What are you stitching next?

The kids saw hail for the first time ever this spring. They were enthralled. I didn't mind until the pea sized ice cracked my windshield.

Cheryl

Right now it is REALLY tossing down rain in intermittent "showers", along with all the pyrotechnics of thunder and lightning. Part of the outer bands from hurricane Dolly which the TV says is currently hitting Brownsville.

Do we have any people in that area?

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans

If there is an upside to it, car dealerships have hail damaged new cars very discounted after a storm. Imagine softball sized!

"Cheryl Isaak" wrote>

My favourite descriptor is "hail the size of individual coffee creamers"! Watching it pelt down last night, I was glad that I have a convertible--much less damage potential.

Dawne

Yeah, but I have to become famous first so someone will buy it! :)

Geeze and I need a new car - soon.

Cheryl

I have a big honkin Expedition. It is over 10 years old and has 70 thousand miles on it, mostly from going up to NY and WI and AZ and NOLA over the years. It guzzles. But, what do I do with it now?

I am going to run her till she drops. No payment as long as possible. Then, hopefully, they'll have a car which gets 60 mpg. I'll heap it then. They can't even get a car with better than 35 mpg? What happened to Honda of the seventies?

LOL - as we have a slightly but not much newer Expedition with 140K miles on it. That just had work done last summer, and recently some repairs in the airs suspension system (which ended up costing only about $450, as opposed to the original repair place which quoted us $1400 (less 10% discount for a coupon). I'm still trying to figure out what the heck they did for the $90 hour diagnostic we paid - and got it only partly right (leak in main air line from pump to rear suspension). This is one of those perfect examples of why you should bite the bullet and get a 2nd opinion for major work - unless you're absolutely confident in your mechanic, or someone else is paying.

We're keeping Nessie, but trying to minimize the driving with her. The engine (the large one) should be good for 250 K miles, and we've found that using the higher octane gas - which does cost about 5% more, results in 15% to 20% better mileage (the engine is tuned for that). Totally sympathise, and we're trying to minimize Nessie's use.

The Audi gets decent mileage - but is of course tiny, and also 8 years old.

The plan here is "Ellice gets a real job" . We finish the refi on the house. Before November. We are out of debt totally (except for house) with only a few paychecks for me . We buy new car in winter - some decent hybrid - we've looked at all the mid-size SUV type hybrids and cross-overs. Then Nessie can retire. Alternatively, we replace the TT, and keep Nessie as the local travel or need to haul things. But, I don't even want to think about the replacement DH wants for the TT (can you say A5). We'll see - right now it's all about survival, and me getting a job.

Ellice

Full agreement. If you start paying out to fix, may as well pay out to make new car payments. The only thing I really had done was new tires and the recalls.

Interesting. Do you have the 5.4 V-8 If you get 20% better mileage it may be worth it.

I'm thinking Mini Cooper! But even those get bad mileage for its size. I can always rent a pickup truck for 20 dollars to haul my hay and mulch.

Off to physical therapy and my unemployed husband is standing over me hand on hip, foot tapping. He's turned into a washer woman in a month! LOL.

Just piping up about small cars. We have one of the new smart cars and love it! It's certainly *not* for everyone, but we're just two people (no kids yet) and needed a second car so we could each get to work.* I wanted something small, cheap and good on gas. In truth what I really wanted was a Vespa, but with the Long Island drivers, DH wasn't biting :) We get regularly in the low 30's when driving locally (including the "fabulous LIE crawl") and well into the mid

Heather in NY

Just saw Gillian - her Scion xA gets about 40 combined. I'd take it.

Cars got heavier when they got "safer".

Cheryl

How was she doing ?

BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's the best news I've heard all week!

Having been to Europe and having driven in any number of their little tin cans in Italy, I'd be curious to see what the injury ratio between there and here; per capita. Not to mention there are no hard rules in Italy about driving methods; in other words they drive like maniacs~!

Congradulations on the green cards! Vilkomen!

Fantastic, of course! What a lovely person!

Elizabeth

But they're 18 before they can get a license, the process is harder, not as many people drive because public transportation is better, and the drunk driving laws are draconian.

Elizabeth

It was so cool seeing Elise proudly producing her "stash"; we hadn't actually met before, but she acted as if she has known me forever! She is a really charming, and smart, young lady!

It was a great time with the "girls", and I finally got to see Cheryl's daylilies in bloom!! All I can say is WOW!

BTW, I get about 34-35 around town in my Scion. For some rason when we are in the mountains I get 38-391 don't know why.

Gillian