think you're going to welch out on us. I'm sorry you're in this predicament in the first place, but this will be a very good car for you. We'll probably wind up scrapping the Jeep and you'll not have to worry about it anymore."

So, I drove back to the mechanic to clean it out.

So many things were wrong with it. I was on borrowed time. There was body rust. The windshield had cracked due to rusting of the frame around it. In order to fix the windshield, I'd have to replace that frame. The U joints holding the chassis to the frame were rusting. Sometimes, there was a small shudder if I had to stop suddenly. I'd had the U joints replaced once before. If they rust through. The chassis will stop but the frame won't. It will be a Flinstones car.

The heater fan didn't work except on medium and then only about 65% of the time. When I got heat, it was a lot but this fan issue meant the defrosters took a long time to clear the window. The front seats were all cracked and I'd covered them with duct tape for the third time. The rubber cap around the stick shift was so old, it froze when the temps got below 15 so I had simply popped it out. You could look down the shift well and see the ground.

The back bumper was loose on the right side although my mechanic had bolted that to the frame. The top was still good, although the windows were getting cloudy as plastic windows do. I only took off the windows now because it was just too hard for me to remove the top only to have to put it back on in 24 hours. You can see the seal below the driver's door had come loose. You can put it back into the track using a spoon. I knew there were better things to do with my time. I would need new tires if I kept the Jeep beyond September, if I couldn't find a new car.

I cleaned everything out. 14 years. It's been my friend. I've gone everywhere with it. I remembered driving through a corn field in September, mowing down the stalks. Driving out of my drive when there was 6 inches of snow? Pffft. Engaging 4-wheel drive and making it through icy roads and running topless in the summer. I ran my hand over the side. I knew I was doing the right thing.

This is the last photo I have of the Jeep.

We tried to get the license plates off it. The back one was rusted to the bumper. The front one, which would come off, was longer than the bumper so it had been bent backwards from all the years of driving over and through things. "I'll just get brand new plates," I said.

I felt sad as I was emptying everything from the Jeep. It wasn't until I was on my way home that I realized I'd forgotten the Hawkeye car mats. But they had seen better days, too, so I put them on my birthday/Christmas list. The sadness didn't stay long. 14 years is a long time, but I think I had made my peace with getting rid of the Jeep. I drove away in a Jeep Compass with a huge amount of space. I could afford this. It was a good car. Things were going to be okay.

Except, they weren't.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

I Resolve...Bah Humbug

Another year. Another New Year's Day to reflect on the old year passed and what I didn't get accomplished. Another New Year's Day to reflect on what I would like to accomplish in the upcoming year.

We all do this. It's kind of a default setting for New Year's. "I resolve to lose weight." "I resolve to get my financial house in order." "I resolve to give more to charity." [insert topical resolution here] You do it. I do it. And long about now, we discover whether our resolutions actually stick. Generally, they don't and you give yourself 40 mental lashes for failing. (Strike overly dramatic pose of defeat.)

When you've got a disease in which chronic fatigue is a major part, resolving to "be more active" or "lose weight" or even "get one project done at night after work" is wholly tied to whether you even have the energy to eat when you get home. Making resolutions is almost surely guaranteed to lead to self-bashing because you can't do what you've resolved to do. Even breaking a resolution, such as "exercise every day", down to simply adding 20 more steps and going in the front door instead of the back, can be fatal to keep if I am exhausted because of an RA flare. I knew I was setting myself up for failure. I know me. Calling them "resolutions" doesn't make these ideas better than any other idea I've ever cooked up. Give them a title and I'll feel that much worse when I can't keep them.

So, I'm trying something different this year. I looked over the span of last year and picked something I really want to improve on, eating better. I spent the last week of 2014 thinking about my diet. How can I improve it? Well, I could be cooking dinner when I get home. What is the reality of that? I'm often too tired to cook. That leads to skipping dinner altogether or eating something just because it's fast. I spent a week in December eating a peanut butter sandwich for dinner. That was it because I was too tired to cook. I spend way too much money on eating lunch out because I'm too tired to cook to make left overs of things that I enjoy eating. It's faster to just run over to Subway. What can I, realistically, do to eat better?

Step 1 was to go over the budget. Gad I hate this. I hate going backwards through the previous year and seeing, in black and yellow (since I was doing the tallying on a legal pad), what I already knew but had refused to acknowledge. Too much of my meager funds went into eating lunch out because I was too tired to cook. I decided that had to change. There are a lot of things I can't change in my budget, but that's one thing that could.

Step 2 was to decide what to add or take away from my diet. I decided to simplify lunch and add a fruit to every day's meals.

Step 3 was to divide the month in half. My company pays monthly. I realize some of you will go, "How can you live like that?" After 3-4 months, you get used to it. I, generally, buy all my groceries at the beginning of the month. The problem is that fresh fruits and vegetables don't keep for a month. You're lucky if you can keep them 2 weeks. We always joked that we don't have vegetable and fruit bins in the fridge. We have compost bins. I can, twice a month, go to the store for fresh produce and frozen dinners. I have wrapped meats and frozen veggies in the freezer. If I get ambitious and have the energy, I can make meals from scratch. But, lunches would be frozen dinners. The cost is the same, less, actually, than going out. Plus, I'm shouldn't be tossing as much moldy produce into the compost bins which equates to dollars thrown away.

Step 4. Stop calling them "resolutions" and call them "goals".

Step 5 Tic off, on the kitchen calendar, the days I don't eat lunch out and the days I add a fruit to what I eat.

How am I doing? So far, so good. Only one lunch out, so far, this month and that was because I was going to be out in the field at lunch without the opportunity to eat home prepared. Breakfast is a thornier issue as I can spring out of bed one day, full of vim and vigor and then next day sleep completely through the alarm and wake up with an hour to dress, feed the cats, eat breakfast and get to the office. I'm giving myself permission to not worry about breakfast so long as I eat it. No skipping. I am making a Dunkin' run only once per week and Panera every other week, circling the dates I visit each on the calendar so I am not tempted to go more than I can.

I'm told it takes a month of work to make something a habit or to change a behavior. This is all I'm doing right now, trying to change eating habits. I've tried some new to me frozen dinners, things I probably wouldn't have tried had I not set the goal of reducing money outlays for lunch. Some are clear winners. Some are, "Well, not eating that ever again." Today, I have the last banana and the last yogurt in addition to a shrimp alfredo that looked good on the box. Monday will be a new fruit, maybe apples, and there are still a week's worth of frozen dinners behind the bread.

I'll revisit this on February 1st and see how I've done.

Beverage:  Water

Deb