Monday, March 01, 2010

Weekend highlights

As usual, our weekend began at Fri Night Dinner with 'the usual suspects'. We had a smaller than usual turn out, but had a good time none-the-less.

Sat morning while Spouse had his personal trainer appointment, I took the BMW to our friend Bryan's car dealership to get a trade-in quote and price on the potential new (used) car. Later Spouse & I had lunch, ran some errands, drove to the beach to look at the ocean and look forward to the arrival of spring. Once back at home he took a nap while I tried to catch up a bit on my blog reading. (I'm still so far behind.) I talked to Betsy, our realtor back in VA, regarding a condo foreclosure that could be a good investment for us. She emailed me the listing and comps to review. That night we had dinner with Steven & Thad and 1 of The Bobs at Cottage Cafe, which was quite tasty and fun.

Sun morning we were up by 7 and on the road to VA by 8 so we could meet Betsy at the condo. Considering its location, condition, price, and foreclosure status, we decided to make an offer on it. However, we were told the listing agent was expecting other offers so we are remaining cautiously optimistic. If it works out then we believe we will have gotten a very good deal on a very rentable place. If it doesn't work out, we'll keep looking. So for now, we wait. When we finished at the condo we stopped for a quick lunch before heading back to DE. I love the drives between DE & VA because Spouse & I really talk, undistracted, about whatever is on our minds. Those are the times that I really feel the most connected to him.

Remember on Fri when I teased you with this sassy interior?
Well, now I will tell you it is the inside of this sleek little roadster.It is a 1999 Mercedes Benz SLK 320 retractable hardtop convertible. We absolutely LOVE that sassy red and black interior! I probably wouldn't have given this car a 2nd look if it had charcoal interior. There were several reasons for trading in the BMW, most of them small when viewed alone, but annoying and too expensive to fix when you put them all together. The BMW had 126K miles on it so it really didn't warrant spending the money to fix all the small problems. But the biggest reason for trading it was that it had begun to leak when it rained. Last summer I discovered the trunk was wet and then shortly thereafter Spouse determined that the passenger front seat and carpet were wet. Again, fixing this would have been too expensive for a car with so many miles.
So on Sun we said goodbye to the car we had lots and lots of fun owning and driving for 9 years, and welcomed another, sassier car to take its place. Although the new car is 11 years old, it only has 64K miles, and is in pristine condition. Now I'm really, REALLY ready for spring's arrival.

On the way home from Bryan's dealership we stopped at the grocery store, then Spouse made dinner and we watched a bad DVD I'd gotten from Netflix. With all we'd done that day we both felt pooped and decided to go to bed early. I can't remember the last time I went to bed at 9:30, but it wasn't long before I sailed off to dreamland.

Crush du Jour: Paul Wagner

8 comments:

Bob said...

Congrats on the new car; she's purty!

A Lewis said...

Super nice car!
And I, too, love drives for the same reason -- undistracted time. Free to chat, easily, quietly. I love it.

robertga99 said...

She is a beauty! Congrats! Can I come up and you take me for a ride near the beach in it? :)

Anonymous said...

Oh, that 320 is gorgeous.

And why did you call the movie bad? As in badly done, bad plot, bad acting? What was it because I note it's on Play Instantly.

I guess I'll just have to watch it.

anne marie in philly said...

yes, the new car IS pretty...but the crush is even BETTER! me want him NOW!

John Going Gently said...

paul wagner....In my day it was robert wagner,,,..
I am getting old.........


john

Paul Benjamin said...

Gorgeous! Paul Wagner AND the Mercedes! :)

Java said...

@ truthspew - re: the movie: all of the above. It's terrible.

I watched that movie a few months ago. Painfully bad, but so bad that it was funny, sort of. Were you able to watch the whole thing? I kept watching in hopes that it would get better. The rabbits were the best actors in the whole show.

If you actually put the name of the movie in your blog, you'll get a comment from the producer/director/actor. He does a search for his movie titles every so often. I know this from experience. He's a nice guy named Paul who lives in Texas and makes movies for the fun of it. Those are actually his rabbits. I am pretty sure he has another day job and doesn't depend on the movie making for his sole source of support. Good thing, huh?