Greiving AGAIN

I have been somewhat remiss in posting the last few days.  But that is not quite true.  I have posted a post but choose to keep it private.  Does anyone else do that?  Does that defeat the purpose of an online blog?

I have learned to love blogging- have very nearly become addicted to it and have found, in the process, that there seems to be some responsibility to blogging.  I don’t have a huge following, but I know there are a couple of people out there who read the blatherings that I choose to put up, and when I think about making a post private I almost feel like I am being disloyal to my few readers.  This time, however, I had to make a private post.  I was feeling very badly about Mothers Day and just really needed to get the feelings out of my head and logged somewhere else – that way I could get on and get past it, and it worked for the most part.

So anyway, I have been going through some stuff, and some of it I will list here, some I won’t, but that works for me at the moment. One of the bigger things I have been going through is a grief process.  It sounds so silly as I type this out, but I can’t deny my feelings.

Gas prices.  The price of oil is at an all time high and climbing more and more.  I personally don’t see an end in sight and worry that by the end of the summer we here in the desert southwest will see $4/gal and $5/gal on the horizon. 

So flashback to 2005, I researched and did my share of due diligance and found the car (SUV) that I could buy, and fall in love with and that is just what I did. I bought a pretty little mid size SUV a Nissan Murano.  OMG this vehicle was beautiful.  The color was merlot (fancy way of saying burgundy) had a magnificent sound system (Bose) since I am a major audiophile (goes along with my degree in music), it had the CVT transmission which makes the gear changes smooth and unnoticeable, tinted windows. It looked sexy, drove beautifully and it was my baby. see above ^

I financed it (all $35000.00) and just paid it off in January. Arguably the Murano was top of the list when it came to gas economy in its class.  But “its class” isn’t saying much, after all an SUV is still an SUV.  We managed 17-18 mpg/city and could (with careful driving) reach 25 mpg/hwy.  That was great as long as gas prices hovered around the low $2/gal range.  I was happy and loved to drive my sexy little car.  Then gas prices started rising, we ended up taking fewer trips, cutting out unnecessary errands etc and all the while gas kept rising and so did my internal alarm system and my husband and I started making offhand remarks about how we should have looked harder at hybrids back in 2005. Right around $3.35/gal we started talks about how if we traded the Murano in on something more gas efficient that we would be doing our part to stand up to big oil, not to mention ease up our bank balance a little.

Then $3.50 hit and my heart sank, I knew that the Murano was not long to remain in my world. My husband (the ultimate in bargain hunter) began doing his “dd” (due diligence) spending hours on Edmunds and Autotrader.  I nervously watched him from afar knowing that what he was doing was for the best for us, but terrified he would find a deal we could not refuse and I would soon be saying fairwell to my sexy friend.

So one day, armed with knowledge, printed up paperwork from the above sites and his tell-it-like-it-is Kiwi personality he headed out to the car dealers. I tried to not think about what he was doing, and each time he came back with the Murano, I breathed a sigh of relief.  Of course that sigh of relief would soon be replaced with exasperation and frustration as I filled up that gas tank with what was now, $3.60/gal gas.

Then it happened.  On Mothers Day, he came home with a different car.  I call it “The Turd” its small and sort of shaped like a turd, I suppose, I mean I am not really up-to-date on what the normal poop looks like, but if there is an average look to a poop I imagine that this car is what it would look like.  It’s sort of a tan color, so whoever cranked out this color turd must have had an odd diet, but I don’t care…I hate this car and so “turd” is appropriate. It has basic everything. No Bose stereo, No CVT transmission, No window tinting so I get a major sun headache when I drive it. Yes we traded for it.  It was a deal that we could not refuse.  My husband is nothing if not a great bargainer. So we walked away with a 2007 Ford Focus, with just 10000 miles on it free and clear, and a check for $4000.00.  Personally I walked away with a broken heart.  Also an angry heart, not at my husband, don’t get me wrong here, I know what we did was for the best, but I am angry at the society that we live in that has forced me to give up something that I loved. 

We are an oil dependent society and we need to find ways to break that dependency.  Driving large cars, SUV’s etc in this time of high fuel prices is just feeding the dependency and part of the reason why prices are so high.  High demand creates high prices, conversely, low demand will show “Big Oil” that maybe, just maybe, we have reached our limit and we are not going to take it anymore.

I hate the car we have now.  I don’t even really call it mine.  I told Mike I drive it because I have to and I don’t have to like the car.  It is his and will be as long as we own it (hopefully it will not be a long time).  We now can relax a little as we get much better gas mileage with the ford…but we are still curtailing any excessive driving.  No big deal for me now as I really don’t enjoy driving anywhere anymore. :sigh:

Now we get to go out and search out a new car to replace the gas hog Dodge Intrepid that my daughter drives.  But this will be a good shopping trip.  Replacing that Intrepid is a good thing…just to show you how good, my husband did the Kelly Blue Book on the intrepid (or something like a Kelly BB I am not sure but it factors in lots of things to come up with what a car is worth)..works out that the stupid piece of crap is worth $92.00 (yup ninety two DOLLARS) that tells you how bad this car is lol.

So I am in the middle of grieving for my dearly loved Murano.  I avoid the places that it used to hang out (the garage at home and the parking lot I used to park in at school) I go the long way around to avoid seeing it on the lot at the dealer we traded it to.  I stare forlornly at the keys that are now laying on the desk..  The extra set that we had to the Murano that will never, ever be used again. God I am pathetic.

:sniff: ::WAAAAAAAAAAAAA: