Texting will be easier than calls.

That's my motto in everyday life, too! Not all of my friends agree, sadly.

Liese, my mother had one for probably five years and then passed it onto my sister when she upgraded... my mother took great care of it and only had a problem once with one of the electric doors (and it was a $900 fix, which sucks but...); my sister doesn't really take it in much, I don't think, and it's still plugging away. I think it's probably 10 years old now at least? It's been a great car.

Between all of us, we can pretty much take care of it.

My neighbor just told me she has beer and a generator, and I have groceries, and will have funeral leftovers, so I think we're all set.

I'm trying hard not to freak out about my mom being right up by the shore in Massachusetts. She's up there alone with the dog, and there's inconsitent messages from the various towns in the area about what the evacuation/sheltering plans are or are not.

What's really getting to me is that there's a good chance phone service will be down, so there may be no way for me to hear from her until well after.

The last thing I saw was that the storm was already losing its power before it even hit land, so it sounded like it will chug its way up the coast with a lot of rain and etc. but not as much OMGHURRICANE. If that's any consolation.

ION, I've been buying a lot of seed beads in various colors so I can try my hand at beadpoint (needlepoint with beads instead of floss), and I'm reluctant to start a project because it will deplete my stocks of beads, and I'll no longer have these plastic boxes full of sparkly color that I can stack on top of each other and admire the way the sunlight goes through them.

I also have an hourglass full of fuschia sand that I love watching pour back and forth. My color tastes seem to be going more towards neon as I get older.

The last thing I saw was that the storm was already losing its power before it even hit land, so it sounded like it will chug its way up the coast with a lot of rain and etc. but not as much OMGHURRICANE. If that's any consolation.

That does help. Part of the freak-outness is the uncertainty and waiting to see what will happen over the next 24 hours.

I got it from this blog, which seems good: [link]

No, the swag wag is still running along just fine, although we did treble the mileage from what was on it from 1996-2010 already. It's just that it has less cargo space and doesn't handle very well on ice and mud.

The previous two Astros were great and lasted a long time and a lot of miles and were AWD. But Chevy doesn't make a minivan anymore, and of course, communal we are angry at GM right now.

Jason seems to like the Toyota Sienna, and I like that it also has AWD. But our board guy, the car dude, says we don't need AWD and it contributes to the higher maintenance costs going forward and of course since it's on all the time, it costs gas mileage. The SO wants Stow-n-Go seating, but the Dodge/Chryslers with that don't have AWD, it's an either or, and they review poorly.

So I'm down to the Odyssey, because although it doesn't have AWD, it has traction control. And although it doesn't have 2nd row stow-n-go, the 3rd row stows. And the big selling point for me is that it does have variable cylinder management, which will be the biggest fuel economy factor for us, because a good 85-90% of our driving is long empty open roads at high speeds. So hybrids don't help us that much because we never brake, but having the cylinders drop out over 60 would help us a lot.

Wow. That was more than all y'all needed to see about the inside of my research brain today. But does that logic make sense? If I can find one cheap enough?

Odysseys, I assume, will be expensive-ish even used because Hondas do that.

I would think, though, given your experiences with snow and your DH last season that AWD would be a good thing. But yes, bad on fuel economy.

I love our new car. It's aggressively red (for which they knocked $3000 off the price) but it's a manual transmission and it has just enough extra space over a Toyota Matrix that it makes a difference. Plus much cheaper.

Thanks, Jesse. That seems much more informative and much less alarmist than what I've been reading.