So I neglected you again. I find my down moments make me not feel like sharing and September got dubbed Sucktember with good reason.

On the top of Sucktember's list of evil was the eminent retirement of the Yodamobile. The brake light came on one day, so I jostled the emergency break. The light went off. A couple of weeks later, the light decided to come on again. I jostled the e brake to no avail. I stopped for a stop light and the brakes felt fine, so I drove on. At the next stop light, the brakes felt spongy. Being a wise duck, I quickly returned home and parked the car. The next morning, I went out to peek at my ailing steed and found a big pool of brake fluid under the back tires. I called a friend who has an auto body shop and made arrangements for the repairs.

My husband had looked under the car and noticed quite a bit of rust. Thus began his campaign to buy me a new car. To allay his concerns, we stopped at a dealership. As we wandered up to a row of appropriately-sized cars, a gentleman appeared to offer our assistance. Having experienced the joy of car salesmen in the past, I was a little surprised when he noticed I wanted to ponder my options before receiving a sales pitch. We finally decided to check out a Camry, which featured electronic controls for the seat adjustment and made a weird noise when I went around turns that made me uncomfortable. Needless to say, I wasn't ready to commit to that option.

Later that day, we decided to take a peek at the Subaru and Nissan dealer. The first car we test drove was and Ultima. It drove well enough, but just didn't feel right. Then I noticed a tear in the seat. As a professional noncommitter, I wasn't willing to commit to either option. Our very friendly salesman suggested we try a newer Sentra. I tried one out but didn't want to commit, particularly since it was black, which shoes dirt easily. As we discussed the price with the salesman, our new best friend, he suggested the same car in blue. My husband's eyes lit up as he looked at me. I knew he had decided I needed a pretty blue car to brighten my September.

So my new friend is a lovely grey blue Sentra with barely a hundred miles on it, which it received with a hobbit behind the wheel. I lean towards naming my sweet, sweet ride the Blueberry 2 in honor of Psych or picking a nice name like Inky in honor of the cyan ghost from Pacman. My new car has a feature to help me maximize my gas mileage that makes me feel like I am playing an old school video game. The goal, of course, is to keep the progress bar in the above-average range. We'll see how much more exciting that makes driving for the people around me.

For the curious, my friend and his father strongly suggested I look into getting a new car after they worked on the Yodamobile. They had to replace most of the braking mechanism and felt concerned about the rust factory on the undercarriage. My brother still seems to want it. I think he is working on finding some new and exciting lawn ornaments, but that is a tale for another day.

As National Novel Writing Month approaches, I find myself trying to balance the many goals I have for each day. Some friends invited me to join their workout sessions, which actually fulfills one of my gaols. It also provides great sources of amusement. Our fearless leader has a little boy that comes with her to hang out. As I was jumping rope the other day, I realized that he said "ouch" every time I jumped into the air. It occurs to me that I may say that word too much. This is not a sign of good health, but at least he is a little less afraid of me than he was a couple of weeks ago.

I leave our workout sessions with a curiousity about which muscle will reveal itself the next day. My thighs seem to be getting most of the fun out of our workouts. Apparently, squats really are good for you. Who knew?