Why I like limes and new cars.

Now I would like to write a paper in the style of a second grader.  That is meant to be no offense to my second grader.  She is very good at following the rules of writing with topic sentences and all.
First, I would like to tell you how I feel about limeade.  I love limeade.

Today I was thinking about how much limeade really hits the spot.  I owe this solely to my Dad who has the ability to make a tall, icy glass of limeade look like an oasis in the desert.  It's why I suddenly bought 6 cans of it at the store yesterday.  I am so thirsty and I just really wanted some limeade.
Something I also attribute to my Dad is my love of clean garage floors.  He used to clean out the garage enough to sweep, then hose it out.  Now that is my kind of garage.  I was thinking about clean garages on my way home from the store tonight.  I was thinking about how much I would like our garage that clean but then felt guilty that I would be parking my dirty car in it....my dirty car that currently has some kind of large, unidentified winged thing stuck in the grill, no doubt from our recent road trip to Delaware.  Then I was thinking about washing the car.  I always vacuum it out myself but hardly wash the outside at home....it seems to make more of a mess of the driveway/yard/dirt than a clean car.  Then I was imagining the scene it would be, me washing the car at home.  All at once I was thinking Dukes of Hazard but instead of jean shorts it was Mom jean capris and instead of Catherine Bach (or Jessica Simpson for those of you born after 1985) it was more like Tina Fay...OK, maybe more like Bonnie Hunt (they get points for being funny though, right? I mean, they may not have Jessica Simpson's body but at least they can entertain.) Which brought me right back to my limeade somehow.  Don't ask how, it just did.
Thirst is a powerful thing.

Speaking of my clean car, I need to tell you why I was eating Cafe Rio in Maryland the other day.  It's a great story [for a stay at home mother's blog].  You see, I posted not too long ago that Glen the Mechanic told us our van didn't have long.  Since then, we have been on the hunt.  This is ironic and tragic for a couple of reasons.  One being, the van is only 6 years old.  Last fall the transmission's reverse went out.  We had to decide (rather quickly) whether or not to replace the transmission.  Either we replace it and keep it until the end, or we get rid of it right then and there.  We decided to replace it and keep it to the bitter end.  Turns out, the bitter end was six months later.  Instead of holding on to it when it will need $4K worth of engine work done in the coming year, we started looking for alternatives.  And because we got a killer rate if we bought a new car, we decided on the all popular and decidedly non-mini-van looking 2011 Odyssey.  It's pretty.  I feel kind of fancy driving it.  It makes me happy, is that wrong?  However, the story gets better.  We found the exact one that we wanted and were ready to make the purchase.  Two days before trade-in day I was making a hasty impulsive run to the mall with my friend to buy our daughters matching shirts for twin day at school...it was a really important spontaneous trip to the mall.  In my haste I parked my car in her driveway and hopped in her car with the girls.  In her haste, she forgot that I was parked there.  So just two days before the trade in I had one mini van now worth only the gas in its gas tank and a friend stricken with guilt.  Surprisingly enough I wasn't that worried about the magnesium pearl grand caravan.  See what a fickle car owner I am? No loyalties at all.  I had all but divorced myself from that car anyway.  So anyway, that is why I was in Maryland today, eating Cafe Rio (here is where I skip all the boring parts of the story, more boring than what I have already spent a very overly long paragraph writing about....mainly how we had to call all Honda dealerships in a hundred mile radius to find the right color and model since nothing new is coming from Japan right now and how Suvin in Germantown, that's in Maryland, had just the one I wanted even though Clark changed the color on me at the last minute and I was only really upset about it for a couple of hours until I realized that he was probably right, rare.  And since a new Cafe Rio, the best take out Mexican place on the planet, just in case you were wondering, just opened in Olney, Maryland of all places, we simply had to go--did I mention it was because our plates and registration were ready? Well, it was.)

And that's that.  And now the old van is in the shop to get fixed.  The insurance lady assured me that it would be made exactly like it was before to which I resisted replying, "why would you want to do that?"  Our friend's guilt has hopefully dissipated and we can sell the van at blue book value to a new home, or homes if it's only good for its parts.
And that is what I would like to write about tonight.