Bringing home "our" new project

We have not had a good year. No one has. We are looking forward to closing this year, and starting a new one in 2010. We don't have many people that mean the entire world to us, and my father was one of them. We started 2009 with the tragic and very sudden loss of him, and all of us have spent the months that have followed, well, lost ourselves. Shifting into a new, and very looooow gear of adjusting to life without him we have struggled with every single day since. We learned the hard way that we need to stop paying lip service to the casually over-used adage that "life is too short." Because it is so, so painfully true. We talk and cry about him nearly everyday, and one thing we saw clearly - once we started seeing clearly: make every day count. Stop living on borrowed money, pay off credit cards, love our kids up and certainly put a stop to the god-forsaken, never-ending car payments on these cargo carrying, 0-60 in three minutes, metal-traps-of-nothingness. Thus, our car search began.

My husband and I are a lot a like, and the one thing we have always shared is a love of cars. We aren't old (according to us, not our kids). We're hovering a little too close for our liking to 40. We have owned probably 30+ cars between us. Many of them fast, old, interesting and most important - really fun to drive. Then we had kids. Something happens to people when they have kids. Of course we want to keep them safe - but somewhere along the way it becomes acceptable to find a big ol' car in some un-interesting color that you throw in "D" and drift down the highway in a, yes - I will say it - "a family car." We have succumbed to this phenomenon, and like a bagde of shame I tool about in my cloth-interiored big ol' boring SUV...and I have the extreme pleasure of paying $329 hard-earned bucks for it every, single 30 days. No more! Yesterday we brought home (a paid for! Half-cash, half-check - it is really, really ours!) a 1973 BMW 2002 tii. Like every 35 year-old car that has been sitting, rotting in a driveway under an old oak tree for that last few years - it needs a lot of work.

She has already proven to be a little on the high-maintenance side. Within the first hour of owning her we have run out of gas (not her fault - ours) and CJ was promptly pulled over (which Cian LOVED) for really, really expired registration. To Colin's delight, it seemed the cop merely wanted to share his love of cars, ask a bunch of questions about the car and send him on his way with an ominous "good luck." So, after taking the kids (separately, so they can sit in the front seat) around the block about 50 times each, she is now retired to jack stands in our driveway. Hell, we live in suburbia with houses about 2 inches apart from one another and our neighbor has plastic toys in her front yard - so to be the only person on our block with an old car in the driveway on jack stands is somewhat astonishing. Starting today, we have exactly 12 months - almost to the day - to get this baby road (and family) ready! We will share with you our (ok - Colin's) progress as we go - and I am sure we will have our share of "stories" along the way!