About a year ago Mike traveled to a family funeral where he inherited a slew of things: a beautiful chest that now sits fittingly in our living room, hundreds of family mementos, some small odds and ends and a heaping, over-sized deep freeze. A deep freeze that rested in the dining room of our old house until the day we moved. A deep freeze—if you go back and read that first post, you'll see—that I was always slightly against. Sure, all that extra space is great if you are Jon and Kate Gosselin* and you are trying to feed eight growing children but all that space for a family of three (when one of those family members has FUR and only eats people food when her dad isn't home) only leads to a deep freeze filled with a lot of frozen meals and far too much frozen ground turkey.
And what do you think all that food smells like when the outlet goes kaput and the deep freeze hasn't been, you know, FREEZING for three days?
Well let's just say I (THANKFULLY) don't know because my (really wonderful) husband was the one who stumbled upon the smell yesterday, and he cleaned out the deep freeze and deposited of all the rancid, rotting food before I got home. And, really, of all the things Mike has ever done for me—from that one time atop the Empire State Building to all the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches he makes for me to sending me flowers from Molly on Mother's Day to going out to the store at midnight because we're out of bottled water and the filtered water in our fridge just WON'T DO—cleaning that deep freeze when I wasn't home was the sweetest, most thoughtful thing he has ever done.
And even though the deep freeze (that we will no longer own or ever put food in come Thursday) was in the garage, I still had to light a whole mess of vanilla candles in my kitchen last night.
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So, the year is half over. Look at that. Really, how did that happen? Tell me, what's been your favorite part of 2008 so far? Other than the obvious: all those fun, rising gas prices! Which, let me just say, I drive a Saturn. Even though when I first got it, it only took TWELVE DOLLARS to fill the tank and it now—eight years later—takes more than $40 it's still a relatively reasonable car to drive around town. I fill up about once a week and that totals $160 a month—which is still less than my electricity bill was in May—but it could be worse, I know. Of all the car owners who want to throw themselves into traffic on a daily basis, I'm probably not near the top of the list. But still—STILL—gas prices are all I can think of when I'm in the car. I find myself looking at EVERY PASSING STATION to see which gas is the cheapest. "$3.86!? Holy cow! I have to remember this place even though it's completely out of the way for me to drive six days of the week, but I'll save nearly EIGHT CENTS A GALLON from the station I filled up at last week." That's just insane reasoning on my part, I know, but I can't help it.
We are going to be buying a new car soon, though, since my car officially gave notice last week that it's NEAR DEATH and the thought of pouring money into a SATURN just doesn't seem wise. I mean the total value of the car is less than the total value of my shoes.
So if you own a car you just love—one you couldn't imagine living life without, insane gas prices and all!—please let me know. We have a short list but my only rigid requirement is that the car be black, so I could easily be swayed on various other things such as the make and model.
Oh, and I won't be buying another Saturn. If that helps you like me more.
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*So, yes, I watch "Jon & Kate Plus Eight" (Alexis is my favorite), but you know what other helluva-lot-of-children show I stumbled upon yesterday? "Kids By The Dozen." This particular couple has fourteen kids and—are you ready for this?—THIRTEEN OF THEM ARE BOYS. The only girl came along as the eleventh child. That is TEN STRAIGHT BOYS. I just ... I couldn't believe that. If the family was just a tad more interesting (lovely family but dull as dirt), I'd tune in to watch more often because OH MY HOLY HELL that is a lot of boys.