through the trees...

I have a new car! She's a white 1998 Toyota Camry LE, and she's in great condition! I'm calling her Nene. I love Camrys, so I'm really happy. I bought her from my mechanic, so I really feel that the car is reliable.

I still owe $1000, but they let me take her Friday night, which was really nice of them as I was starting to go crazy without a way to get to and fro. If I really needed something my roomie would take me - so for instance, I got to go grocery shopping last Thursday (I didn't know they were going to let me have the car early then) - but I didn't feel like I could ask to go to the library and so on. So it's great having a car and having a little more freedom. On Saturday I went out just to go out; I needed a few items but mostly I just wanted to relish having a bit more freedom.

It's been snowing here off and on, and I've been enjoying it. I wasn't sure how I would feel about winter here, because while I was living in the DC area back in my 20s and early 30s I really started to hate winter. I think, though, that was because the attitude of the residents and government was that winter didn't really exist, thus they were never prepared for it, nor could they really deal with snow. I think that's why I hated it. Here, it's expected that anytime from October on till about May, it's going to be cold, wet, snowy and dark, and they have the equipment to deal with it, so it's no big deal when it happens. Of course, we'll see how I feel at the other end of the winter season - I'm sure I'll be sick of it - but so far I'm pretty content. I grew up with weather much like this (not as wet and winters not quite as long), so it's not a big stretch for me.

I've lost about 30 pounds now on Weight Watchers, and I've been a bit more active, starting to go for longer walks and so on. My biggest "problem" is that my clothes are all too big, but that's a nice problem to have. My hope is that by the time summer rolls around again I'll be fit enough to go on hikes and such. I always enjoyed walking when I was younger, but the fibromyalgia has been hitting me hard in the last decade. My medication and losing weight are really helping with that.

Here's a picture I took of the ocean while on a walk over North Douglas Highway.

finally there was snow; also, no car

It finally snowed, a couple of weeks ago. It only lasted a couple of days, but it's supposed to snow again this weekend. In fact, we had a few wet flakes even this morning. Here are some pictures:

Anyway, it was kind of fun to have some snow on the ground at last, although it also made things pretty slippery. I'm looking forward to more snowiness this weekend.

In other news, my car gave up the ghost this morning, as I knew it would eventually. I was just hoping it'd last till Chris got here. So I am taking it off to the junker tonight or tomorrow, and I am not sure what I am going to do for a car in the meantime. I live close to 20 miles away from work, so I kind of have to have a car at this point. My roomie has two, but I don't know if the one he uses primarily for hauling his boat around has winter tires on it or not (and if not, then he won't lend me either that or his primary car). I have been offered fairly decent prices (though more than I can pay in a single payment) on used cars that are more or less guaranteed to be reliable, and it's possible that I would be allowed to pay in two or three installments. So I have options, but I'm not real comfortable at the moment. The fortunate thing is that my roomie (the one with two cars) and I work together so we could, theoretically, carpool if necessary. But that makes stuff like grocery shopping a pain in the ass, plus it severely curtails what little social life I have at the moment.

SO I guess we'll see. As I said to my mom (when telling her that this pretty much torpedoes my Xmas plans), at least I have the money and just don't want to spend it on that, rather than not having the money. It makes a world of difference.