Whew!

I just have to make the super-quick announcement that finally, three days after the end of August, I have finished visiting every single blog of the people who are listed and/or left a comment on the Blogging the Recession post at Motherhood Uncensored (Note: if you visit this site now and have not done so before, it's really great but it is uncensored). I feel so proud of myself right now... but also a little disappointed in myself that I didn't leave comments for everyone. I didn't try to find those that did not leave a link or url, and I didn't go any further when I ran into a private post of someone I don't already read. But I did visit every single site, some more than once on accident (you'll see what I mean if you see the list -- it's over 170 blogs long before you get to the comments!).

My blog never made it to the list, so I don't think I'll be in the running for any of the prizes, but that's okay. A lot of them were new-baby items, and since Adam's only going to be 9 months on Friday, we're (hopefully) not going to need any of those for awhile yet! :)


On a side note, about that blog design I mentioned. I don't know if I have any return visitors or not, but if you stumbled across my blog a week or two ago and are now back, you may notice that I changed up the look and feel quite a bit. Added a sidebar, completely revamped the overall design and replaced the header. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the change, or if you're just visiting me for the first time, your opinion on the design. Love it, hate it, just be honest (as much as I love having my ego stroked compliments). As a newbie blogger, I welcome any and all opinions. Feel free to leave me a comment there at the bottom or send me an email at momsensical [at] gmail [dot] com.

Surely, you must be joking...

*****RANT WARNING*****

We recently bought our friend's car. Today we went down to the BMV to get the title taken care of, since his birthday was on Monday and the plates are now expired. I should probably mention that this was the second (and not final) visit on behalf of this particular car. Let's not forget the three times I went earlier this summer because of my old car.

Oh yes, my friends, this is a story about bureaucratic bullshit.

Let me back up a bit. I have owned my 1993 Nissan Altima for 5 years. Back when my husband and I were first dating, it was the nice car -- his had a broken speedometer, among other things. And really, for a 10-year-old car (even a 10-year-old Japanese sedan), it was in great shape. A few years later, my husband bought a 2002 Mazda Protege. So then that was the nice car. Fast forward a few more years, and we were planning to move to Boston with my newly discovered fetus. On a trip from Columbus to Cincinnati (where his dad lives), the Nissan started making funny noises. We were planning on leaving our cars here while he did a year's worth of grad work (would you want to pay for Boston insurance and a parking spot a quarter-mile from your tiny apartment, and oh yeah, have I mentioned Boston drivers are INSANE?). So we just figured we'd leave my car at his dad's house instead of his car, and in the meantime, my mechanic brother-in-law could look at it.

Long story short (yeah, I know, not that short), we decided my car was no longer fit for transporting an infant. We moved back in February and bought our friend's car with the intention of selling mine soon. It's taken us this long to sell my car, for about 30% less than what we wanted for it. The economists who say we're not in a recession can bite me. In the meantime, the tags expired in June because they were still in my mom's name -- she had turned the title over to me, oh, the weekend before we moved. No time to get new plates then. And because we live in an apartment, any car with expired tags gets a notice. Apparently people abandon cars in these parking lots? If you say so.... So I had to pay for new tags, despite the fact that we had already spent 4 months trying to sell it, all the while not driving it. And then I had my birthday three weeks ago. Another year's worth of tags. And then we sold the car, and they wanted more money from me to turn the title over to the person who bought it! WTF? They already get fees from the buyer, what the hell do they think I am, made of money?

Things must be simpler now that we've sold that car, right? Ha. So my husband goes to the BMV a few weeks back to get the title for the Hyundai (our friend's former car) turned over. Chad had signed the title and mailed it to us, since he lives in Cincinnati. My husband said he'd need to get it notarized, too, because it says right there on the title that that's what you have to do. They argued about it, and Chad insisted he was right. So Brandon took the title in, and guess what? They told him it needed to be notarized. We mailed it back to Chad, who took his sweet time getting it notarized and sent back to us.

So now we're caught up to today, thinking that nothing else could possibly go wrong. Why do we even bother? The lovely ladies at the title agency tell us that we still cannot finalize the sale of this car. (See the title of this post). "The car belongs to your friend and his wife. We can't turn the title over without both of their signatures. You can try going next door to License Services for a 30-day temporary tag so you don't get pulled over." Where they tell us that no, they cannot do that, because it would be illegal. Furthermore, we cannot put my brand-new license plates on this car, because those plates are only in my name, and not in both our names. Bite me. They might as well create a robot to do these people's jobs for them, because we would get just as much compassion from it.

We are now blessed with the privelege of sending back the title, having Chad's wife sign it, get it notarized, send it back, go back into the title agency, and try not to develop depression and ulcers in the process.

And all I could say to Brandon was, "When can we move to Canada?"

Helping Bloggers Everywhere

I am a newbie blogger.

In case I haven't mentioned that yet. I mean, I've done some LiveJournal-ing before, but this is my first "real live blog," per se. A friend of mine does a lot of blogging (she's a really good writer!). I've been checking out her blog, A Mommy Story, and came across this:





Do what now?

So I clicked on it. It took me to Motherhood Uncensored (Note: when she says uncensored, she means it! That said, her blog is also very good, and very funny).

This is Kristen's amazingly brilliant and clever idea:


If you read blogs, then for the month of August, make the "pledge" to click through from your feed reader. No obligation to leave a hilarious comment or send a long stalkerish email (although both, within reason, are always lovely). Just click through to the blog (not on ads unless you are so led) and if you're feeling generous, click around to their older posts.

Just those extra page views can make a big difference for bloggers who could really use the help, or in my case, where page views don't matter so much, a big fat ego boost.


Sure, I'll join in (better late than never, right? and of course, I'm a geek -- I wanna do what all the cool kids are doing). Now that you mention it, this year has not gone so well -- my husband is going back to school for a teaching certificate in the hopes that this time next year, it will make him more employable. I'm looking for work, despite the knowledge that most of that income will go to pay for childcare. And I know everyone out there has similar problems right now. So go ahead and click that button, read some blogs, every click to an older page counts. I mean, you're gonna read them anyway, right? Just take that extra minute to go to the blog itself and help your fellow bloggers out.

And if you like what you see here, feel free to keep reading into September, too. :)

Until next time!