Cruze-in'

Nearly two years have gone by since I purchased my Chevy Cruze.  I have just over 13k miles on it, because I'm the proverbial "old lady who drives to work and back".  lol  Getting older has made traveling a little more difficult than I anticipated, so I don't drive as many places as I once did.  Traveling alone just doesn't make much sense, either.

Today, I took my Cruze into the dealership to have it's annual checkup and oil change.  While they were at it, I decided that a new air filter and wiper blades were in order.  I had no idea there was a separate air filter for the "cabin" of my car.  When the tech brought it out so I could see it, yuck!  It was dirty and yes, please replace that one too!  Turns out, it was nearly $70. lol  But after 2 years, (and a dog) that inside filter got plenty dirty as well.  

When buying cars, I have always went with something that had 6 cylinders, because every car I've ridden in with a 4-banger just didn't have the "get up and go" that I wanted in a car.  When I'm merging on a freeway, I want there to be power behind that pedal!  But I've changed my tune since then.

My little Cruze only has 4 cylinders.  Granted, I don't drive as many freeways as I used to.  Besides, now that I'm nearly 60, the impatient drivers can be a little patient with me if I need to merge these days -- perhaps a little slower than I used to, but not by much!  But the best thing I've enjoyed with my Cruze is the gas mileage.  I've always hated stopping for gas.  In my Impala, with a 6 cyl, I was stopping every other week ---- IF I didn't travel much more than back and forth to work.  With the Cruze?  every third week.  And it's costing a lot less to fill the tank as well!  

I purchased this at Earnhardt Chevrolet in Chandler, on my lunch hour.  They were easy to deal with, met my goals and my price; they even took care of turning in my rental car to Enterprise.  Their service has been excellent - on my new Cruze, and on my 2009 Impala (which I purchased from the same dealership)!   "Earnhardt:  It's a name you can trust and that ain't no bull. Tex Earnhardt"

We still need a car to get around, but we can change our thinking about our options.  I'm glad I changed my mind, I love to zip around town in my Chevy Cruze! 

Holidays, errr -daze

For The Sake Of Our Brother 

In a stable, in a manger

In the cold winter's air

In the arms of his mother

A child's lying there

In a city, in a village

Though the years have gone by

The child still remains

With the dream still close by

And each year on this night that child reawakens

And each year on this night that hope re-begins

That the dream he has offered might one day be taken

Trans Siberian Orchestra's "Lost Christmas Eve" has become one of my all time favorite tunes to play, to get me into the Christmas spirit.  It's become very difficult as year after year my holidays are spent working, prepping a BigBox store for the rest of the world to shop and create holiday magic for their own families.  I've worked retail for 16 holiday seasons now, and I've spent a total of two of them with family.  One because my father had been hospitalized in 2004, and 10 years later when he died.  Neither one of them were the joyous family gatherings they should have been.  Mind you, I'm not complaining (much!).  It's just a difficult life that anyone in any kind of service industry has when holidays are here, and we're not able to spend it with family.  

So thank you to those who provide services so that others can have their happy holidays:  

hospital staff, hotel staff, restaurant staff, retail staff, safety/city services staff.  

All deserve so much more recognition than is given!

 Family is the reason for the season!

Cell Phone

I'm a pretty responsible person, don't have trouble keeping track of my cell phone, but yesterday - something went wrong.  It seems it slipped out of my jeans pocket and I was truly hoping that an honest person would find it, turn it in.  However, that wasn't the case.  My phone is gone, and I had to make the trek over to the Verizon store to find out my options.  Turns out, they aren't good.

I have been a Verizon customer for 10 years now;  I'm not due for an upgrade until May 5. That's 3 months away.  But they weren't able to slide the date a bit, to gain another two years' contract out of me. Instead, I was told that I would have purchase a phone at full retail (approx $400) ... or, I could go buy a "cheapie phone" from some outside source like Yakety Yak, bring it back to Verizon and let them activate it until my contract is done.

That will be the 'sticking point' -- when my contract is done, then what?  Stay with Verizon???  I'm thinking not.  In this day and age of the battle of cell phone companies, you might think they would try to do what they can to keep customers.  I started adding it up... in the past 21 months, I have paid them just over $1800.  They don't want to keep my income??  Or are they too big to care about one simple customer?

I have to admit, I was seriously stressing over not having a phone with me 24/7.  But after today, it's kind of nice not having it.  Maybe this is my "I'm all grown up" point where I just want to have a cell phone with just phone and text, none of this FB stuff, Apps stuff ... on the other hand, it sure comes in handy when traveling to use the airline Apps.


I was up most of the night last night trying to make sure I'd changed all my passwords, and wondering just what was on my phone that I will regret not having.  I believe there were about 500 pix on there.  Did I use my phone for banking?  I'm sure I didn't.  But ....   and that's the big worry.  What data can someone get???  Am I at risk??   *sigh*



When it's all said and done....
having to deal with this has been
a complete pain in the ass.