Grass is always greener on the other side, until.....

I am probably too open about some of the trials that hit this Burke family off and on, but I had to share something that I learned yesterday. Our van completely left the world of a "Driveable, functioning" vehicle over a week and a half ago. After having it looked at, we realized it would cost us more to fix than it was even worth. We have been on the hunt for a new one since. There have been many inner-battles as far as wants becoming needs, do we go cheap with higher miles and risk being in the same situation as before, or do we choke a little and spend more for less milage to last us longer. Yesterday, both Trav and I had reached the point where we had had enough of looking, haggling, fielding phone calls from dealers and spending every waking hour talking about what to do and what to buy! Where am I going with all of this? Well.....for the last few months of driving our van, I was frustrated with it because little things started showing us it's age. I started feeling like all these advertisements for "Cash for Clunkers" was talking about my van! But after looking around, and realizing what it will cost to drive a newer car, I got emotional thinking about our little van. Trav laughed at me as I started to cry telling him that I had FINALLY realized that the van we had was actually fairly nice and in great shape for being 10 years old and that I was slowly wishing we could just pay the money to fix it. It has been such a blessing to not have a huge monthly payment, and to have it run great for the last three years without us really putting any money in to it. Funny thing is.....we test drove a very nice van last night, the kids even watched a movie in it while we drove around. I thought for sure they would beg us for it when we took it back! On our way home, we stopped by to make sure everything was out of our van, and Julia and Ty were so excited to see it! Ty asked if we could just get a generator to make it work again! It was funny to see them kinda feeling the same way....ours was nice enough for our needs. So, my point in sharing all of this is that I learned a HUGE lesson yesterday......The grass is always greener on the other side until something goes wrong and you realize you were actually sitting in pretty green grass all along! Go hug your cars for me.....at least you have one! I'm almost 32 and driving my Dad's! :) Happy October to you all! Is there anything better than fall.....I mean, really?