The Weekend of Jolliness ... (or not)

Actually, it's been a pretty OK weekend, as holidays go. We went to Maryland on Thursday to have Thanksgiving with some close friends and their extended family. My parents are visiting, so they went along, too. It was a lot of fun, even though it was kind of a long drive. (And reminded us how cramped our little car really is!)

And speaking of the cramped car ...

We spent the rest of the weekend car shopping. Yep. Car shopping. Ugh. For years, hubby has been saying that we really need to get a new car. He's right. I know he's right. But I always reply with: "Can't we just wait a little longer? The ones we have are paid for." This is, of course, ignoring the fact that our current cars are 13 and 8 years old. The 13 year old car still runs quite well, but it's getting to that point where stuff is going to start going wrong. Really expensive stuff. And I know it doesn't make sense to wait until we have to pour all kinds of money into an old car.

Still ...

The thought of buying a new car makes me want to hurl. Literally. They are so freaking expensive! And car shopping is such a drawn-out and complicated process. It takes freaking forever, and it's stressful. Some people really enjoy it, I know -- but I am not one of them. I'm the worst kind of car shopper. I am one of those people who wants to decide what they want ... find it at a dealer ... and then pay whatever price they are asking, provided I find said price reasonable. Pair that up with my hubby, who is Mr. "Let's Negotiate This", and, well, you have some idea of the amount of stress this whole ordeal causes for me.

But (!!) I think we pretty much narrowed things down to our number one choice. We even sat down and had the ever-terrifying "price/numbers" talk with the salesman. It seems we are close to making a deal. The car place and our bank are both closed on Sunday, though, which means we can't finalize things until Monday, at the earliest.

I very selfishly wish we would have finished everything up today. It's totally irrational of me, but I am so "done" with the whole car shopping experience. >.O

Ugh ...

As if car shopping stress, holiday stress, and parental visit stress weren't bad enough ...

I just got flamed in a review to one of my WK fics. A well-written flame that brought up some good points, but it was a flame nonetheless. Which doesn't feel so great -- even though I know not everyone likes everything. And I DEFINITELY know not everyone agrees with the way I see things. And I also know it was bound to happen one of these days. And I'm sure it'll happen many more times in the future. 'Tis the nature of the beast.

What makes it worse is that the person wasn't even brave enough to leave their real name or contact information. If they had, perhaps I could have emailed them back and explained the story's origins and the fact that even I think it needs to be edited and re-written. But, I wrote it quite a long time ago, when I first started writing fanfic. In fact, it's one of the first stories I ever posted, and I have since tried to do some additional research and thinking about the characters and personalities involved in the series and/or fandom. Really, if you're going to be insulting to someone, the least you can do is man up enough to own up to your opinions. But, hey ... if you want to flame and run, then go right ahead. I won't say the review is unjustified. I will say it's not a great feeling to know (in extremely strident terms) that someone out there thinks I'm an idiot and a hack. And I will also say it's quite a shame that both parties missed out on what could have been a good and productive discussion (well, if such a thing can even exist on the internet, that is). Ah well. If this person is still reading my fics, I guess I can prepare for more well-written, albeit nasty, missives in the coming days. Oh joy. -.-"

This is me ... going to bed now. Before anything else can happen. Bleh.