Two posts in one day?

Yes! Two posts in one day. I felt this post needed it's own section. It was a bad decision that lead to a finale this weekend that felt deserved the whole story.

I hope it's safe to say that most people have one purchase in their lives that they greatly regret. I really hope that or that means I am alone on this and I quite frankly don't want to be alone in a land of buyer's remorse I would much rather have friends. I once owned a beautiful GMC Envoy XL that I loved. I not only loved it but knew it was perfect for us. Even though I felt like a soccer mom driving it and there were times when I thought we wouldn't have kids for a while and why was I driving this giant gas guzzling SUV anyway. Well I will tell you why. Safety and convenience. One day I got the wild hair that my perfect SUV wasn't good enough and I needed something zippy and sporty. I still wanted an SUV because I felt safer, higher up and there was the fact that we often take our two 70lb dogs on trips with us and it comes in handy to lay the seats down and let them have their space.

After a bad encounter with a car dealership and their sleazy sales people (not all sales people are sleazy but these ones really were) who wouldn't show me the car I knew I wanted to buy because they wanted to sell me something else I stormed off determined to find exactly what I wanted somewhere else for a better price and within the hour I had. I took my finding as a sign from God that this was the right thing to do. The exact thing I was looking for with a better price tag within the hour. How could it NOT be God? Well, after a week I realized that just because the stars aligned didn't mean that God, whom I hadn't even talked with about this wonderful decision, hadn't meant for this to be. I had a cute, black, zippy, sporty 2005 Jeep Liberty parked in my driveway that I was quickly learning I hated. Soon all of our conversations in our new Jeep would start out with "The Envoy did that." or "If we had the Envoy we wouldn't have to worry about it." or "My Envoy never did that."

Soon winter was blanketing the trees and mountains with snow and the streets with ice. Ice, how would my new zippy, sporty SUV do on ice. The answer, not well. I had to have it in 4 wheel drive to ensure limited ice skating on the asphalt ice rink outside. Even then it was smooth sailing and not in a good way. By that time though I had decided that I had to keep the Jeep. There was no other way. I had made a bad choice, it had low miles and it would be in our families best interest financially for me to keep the Jeep and make the best of it. So I started over looking it's lack of traction, features and other things I had come to dislike and instead gave it a cute nickname "Beep, Beep" and went into denial trying to always say something positive for every negative. "It barely stopped at that last stop sign but it's ok because I look so cute and sporty in my black SUV."

This last weekend we were in Tacoma/Puyallup, I never really know where I am when I am there. Nicole, Mike and I decided to go to the Babies R US and start our registry. We were excited to have the help of someone who had used these items and would know what to get and what we wouldn't need. I was driving my Beep Beep. Now I have to be honest. I usually work really hard to be a safe driver. My first accident was on ice when I was 15 and had barely had my Idaho's Drivers License for a month. Since then I have always been really cautious. Being pregnant however I have noticed my ability to focus and think straight haven't been what they once were and there are times I joke that pregnant women should have bumpers on all sides of the car and a sign overhead announcing that it is indeed a pregnant women driving. Now not all pregnant women are like that and I realize that but this one is in need of a little help from time to time. All that said. I think even in my right state of mind I still wouldn't have been able to control what happened. I learned the hard way twice that my Jeep didn't have anti lock breaks.

Seattle traffic was bad and the west coast sky was busy soaking the roads. Cars sped up so did I car slammed on breaks so did I, cars stopped, I did not. We began hydroplaning down the freeway and no amount of pumping, steering or screaming was going to get the Jeep to stop. The first time it happened it wasn't that bad. We stopped a few feet from the car in front of us regained our composure and decided bad weather conditions and the fact that neither Mike nor I realized that this vehicle was not equipped with anti lock breaks had lead to the incident and now that we know we can better prepare ourselves in the future. Denial. Little did we know that our next hydroplaning incident would be 2 hours into the future. Yet again cars speed up so do I, cars slow down and so I start to slow down, cars stop but we don't. This time however we were closer to the vehicle in front of us because his breaklights looked like taillights it had taken me longer to register that it wasn't one of the many sets of taillights I had been staring at but in fact a set of brake lights. Nicole starts saying something, I can't tell what but I know she is begging God to make the car stop. I realize that I could be praying as well but I was a little busy trying to get my unresponding car to stop and I figured that God knew I wanted the car to stop so I should just worry about that. The Durango in front of us was all over it and moved to the shoulder to give us some more room we quickly skidded right up next to him and finally the car stopped and then turned us in the the lane next to us once the slack in the wheel I had been trying to turn caught. I weaved us quickly to the shoulder and Mike pipes up with "I'll drive." I climbed into the passenger seat as Nicole moved to the back. She quickly announces "Can you imagine if there was a baby in the car?" Well of course I can I am pregnant. I quickly burst into uncontrollable sobs blaming myself, my bad driving and then Nicole makes the point that it wasn't really me it was my Jeep. Quickly all my self loathing turned to pure and simple hatred for the vehicle I was trying so hard to like. As soon as we were back at Nicole and Ian's house Mike was on the Internet determined to get me an Envoy. No matter how badly this would hurt our finances my dear sweet husband wasn't going to let me suffer another day thinking I had to drive that horrible Jeep. Which he is now calling the missile because you don't stop missiles.

Hopefully, we can sell the Jeep quickly and find us another Envoy. I feel kind of bad selling the Jeep to some unsuspecting person but it must go.

FOR SALE: One 2005 Black Jeep Liberty with low miles, capable of hauling large Christmas trees, A/C, power windows. Priced to sell!