When it rains, it poors

For once, it is not literally raining...but, metaphorically...it's ON!
We got a little cash gift from Hubby's mom. She has some sort of trust from her father's death, and to get out of paying taxes, she has been gifting money to Hubby and his brother for a few years. I think last year, she said would be the last of the money. But she randomly had some cash she wanted to give us, so we decided to use it for a much needed vacation instead of just using it for bills (BLAH! bills!). We haven't had a proper vacation in many years. Due to our moving to Nantucket, and then moving back here, we are still playing catch up. I do what I can to slowly chip away at what we owe, but we need to get some relaxation time in, and a trip for our wedding anniversary is a great way to remind ourselves that our lives are more than just working to pay the bills.
HOWEVER...now comes the snowball of unexpecteds. We decided to book the trip now so that we would be done with it. Now we just sit back and look forward to November's getaway. Well, it's good we did so that I wouldn't be tempted to use the gift for stupid, un-fun bill paying. But now life is acting up again.
Hubby had to get his car inspected but failed due to his airbag light being on constantly. $600 later, it's fixed. This morning, I got up early as usual, and had planned to get the trash to the dump (since I've put it off ALL WEEK). At 8 a.m. there was still frost on my windows, so I started up the car to let her heat up while i loaded up the trash. I never let the car warm up because I don't like going out to start it just to come back in the warmth and then back into the cold. Plus I'm lazy and impatient. Well, after loading up the car, I get in to see my 'check engine' light has come on. It stayed on for the entire time I was running my errands this morning. Yuckk! The upside (if you can call it that) is that I drive an old (2000) Chevy Cavalier that has been very good to me. The most expensive 'repair' I've had for this car was when my back tire kept going flat due to a patch job that just wouldn't hold up, and I had to get new tires. The only reason it was as expensive as it was (and it was only $300 for all new tires!) was because instead of getting just 2 new tires, I had to get 4 because the losers who changed them previously gave me 2 different sizes! 3 of one size, 1 of another! That's really bad for you alignment and whatnot! I am also always pleased with 'my' mechanic. With the whole tire fiasco, they gave me a deal on the fourth tire. I think they felt bad for me. What I really like is that one day I was waiting for my car and a friend of mine walked in and I found out the owner of the garage was renting him a house. I love small community stuff like that!
Unfortunately, this all means that my lunch break Monday I will have to see if I can get my car in Wednesday. I have to drive my father around Thursday after work, so I really hope I can get it fixed by then. I guess I should be glad to have a bottom of the line type American made car that needs little in the way of mechanics. Crank windows and manual locks. I think the fuse box has about 6 fuses. I've had it for about 8 or so years, and bought it with about 50-60,000 miles on it. I've just passed the 110,000mile mark and I still really love this car. There's a bit of rust showing up since having a crappy garage replace the driver's side door after some stupid woman rammed into the side of me about 6 or 7 winters ago, but the rest of the body is in great shape. And I only paid $7000 for the thing! I always think about buying a new car, but then I think...I really like my car!
I guess life's not all bad!
Except that the fence is broken, my car is broken, and there are a whole slew of money-expending-type issues to deal with!
Now...to the grocery store!!!!!!!!