Now Accepting Donations

I think I'm going to have to start a charity fund to support... well, me (and my family - and, the knitting habit, perhaps??). I don't think I mentioned it, but a month or two ago, my husband's car quit on him. It seemed like quite a blow at the time, but we've been doing alright since then with just the family minivan between the two of us. It required some organizational effort, but it was definitely doable - until yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon, while running an errand with the minivan (our only remaining car, in case you didn't catch that the first time), he was hit by another car. He's okay, and the other driver had only a few scrapes, apparently, but our car, given that it wasn't worth much in the first place, is probably going to be totalled. That'll give us a few thousand euros to start with for purchasing another, but it won't go far toward the kind of car we really need with a family this size.

Then, there's the fact that any money we have or would soon have was already tagged for finishing the new house. So, what's a family to do? Start a little "poor me" fund, of course. I'd play the lottery, but with our current luck, that's obviously not a good idea. So, we're now accepting donations.

I spent last night researching all the possible car choices. The type of car we need must have at least 6 seats, in my opinion. That way, we could carry an extra person if we ever needed to. The task of searching out a new (used) one, and seeing how limited we are going to be by our current funds overwhelmed me. It could be the pregnancy hormones or possibly the fact that we won't have a car to take our daughter to school in next week when Spring vacation is over, but whatever the reason, I had a good cry about it when I went to bed last night.

On the bright side, though, I watered the garden this morning (since yesterday's watering time was spent researching cars) and saw all the good plants that are growing. If all goes well, we'll have green beans, black beans, butternut squash, beets, canary melons, a French variety of melon, radishes, onions, a type of winter squash I don't know the name of in French, okra and some herbs. I also believe I see little mounds starting to form where I planted potatoes, so we're crossing our fingers for that, too. We planted other goodies, but those are the seeds that have started sprouting enough that I can see them well amidst the weeds that have also started popping up. Good thing we'll have all that bounty, too, because if we have to buy a new car, it may just be at the expense of getting groceries every week.

Oh, and just so you know, I'm only joking about the donations, please don't ask me where to send them. We'll figure something out, I'm sure. And, we've got both my husband's parents pretty nearby with cars they're willing to lend from time to time, so it'll all work out. After all, it could have been worse. It could have been his fault, and we'd be out of a car completely with no money to start looking for another (because we only have liability insurance). Or, worse yet, he could have actually been hurt, which I don't even want to think about for fear of the waterworks starting up again.

Stay tuned for the possibility of some photos soon I swear I plan to post some. I just got sidetracked by the whole completely-without-a-car thing.