I Can't Believe It's 2019

Thanksgiving was a sad time. We had to say goodbye to our 15 year old schnauzer, who was suffering from kidney disease. Our lives revolved around her, and it's sad to wake up and find her missing, or come home and not be greeted by her barking and jumping on me, and to cook and not have her clean up whatever drops on the floor. In December, my oldest son Brandon got a job in Florida! I have been praying for him to come home to be with the rest of the family. I can hardly believe it, and am so happy that my prayers were answered. He also got married on the beach, and he and his wife bought a beautiful house just a few minutes away from us! It's still sinking in. The move was quite stressful, but they persevered, worked hard, asked for help, and now they're settled and moving forward. Our youngest son, Jacob, is on his final semester and has just a single class, Physics 2, to finish his pre-med undergrad degree! He is really struggling with his next step. I'm glad Spring Break is early and he's coming home soon. Maybe a little distance from school and relaxing at home will give him perspective. Jacob saved his money and decided to buy a car, so we've been helping him with that project. After considering trucks and SUV's, he finally decided he liked the little Hyundai Elantra. We found a nice used 1-owner car, private party purchase. Conrad plans to drive it to TN and fly home, but this car purchase has evolved to be the most complicated of our lives. After buying a CarFax and test driving the car, we agreed to buy it on a Friday. The owner said he would pay off the loan the next day, which he did. We then discovered we had to wait a week, because he wrote a check, and his own bank, who also financed the car, held the check for 7 days. This is our bank also, and they are also financing our loan, but using same institution hasn't streamlined the process one bit. Although Jacob was initially on the loan, the bank on another day told us he needed to be present to sign, so we dropped him from the loan. That took an entire day. We should have started from scratch, because that took less time. After we were able to move forward with buying the car, we met the seller at our mutual bank and financed the car on Friday, and the bank told us to go to the DMV for a temporary tag "at our earliest convenience." I asked when we should go several times (by this time, feeling very distrustful of our bank) and was told that very vague "At your earliest convenience." We wanted to insure the car before going to the DMV and ended up having to change insurance companies, because of course ours was the most expensive of all, over $400/month just to add this one car! Finding affordable insurance was an all-day project on Monday, so we finally stood in line at the DMV before the doors opened at 8:30 Tuesday morning. Over an hour later and three employees working for a solution, and we were unable to obtain a temporary tag, thanks to our bank requesting a paper (vs electronic) title sometime Monday. It is estimated to take 10 business days (2 weeks) before we can even consider getting a temporary title! This is SO wrong! We have a loan for a car we cannot drive. We are paying for insurance for a car we cannot drive. It's actually not even legal to have a car in our driveway that doesn't have a tag, but here we are, in limbo. I'm sure in time, all will be resolved, but we won't be able to drive the car to TN or anywhere this week, and Conrad has jury duty next week, so it looks like Jacob won't have a car to drive anytime soon. I'm trying to be patient, but Conrad is a Type A personality and stressed so much yesterday that I thought I would have to take him to the emergency room, his blood pressure was so high. Thank goodness he's better today. This has been an interesting education in car buying. Update: After calling the bank multiple times and trying to get help, my husband wrote a review to warn others of what to expect in this situation. Surprisingly, the bank called him and wanted to help! They actually were amazing! The person helping us even went to the DMV twice and overnighted the tag, so all was resolved quickly and peacefully. We loved feeling cared for and were relieved to finally get a tag for this car, but can't forget what led us to that point prior to that, where honestly no one cared at all. My husband was so frustrated, his blood pressure was so high, that I was afraid he'd have a stroke. Anyway, all was resolved positively, but it's sad that our bank only decided to resolve this at the end of this process. We have been loyal customers for years, and felt like their attitude was, "Oh well," until they suddenly decided to help, and then, yes, they went above and beyond, and we are grateful. But will we use this bank again? No. Way. Conrad continues to work on remodeling the spare bathroom. I've gotten used to the new bathtub in front of the fireplace. Like the car, I assume it will eventually get done. I still have the most wonderful and musical piano students in the world! I am grateful to share my love of music and piano with anyone interested. I absolutely love learning about each student and tailoring each lesson for their age, personality, interests, and areas of need for continual learning. Whether they're with me for a short time or for years, my goal is to impart a lifelong love of music, to educate them as much as possible in our time together, and for them to have a positive experience. I invest so much time into my students outside of lessons that the saddest thing to me as a teacher is a student who lacks enthusiasm, and honestly, those are the students that I don't enjoy teaching. They are wasting both our time. These are the students who are not supported at home by their parents. Piano teacher Irina Gorin said it best when she said she interviews and accepts parents, not students, because a student is like a bird, with the parent under one wing, and the teacher under the other, and without one or the other, the bird cannot fly.