First parenthood-inspired organizational blunder

I have a whole host of blog posts in the works on topics such as what to take to the hospital (in retrospect), c-section recovery, NICU culture and blessings in disguise, gear to have on hand for a newborn, etc., but for now I'll interrupt my "regularly scheduled post" to share this little gem.

The long and short of it is that for the basically the first time in my life I missed a deadline. Specifically, my car is up for its state inspection every December, and this year's inspection just happened to take place on Jan. 24 (this Monday). Whoops.

The best part of the story is that I did not even realize (nor did Matt, for what it's worth) that my car was well overdue for its inspection until we took it to a repair shop on Monday. You may recall that there is only one place in my 2003 Mazda Protege where our daughter's car seat will fit -- that would be directly behind the front passenger's seat. Unfortunately, this is also adjacent to the only door in the car in which the power lock is broken. After taking about two car rides as a family we decided enough is enough, we'd have to suck it up and pay the $250 to have the door taken apart and the power lock fixed. (Fortunately, this was $200 cheaper than the estimate we'd been given at our usual auto-repair shop, so we drove across town to the cheaper repair shop, newborn in tow.)

Of course, when you drop off your car for any maintenance, the repair people inevitably have about 20 other items they find that you could fix. In my case, the fact that they caught that I needed a state inspection was legitimately important. The fact that my car would not have passed the inspection due to nearly dead brakes was also slightly important. And the fact that I legitimately needed maintenance such as a transmission fluid flush also ranks up there on the importantness scale. Matt and I plan to keep my car alive for as long as possible, so we're viewing routine maintenance as rather critical. His car (a two-door) will be the one to go when it's time to upgrade.

So, $900 worth of car repairs four days after bringing our newborn home from the hospital wasn't what we'd bargained for, but I suppose that's just what happens sometimes.

And now, of course, inside our house the basement door is having trouble locking and unlocking thanks to the cold weather, and two of the toilets in our house that have never caused us problems in five years are starting to run whenever they gosh darn feel like it. It's amazing that none of these things happened when I was waiting for Natalie to arrive.

Tip 69: Check engine light, step 1

Last week, as my car hit about 200 miles shy of 100,000 miles, the check engine light lit up in the middle of my morning commute. After my husband arranged to have my car inspected that afternoon and we established a car-borrowing plan, I fortunately arrived at a quick fix. So, don't be like me, and follow this advice...

Tip 69: If your check engine light comes on, check your gas cap first. If your gas cap isn't on tight enough, it could cause the light to come on, and a quick tightening might be all that's needed to get that light to turn off!

This, of course, makes me feel like a pathetic weakling, knowing that I could have avoided an embarrassing trip to the mechanic if I had just put a little more muscle into securing my car's gas cap. But, the good news is that I didn't lose any money thanks to this dumb mistake. Yesterday when I filled up my gas tank, I made sure to turn my gas cap until it wouldn't turn anymore.

Tip 61: The trash stash

I pride myself on the fact that for the first five or so years that I owned my one and only car -- my 2003 Mazda Protege -- my friends would remark on my car's "new car" smell. I know that the "new car" smell is simply a result of (most-likely-bad-for-you) chemicals coating our cars' interiors, but I am happy that I kept my car clean enough for long enough that it seemed like a puppy rather than a big boy for a long time.

Now that I am in my eighth year of owning my car, I know it has lost that "new car" smell, but it still remains remarkably clean. One secret is the trash stash...

Tip 61: A designated trash bag in your car can work wonders for keeping your car clean.

I know this may seem like an obvious idea, but I'm always surprised by the number of people who do not have a designated way for dealing with trash inside their car. For my college graduation, my sister gave me a Trash Stash (official brand). Seven years later it finally bit the dust and disintegrated. For about two months this spring I drove around with no trash stash as I searched for a new one that would work for me. During this time trash would build up in my car -- a gum wrapper here, a napkin there -- and pretty soon I was disgusted with myself.

I searched at The Container Store for a trash stash, but all of their solutions were entirely too big for my modest little Protege and would take up the entire back seat. I was happy to find this flat Thule bag at Target. The bonus is the magnet that keeps the bag locked together and keeps trash and smells from escaping.

Trash stash victory!