Adulting At It's Finest

This past week has been a lesson in adulting, which I frequently have to remind myself I am. In the moments, it can be overwhelming, but coming out on the other side provides a look at the silver linings for sure. Let me start with the bad and ugly before we get to the good.

All last week we were dealing with some crazy stuff with Rory's car - the "reliable" one - to the point that we were anticipating having to take the 20 year old Honda (affectionately know as Rhonda) to Birmingham for the weekend (a spur of the moment plan). We were already planning to put his car in the shop to get the brakes and rotors changed and we were going to have them also look at why it was burning oil like nobody's business and why it smelled like burnt oil when we turned the air on. On Thursday, I got a Low Brake Fluid light driving it to the store, so we made a quick trip to pick some of that up just to get us into the weekend. The plan was to take it to the shop first thing on Monday. We drove it around on Friday and didn't see any other lights come on so we decided his car was the lesser of two risks to drive to Alabama. So, we made a late night drive after I got back from a church singing gettogether, and just before we reached our destination, the car started shaking and the check engine light started blinking...great. We made it the short distance left at 11 pm and were able to secure another car to use to drive around town for the weekend. 

Saturday was one of my proud adulting moments. Since we had to get the car to a mechanic shop ASAP and Rory was going to be shooting a match all day, I spent a good portion of the morning calling around and trying to find someone who could look at the car that day so we wouldn't have to be stuck in Birmingham an extra day. If you know how much I hate talking on the phone, you would be proud too lol! Unfortunately, the only place that would be able to fix it didn't have any openings until Monday. So we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would be staying in Alabama an extra day. The girls were beyond excited that they would get to miss school on Monday, while Rory was less enthused because I would be going into the office, leaving him to handle two rowdy, bored kids all day with no car.

We were able to drive/limp the car down to the mechanic shop on Sunday night so they would be ready to look at it first thing on Monday. Monday rolls around and thankfully, Rory took on the adulting and was the main contact for the shop. Fast-forward to the bad news, the Volvo is done. Apparently, the cost just to CHECK the motor, which was where they determined the problem to be, was going to be a couple thousand dollars. The subsequent repairs to what they thought might be the issue was going to be another several thousand dollars, and that was just best-case-scenario. Worst-case-scenario was that the engine block was cracked, which would result in a whole new engine. NOT cheap. Since the car was 11 years old and just shy of 200,000 miles and couldn't have been worth more than $3k on a good day, we decided it was not even worth trying to find out the true issue. Rory booked a rental car for us and we left the Volvo in Birmingham to be picked up later by his uncle, who is going to piece it out to get what he can out of it.

So now we'll be car shopping this weekend. I can say this part of adulting will be fun, although forking over a large chunk of our savings will be a tad less fun. We've been researching out the ying yang to find something that won't break the bank while also providing more reliability than the car we still have sitting in the garage. It will be nice to have a newer car since the only other car we've bought in the last five years was ole Rhonda the Honda, and she's been well loved in her 20 year life.

The good in all of this? Well, let me shed the light of God's mercy on this one. Had we taken the Honda to Birmingham instead of the Volvo, sure, she might have made it ok, but she's about one good shake away from falling into about a thousand pieces herself. The odds that we would have been returning in a rental anyways was pretty good. So we essentially saved Rhonda's life, or what she has left of it. Also, had we not taken the Volvo, Rory and I were going to be taking it to Raleigh next weekend for a shooting class. It definitely would have been kaput on that drive and we would have likely been stranded somewhere in the mountains of North Carolina with no other vehicle or people to help within a large radius. Thank you GOD! We were also able to spend some extra time with our good friends and we even got to go roller skating Sunday night, which we wouldn't have been able to do had we been able to leave on Sunday afternoon back home. I was able to see some people at work that I don't normally get to see in person, which is always nice. Lots of silver linings to what might have started out as a terrible weekend.

God works everything out eventually. We may not see it immediately or even shortly after a fiasco (or perceived fiasco), but He is faithful to show the bigger picture if we just step back to look. We're blessed that we have the ability to get a new car. We're blessed that He has provided us with good jobs and gracious employers. Our immense blessings are not lost on me. I hope that we can use the blessings that He continues to give us aboundingly to give glory to Him. He is the one that really saved us this weekend. We are safe and we are back home after a recharging weekend. All glory to Him!

God bless!