The "Magnetic Gray" lining

I have never known true poverty. I have never had a doubt about the fact that I will always have a roof over my head and food in my children's mouths. I know that when I was young there were "lean" times for my parents. Times when venison stew or some other stew was nearly always on the menu. My mom has always been a savvy shopper and our clothes may have had nice labels but I know that much of what we wore came from a thrift store or was found on "deep sale". And even back then, there were times as a little girl that I thought that maybe we were secretly wealthy and my parents just wanted us to grow up "down to earth"( because in the North Country, we were surrounded by people who truly were poor and in need). And yet, we were probably always middle class and my grandparents were there to help out when we needed them. I think this was around the time that my aspirations were to become a "saint", like ya know, St. Catherine, St. Agnes, St. Kelly.

Even now, when Matt and I use food stamps and we travel down the street to get food from the survival center, we pass our local CSA farm and are reminded that we had enough funds to get a share there. And we know that in a few years we will most likely have two incomes instead of the piddly amount we live on now. And like our own parents, we have family to help us out. So however " low-income" we are right now it is not and never has been "real".

Our biggest issue lately has been our car. Ideally we wouldn't have a car. We would live in a place where we could walk or take the bus everywhere and to travel long distances we would have access to cheap public transportation. We know a lot of people here who don't have cars and they make it work. But for us , it has been a trial. Bus/train tickets to NY are not cheap. and getting to Henry's appt.s in Noho every week would require an hour of travel and a bus transfer. And on and on. Our Camry has treated us well for many years but lately it has been threatening to blow up and I feel pockets of ozone bursting every time we start the ignition.

And so...... drum roll........

A new car. Wow. Ours is Magnetic Gray (more charcoal than this silver one)

And now we can go to school for the next few years and finish without having to deal with car issues. It is fuel efficient and has 6 air bags and is cute to boot. We are officially spoiled.

P.S And so, yes you can expect us in NY in a few weeks after all.