fixing a car and a delay of plans

Well I have a bit of bad news today. DH's car kindof died on Tuesday. It died about 100 yards from home so we were able to get it into a parking spot, but it wouldn't start. When you turn the key to "start", it would just make a high whine. Kindof like if you turn on the blender with nothing in it.

So we call around and find someone to look at the car and we get it towed out there early yesterday morning. The immediate issue was the timing belt. It snapped, so that caused the dying. Another potential issue was that the valves could have bent but they wouldn't know any more until they put a new timing belt back on. So we called them a little later and sure enough, several valves are bent.

We just don't have the money for a different car and it's going to cost quite a bit to fix it, but we looked at the budget, the checking account, the savings account, and the upcoming bills and decided to go ahead and get it fixed. It pretty much ate up all the washer/dryer fund. Being a Nissan, which has a reputation of running for a long time, I have no reason to believe that anything this major will happen to the car again anytime soon.

This is where the delays come in. Since we have to start rebuilding the W/D fund then that will of course delay our purchase of it. And I have a stash of fabric to sew into maternity clothes but about 2/3 of that is still unwashed (I pre-wash my fabric before I sew with it). I don't want to tote that to the laundromat so I need a W/D to wash it... and since it's for planned maternity clothes then I want to have my sewing done before I need it so I don't sew in a hurry and mess up and have to rip out seams, etc.

This also has the potential to delay TTC-ing. I'm still looking for January, depending on how fast we can rebuild the fund. But as soon as we get a W/D then we will have to start saving for a midwife fee which is yet to be determined for the amount. (Not covered by insurance but a homebirth is what we want).

But as of right now I am still hopeful. I just keep praying and being faithful and know that DH and I will be taken care of. These setbacks are only momentarily frustrating. The wait only briefly seems forever. And the reward at the end of the tunnel will be what I've always been waiting for. Or something like that. Didn't mean to get all philosophical there. :)

Then Tim tells me just tonight that we should go ahead and have a baby b/c we'll be so happy with the baby that it won't matter that we're broke b/c we won't care, that all we'll feel is happiness for our new addition. His head is in the clouds and deep down he really knows that we should wait. With this car thing, he knows now how important living within a budget is, and not eating out, etc. I think we will be able to stick with a budget more than ever now. But only time will tell.