Obsession

Why have I not posted this time? There's always an excuse, right? Weeeeeell... I've been obsessed. Ever since my husband's accident, I've spent every waking moment feverishly scouring the net for cars. Our road really merits some sort of off-road vehicle, so I started there. We don't want to personally be responsible for using up the very last drop of oil on earth, though, so we then moved on to other options. Minivan? Too much gas (well, most of them) or not reliable.

Ooh, how about one of those new-fangled, off-road station wagons? I'll admit I've never been a station wagon fan, but with our third child on the way while the other two are still in child safety seats, space is a must (and, don't let anyone tell you that most 5-seaters actually seat five people - you ever noticed that mini-half-seat in the center back - who are they kidding?). So, we've thrown out the SUV idea, but our last car showed us what our rocky, dirt road can do to cheaply designed plastic interiors and inner workings of cars. What would be sturdy enough to weather that kind of abuse without costing us our third born in the price of the car or gasoline? Why, a tank, of course! And, who makes better tanks than the Germans and the Swedish?

So, after comparing a few different possible tankish station wagons, we think we've finally come up with a solution. One brand of tank was out of our price range (at least for the size we needed). Two others fit our budget and our size needs pretty well. I've chosen what is said to be the more reliable of the two car models, and now we just have to wait to see what kind of money the insurance company will give us to start with and look for a little car loan.

What a stressful roller-coaster ride, though. I can't tell you how many times I had one of those revelation moments where the clouds cleared and little birdies sang in my ears. I must have found our "perfect car" a dozen times only to have my hopes dashed by it's gas mileage, it's price used or a lack of reliability. I'm pretty happy with what we've settled on today (and I really think it's the last possible car model out there that fits most of our criteria). So, any guesses as to which tank I selected?