A Truck of our Own

It's strange how things happen sometimes. Back in December we had been in talks with a lady who had a straight truck for sale. We were in the process of working out the details of buying the truck from her when she suddenly stopped responding to our emails. Not knowing what happened, we assumed the deal was lost to us.

A couple of weeks ago, out of the blue she contacted us again. She still has the truck for sale and apologized for abruptly cutting talks off back in December. She explained that she had a lot of personal stuff in her life that overwhelmed her and she had put off selling the truck.

Of course, we were now leery of the same thing happening again, but she was offering us the opportunity to own our own truck. This was the chance we had been waiting for. Straight trucks that are set up for expediting are not the easiest thing to find. Especially with an owner who is willing to sell on contract. Typical financing is almost impossible to get. Other than having the cash to pay for a truck, this was probably the only way we were going to be able to purchase a truck.

Our boys bought a similar truck back in October and they have had their ups and downs with truck ownership, but overall they are happy they did it. I guess because me and John are older, we are not quite as brave as the boys are and we worry a lot more about all the things that could go wrong.

We were happy overall with the owner we were driving for. However, there are always going to be conflicts when you have to answer to someone. We are looking for as much freedom as we can get. It's not about the money. It's about the freedom.

We talked to the lady selling the truck for a couple of weeks going back and forth over how to handle the transaction. We had to come up with a plan that both parties were comfortable with. Or as comfortable as we could get anyway. There's a lot that could go wrong on both sides. We are all taking a leap of faith and hoping for the best.

We reached an agreement, faxed paperwork back and forth and the deal was done. Yes, just like our sons, we bought a truck sight unseen. I think insanity must be hereditary! The seller sent pictures and because the truck is nearly identical to our sons we made the deal.

Next came the very unpleasant job of letting the owner of the truck we have been driving for 15 months know that we will be returning her truck to her. I knew it wouldn't go well and it went even worse than I had thought it would. She was extremely upset over losing us as drivers.  I was hoping that she would understand our desire to be owners, just as she and her husband had, but right now she can't get past the fact that we are leaving her and she has to find new drivers. I wish her well and hope things will work themselves out.

We are keeping our new truck at the same carrier that we've been with so there's not too much to have to do on that end of things.

We picked the truck up in South Carolina and brought it home to get it set up in a way that works for us. It's like moving into a new house. When we first saw the truck we thought it wasn't going to need to much work. After getting it home and thoroughly examining it, we were overwhelmed by how much was going to need to be done. We completely redid the sleeper. We threw out the old mattresses. Tore up the flooring and the cabinets, tossed out the fridge and microwave. Off we went to Walmart, Lowes and a few other stores to get all the things we were going to need. We had the hardest time figuring out how to get a mattress. There's only so much room to get things in and out of and we finally purchased a memory foam mattress that can be rolled up and then once inside, rolled back out. The only problem was that our bed in the sleeper isn't a twin or a full size. It's in between. The mattress salesman told us that we could cut the mattress to the size we needed. After paying over $400 for a mattress it was scary to cut it and hope we didn't mess it up.

We bought an electric knife and made our measurements. We then marked the mattress and took the knife to it. It was a breeze to cut! We got it inside and it was perfect.

We worked for a solid week on the interior of the sleeper berth getting it situated. There is still a long long list of things we want to do to the truck. However, we feel like we paid a fair price for the truck and we will make improvements to the truck as money allows.

The Gift of Sight

We have been home for a couple of weeks now. John has been recovering from having cataract surgery on both of his eyes. It is amazing what Doctors can do these days.

John is completely thrilled with his sight. He says he can see better now than ever before. We did our research and made sure we picked a surgeon that had a lot of experience and was very highly recommended. Your eyes are not an area that you want to go cheap on. Dr. Filutowski does excellent work!

In addition to being able to see better because the cataracts are gone, the new lenses that were implanted are a perfect prescription to give him 20/20 vision. He did decide to go with monovision so that he doesn't have to wear reading glasses. One eye sees perfectly for distance and the other eye sees perfectly for up close reading or computer work. Somehow the brain figures things out and they work together in harmony.
He will wear glasses while driving to give the eye that's used for reading the extra boost to see long distance.
Other than that, he's amazed with how sharp and vibrant everything appears now.

Because we don't have health insurance, we had to pay for the surgery out of our pocket. It ended up costing us right at $7000. John felt really bad about us having to spend the money, but I told him that this is exactly the kind of thing you should spend money on. What could be more important than your health?

And the best news of all, he can see to drive at night now! Thank goodness because I have been doing all of the night driving and that gets old!