7 ½ years of loyalty and faithful dedication meeting our transportation needs , Barney the Van is hanging up his chrome sport wheels and retiring from our service. In a few days he’ll be moving from the garage to his place out in the driveway, probably looking all sad and depressed because he’ll soon be sporting a new FOR SALE sign in his window. I hope he doesn’t get too down in dumps. He shouldn’t because in a few weeks (hopefully) he’ll have a new home where he’ll be able to help out that family with their ‘unique’ situation.

We’re not bummed out though. That’s because we’ve recently added a new addition to our family – Webster. Webster’s a 2005 Chrysler Town & Country minivan. We bought him the other day from a guy down in South County (Webster Groves, to be exact). Sidenote: OK, so as I’m writing this, I’m starting to creep myself out a little because I keep referring to our minivan(s) by name as if they were real little kids or something. Creepy.

Jen and I were only half-heartedly in the market for a new van for about a year or so. We just figured that we’d bite if we stumbled across something or it just fell in our laps. Well, it did. Jen found Webster on Craigslist, which she looked at occasionally. Even though it’s 9 years old already it’s practically brand new. It only has 14,000 miles and the interior is spotless – it even still has that new car smell!

I can’t believe that I’m excited about getting a new minivan. Then again, I never thought I’d be wearing oversized Crocs and white socks 365 days a year. Funny how things work out. I told Jen that since I’m a few years into my ‘mid-life crisis’ I wanted a sporty red convertible handicapped accessible minivan. Those are kinda hard to find, believe it or not.

I was kind of hoping to find another Dodge Caravan because that’s what Barney is and we’ve always had good luck with him. However, if he was a GMC or a Toyota, I would’ve wanted one of those. So I guess it doesn’t matter that much what it is. Besides, Dodge…Chrysler…same difference.

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I’d like to brag on Jen for a minute… We’re in the middle of a project remodeling our living room. Nothing too major, mostly just painting and new throw pillows – enough to ‘freshen’ things up and give it a clean look.

We have a brick fireplace and like most houses from the 80’s the bricks are dark red and black – not that there’s anything wrong with that! I never really paid much attention to it, I just figured that was how it was and it didn’t occur to me that we could/should change it. Well, that wasn’t a satisfactory answer for Jen and she set out to figure out how to change it. Boy, am I glad she did!

She researched it and came up with this technique: Basically, you whitewash the bricks with paint drastically thinned down with water. Then you go over it with your color (light tan in our case), also thinned down. The texture and some of the darker colors of the brick comes through the watery paint. I love it!

For someone who hates painting, she sure did a great job!