Hither and Thither

I haven't told you, faithful blog readers, that Angelines and I have bought a minivan to make our metamorphose into motherhood that much more complete. ;)  The whole shopping process is worthy of several posts, but I'll spare you the details.  In short we were driving all over kingdom come visiting dealerships and searching all over the internet for the best deals and all under a deadline because we had already "sold" our previous car.  In the sale contract we agreed to turn over the car by Oct. 20th so we necessarily had to find a new car by then.  The poor guy who bought our little "Cherry" (as my mom fondly dubbed our little, red Peugeot) actually took it home with an additional 2000 km on it thanks to all our frantic searching!

Obviously we've bought a used vehicle.  New cars just aren't worth the expense in my opinon, although Angelines was a very wary about a second-hand purchase.  We ended up getting it from a used car dealership in Málaga and I think we got a pretty good deal.  It's a 2010, metalic beige Citröen C4 Grand Picasso with five seats and the option of seven (the two in the back fold up out of what is usually the trunk space).  Most of the time, obviously we won't be needing more than five seats, but this Christmas with my sisters here there will be seven of us total and we'll all be able to go wherever we like!  Plus it was always a bit of a show picking up visitors from the airport in our little car because getting their luggage and all squared away was a little too much like playing tetris.  Now we have room to spare,

Angelines was, of course, quite sad to see her sporty, red car go.  She bought it brand new eight years ago and even had it special ordered just the way she wanted it.  Another friend of mine, who's just had a baby and also had to sell her previous car for a more family-friendly one, described it as "selling my youth".  When I relayed that quote to A, she agreed whole heartedly.  Still, even she is pleased with our new car.  The only thing is that the minute we drove it away from the dealership the service light came on with some warning about the diesel partiticle filter...(?!)  Luckily the dealership guarantees their cars for a year so we are not paying to have this looked at/fixed, but the downside is of course the fact that their mechanic is obviously in Málaga.  More driving.

Today is my due date--40 weeks.  And so we have been going to Málaga for the past two weeks for check ups anyway and have been able to also work in these visits to the mechanic for the car.  Having grown up in towns that were never nearer than an hour's drive from the nearest shopping mall, I am quite used to making a list of chores to do "in town", and taking any excuse to get them all done in one trip; Angelines, on the other hand, is someone who likes doing one thing at a time.  For her, taking advantage of a trip to Málaga for the doctor in order to see the mechanic and get some shopping done is a bit of an overload.  Needless to say she's been more stressed than usual recently.

And of course, the imminent birth of our dear Emily Alejandra adds another level of uncertainty to the stress.  Every day that goes by is one more closer to her arrival and one fewer that we have to get these things taken care of.  As of now we're going in for an appointment on Monday with my gynecologist and will be leaving our car with the mechanic for a few days (!).  The dealership has arranged to loan us a car in the meantime since we absolutely cannot be without a vehicle.

So you see, I could just as easily have titled this post "Helter Skelter"...These past two weeks have been madness.