My grandma was a very sweet, cheerful, caring woman. With no disrespect to my grandfather, who is also a wonderful man, when he married, he definitely married up. She rarely complained about anything, even after years of waning strength and poor health, and was always so happy to see others and help people in need. I am sad that my boys will not grow up to know or remember her. She and my grandpa were married for 66 years. She is and will be very missed.

Adam has had this old Mazda Protege since 2000. I went with Adam when he bought it. It was our first car when we were married. We left for our honeymoon in this car. We drove it all through college. I drove it when Adam joined the Marines and went overseas. It's lasted past our Jetta, our 4Runner, and we still have it with our Subaru.
I've kind of had this idea that we would just keep it until it just won't go anymore, then replace it with something nicer. So, in the hopes that that would be sooner, we've kind of neglected it, hoping to shorten it's life even more, but...

....it still will not die!!!

Let me try to paint a picture of this lovely beast (sorry, no photos, at least not of the Mazda, no way):

We do not change the oil in it--although we do check and add it if needed.
We do not take it in for tuneups or checkups or whatever.
Someone hit it while it was parked, and the person offered to pay for the dent, but we didn't want to make them pay several hundred for a worthless car anyways, so it's had a small dent in it since 2003.
It's been broken into three times, the last time being New Year's Eve of 2007/New Year's Day 2008. We never wanted to waste the $100 to replace the radio, so it has had a nice gaping hole for over a year.
The lock was popped out from the first time it was broken in, which we sort of fixed, but not really.
The passenger side door sticks when you try to open it. I think we honestly put duct tape on it at one time.
If you're driving with the headlights on, the brake lights remain on the whole time.
None of the inside lights work--not even the clock.
...
I hate this car. The thing is stinking embarassing to drive--if I have to drive it to work, I park in the back parking lot. But I've just never been the one to judge a person by their car, and I don't make payments on anything besides our house, so Adam has been so sweet with me and put up with it instead of buying a nicer one that we could probably have afforded. I guess the one good thing about it is that we don't need to worry about ever locking the car doors, because anyone stupid enough to steal this car is just asking for their own headache. Adam and I fight over who gets to drive our other car, so I finally mentioned to him that he should just buy a truck, so...here is our (ahem...Adam's) new truck!


Anyone want to buy a 1993 teal Mazda Protege? It's got...um...real personality.
...