Li’l Blue comes to live with us

Yesterday afternoon we added a new member to our family. We went car shopping and brought home Li’l Blue. Why is this significant? Why am I even excited about this? Because we paid for Li’l Blue in full and in cash, with my earnings that I’ve been diligently saving from my various quiltmaking endeavors: lectures, workshops, articles I’ve written, and award money. I’ve been squirrelling it all away and spending as little as possible with the express purpose of saving enough to buy a used car. We wanted a hatchback so that all my “stuff” would fit in back when we travel to various quilt guilds. We also wanted a compact car that would potentially get good gas mileage. I’m hoping this one will get 30 miles per gallon on long trips. Before yesterday, we just had one car: a nearly fifteen year old minivan with almost 220,000 miles, and we know that poor minivan isn’t going to live forever.

I don’t know much about cars. I pretty much only know what color they are, so we started by just looking at cars in parking lots to see which ones might be about the right size. Then I turned to the 2013 Consumer Reports Buying Guide to see what cars they recommend as good used cars. Based on those two things, I came to really like the Nissan Versa. I also read reviews online. Boy, it’s all so confusing! Especially because in our marriage, we’ve never really had much of a choice. Many cars were given to us. We also bought some inexpensive hand-me-downs from friends. We’re hoping this one turns out to be a good car that we can keep for a really long time!

Did you notice anything else? It is hard to see in the pictures. We know that God delights in blessing His children, and we were quite amused that the car we finally found (that we could afford) is blue! Nissan says it is Metallic Sapphire Blue. I think it is more of a navy blue, but who am I to quibble?