Car shopping and buying isn't fun, it's exhausting
Welcome to Blood Soaked and Blind, a weekly newsletter from the author Matthew R. Taylor.
Lately, all of my time has been spent car shopping. This is a long and exhausting process. We've been searching and then going and looking at vehicle after vehicle, and both feeling completely exhausted afterward. It's hard when you have a set price in mind, and the things you find are Beat to shit, have problems, or have a million miles on them. Locally, we're not finding much at all. So we're expanding our search to surrounding areas, and trying to find the time to get to those vehicles. It's frustrating, exhausting, and I know my wife and I are both over it at this point, but we have to keep doing it. I know we'll find something For us to drive and enjoy. It's just been taking up so much of our time that we're both a bit worn out and our patients are frayed. My days are spent researching vehicles, and the dealerships that have them. We want to make sure what people are saying about these vehicles that we are looking at, and honest opinions from people on the dealerships that were interested in going to. Too many times in the past we've gone in "blind", see what I did there, and regretted the vehicle we purchased Afterward. So we're doing our research and fact finding this time. And I got to say, it's helping, but also making it harder. So many things have so many catastrophic problems attached to them, that it's hard to find vehicles that don't have a horrible history. But, I guess no one ever said car shopping was easy.
And just like that, it's over! We found a vehicle and bought it! We decided on a 2012 Mazda CX nine SUV. It's nice and clean, well loaded with lots of options, low miles for the year, and drives really nice. We are both very happy. The best part, we were able to purchase it with the money from the settlement of our truck. So now we don't have another loan. We own it out right. Which, is really nice. No car payment means we can put more towards paying off our house. Which also means When the house is paid off in five or six years, we can then afford to go buy the truck we really really want. That is our goal. I'm just happy we found something pretty nice, runs and drives great, and is very comfortable for the both of us. So now maybe we can focus on other stuff again. My wife and I discussed that if we don't have time before Christmas break to get to the final edits of my next book, we will definitely finish it over Christmas break and get it out by the new year or shortly thereafter. I'm really excited to get that book done and out there.
Usually I have a small section here where I talk about the book I read during last week and finished. Unfortunately I didn't finish reading a book this last week. I was so exhausted every evening from car shopping and all of the stress with it, that I literally would hit our bed and pass out shortly after that. But now that all the car stuff is done, I can focus back on not only my writing again, but reading and finishing the current book I'm enjoying.
Enjoyed a family dinner with all of my children at home last night. It's always fun when you get all 8 of us together. There's laughter, there's chaos, and there's just a great time. I love my kids, and enjoy listening to their banter back and forth While we all enjoy a good meal together. Of course I had to make a big batch of my yummy chili for everyone. It was just a good evening together, and I couldn't ask for a greater family to spend my life with. I love them so much, and I'm so proud of each of them. It truly warms me and my wife's hearts just spending time altogether.
Currently reading: Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak. The opening of this book hit me a bit with the woman and her addiction, but I kept reading on and I'm glad I did. Really enjoying this book.
Currently watching: finished the first season of Goliath, holy shit that was awesome! Now we are onto the second season, and still enjoying the hell out of this show. You can find it on Amazon prime video, and I recommend you go check it out, you will love it! We also caught up with a new episode of the show Found. Really into this show, and excited to hear that it got renewed for another season. Ha, my wife was wrong.
Currently listening: we've been rocking out to a huge Christmas playlist I built on Spotify. By the way, I build many playlists on Spotify. I think I have like 46 or something public playlist now. I'm told I'm actually quite good at building a Playlist too. Check them all out on Spotify And give them a listen. You can find me on there as Matthew Taylor.
Not sure what I'm going to focus on today. I do have some house stuff I need to get done this morning, but I think I should be able to finish everything before lunch. After that I think I will fire up my MacBook, and jump back into more novel work again. I want to get more books wrote and completed. That's the goal anyways. I keep thinking about that shelf in my office. What it would look like completely full of books wrote by me. Hopefully someday I'll have to find more room than that shelf for the copies of the books I write and create.
Thank you for reading this weeks newsletter. I hope to see you back here next week. Be yourself, be original, and be bloody.