Replacement

Well, we lost a member of our family on Tuesday.

That's right. Beloved Cleo, our Mercury Sable, found her way to the inevitable--the car graveyard. Here's what happened.

About a year and a half ago, Mark's old car broke down. So being the poor college kids that we are, we took a car that Mark's dad repossessed at his credit union. It was cheap and old, but it worked.

Pretty soon, we had to start pouring in money to get it to function properly. The speed sensor went out then it needed a costly tune-up. Then on Tuesday, we discovered that the heater was going out. (Good thing we discovered this during the summer instead of the winter!)

We were bummed. A friend of ours has a similar car and had the same thing happen. He said his was going to be around 800 bones to fix. Booo.

So at lunch on Tuesday, we were driving along talking about how we were going to fix the car and actually afford it. We were driving just west of the temple. We stopped at the four-way stop, then proceeded. As we drove down another block and were still chatting, I noticed a car coming up on the left on the street. It drove past the stop line on the road.

I yelled, "Mark, WATCH OUT!" Then bam, we were sent spinning and we came to a rest in the road. After we checked that each other was okay, we got out of the car and assessed the damage. It was bad. A lady came out of her apartment to ask if we were okay, and we were. So was the other driver. I asked her to call the police and she did, thankfully. (Where was my cell phone that day?)

We asked the driver if he was okay, and he said that he was. He mentioned something about hitting our car, in slurred speech. I don't think he was 100% there. Soon the cops came and asked him what happened.

"Well," he said in a slur, "I was drivin' up the street lookin' for the dentists office over thar and before I knew it this here car was in front of me."

After a few more questions, the policeman asked him if he was on prescription medications.

"NO! No, no," he said, as if it were the most offensive question he'd ever been asked. Yeah right, I thought. No one keeps driving through a stop sign and doesn't "see the car in front of you."

Soon after, they cleaned up the glass from the road and towed our poor cars away. I actually felt bad for the man, who had a 1978 Mercury Cougar. I think he had the car for awhile and was quite attached. Plus, it's kind of a cool car. It looked almost like this:

Look at that beastly thing! You'd better believe it took a toll on Cleo. Here's what she looks like:

Now the next step is to see how much the insurance will give us for our totaled car. We have our eyes on a 2003 Toyota Corolla. I hope that it'll still be available by the time everything goes through.

Man, car wrecks are a pain in the neck. Literally and figuratively.

Summer Shutdown

I would like to issue an apology for my blog being so boring lately. Well, then again, when is it ever exciting?

But I've been racking my brain trying to think of things to write about and getting the motivation to do it, and my thoughts are about as drab as ever. I call this "summer shutdown." There's just something about when the weather gets warmer, I get lazier--if that's even possible.

In the meantime, I think I'll go take a nap and sip some lemonade.

Oh! This is my 100th post! So here's some good news:

--I met with my counselor this past week and he informed me that I didn't have to retake my Stats class! I originally thought my grade was not considered passing, but he told me that I was all done with it. BEST NEWS OF MY LIFE. What really had me scared was the fact that I would have to take a stupid math test. USU has a rule where if it's been a year since the last passed math class that you took, you must take a "math placement exam" to place you back where you should be in math. So since I thought I didn't pass my Stats class, and it had been a year since I passed Math 1010, then I would have to take that ridiculous excuse for a test to place me where I should be, that meaning I could end up in Math 1010 or 0900. I would basically have to start math all over again. But THANK GOODNESS I'M DONE! (One gift I was never given was the gift of numbers. Even small fractions make my brain go haywire.)

--I also applied for graduation! I had 19 credits left to take, so instead of cramming them into one semester, I decided just go apply for a Spring graduation. I'm so excited.

--Mark has two years left! So by the time that I'm finished, he'll only have a year. Man, I'm excited. It seems like we've been students for an eternity.

--I'm actually kind of excited to go back to school this year. I feel like I really have the end in sight and I'm not really scared. After I graduate, I think I'm going to take a few computer programming classes at Bridgerland to freshen up my HTML, CSS, and Photoshop skills and to learn PHP and other types of programming. That's something I really like to do, and I hope to have a job where I can work from home.

Well that's it for now. Here's a photo that might make you smile. This is me, in the '60s!

Have you yearbooked yourself yet? Trust me, you'll be laughing for hours!

YELL AT YOUR FAT!

I've recently discovered the most wonderful podcast, YELL AT YOUR FAT!

I'm telling you, I love it. Although Wendy, the author, tends to get a little longwinded, I still like to listen to it. She encourages you to get motivated by the pounds that you have to lose, not get discouraged by them. I've heard it before, but there's something in the way that she delivers it that just makes it so motivating.

Sometimes, in the podcast, Wendy will yell at her own fat. Here's my favorite yell so far:

"FAT! I HATE YOU FAT! I hate how you sit on my legs and you make my legs rub together then I get a rash on my legs and then I can't walk! I hate how you jiggle all around, I hate how you make me go slow up the stairs! I hate how you make me pant really hard when I try to walk! I HATE YOU!"

Isn't that hilarious? The awesome part is that Wendy has said goodbye to a lot of her fat, 139 pounds, in fact. She gives tons of good tips and motivations that have worked for her. (See before and after photos here.)

Give it a listen. You'll be glad you did.

If you're reading this post thinking,"EEEK! I don't have an iPod, how am I supposed to listen to a podcast?" You can do it from your iTunes. Simply go to the iTunes store, search "Yell at Your Fat", click on the podcast icon, then from there you can double click each individual episode to listen straight from your computer without having to download. :)