A Post for my Male Readers

Something Matt and I saw in the Walmart parking lot last weekend: a true feat of engineering. A physical beauty. A beast of horsepower combined with the physique of a supermodel.

I'm lying, here's this ridiculous car we saw. :-D

The men working in the truck next to it were staring and laughing at it as well. We watched the guy get out of his DIY gull wing door and slam it down with all the airs that accompany someone who has a real sense of accomplishment for this vessel of genius he drives.

Do feel free to note and mock the blue painter's tape around the headlights, fresh out of the body shop, er, this guy's garage. Ah yes, because we needed a bit more  evidence that this is the most handmade car in the entire world.

What's the best part? That would be the door handle. Because no, the car doors don't really close, and yes, there are metal handles on both doors of this car.

I thought you all would appreciate it. Matthew and I certainly laughed and laughed and laughed. We just couldn't get enough.

Another fun vehicle from the 4th of July Parade in Millville, Pennsylvania. Note Pennsylvania was not a member of the Confederate states during the American Civil War. Note we don't have much at all historically to do with the Confederate states or associated emblems. All right here you go!

Had a decal on the back of the bed that said "Lift it high - Fat chicks can't climb." Classy, America. This is why people don't like us.

So there ya go!

:-) See Y'all!

TFMM

My Negative One Year Anniversary Present from Matthew

Um, and edit...as I published this post I realized I should maybe clarify the title - Nothing about my present was negative, and neither was our anniversary. I went around calling Memorial Day weekend our "Negative One Year Anniversary" it's a year before our wedding. In case anybody was a little worried. That's all it was about!! May 25th, 2013 everyone. By the way. In case you hadn't heard. :)

Two new family members have been adopted in the last few weeks, one of them has a tail and one has an engine. One has fur and one four wheels. I'll let you figure out which one is which.

This one doesn't have a name yet because I have not received my license plate with which to choose letters for a name. However, it is a Honda Fit and it is a present from my amazing fiance.

 Matthew just showed up at Food Rite on Memorial Day and took my car to Jackson. We had heard about an Altima available for trade and thought it might be a good, even trade for the Maxima, with better gas mileage. Matt sent me a text saying no on the Altima, but there might be something else there I would want. And then he shows up about 10 hours later with one of these. He's making payments on it, so I guess we have to get married now because that's a pretty serious commitment ^_^

Pennsylvania Seculeses: Watch this space! You'll be seeing this baby roll up at your front door in about 3 weeks!

The McCaslin family loves hatchbacks.

Plenty of room for two carseats PLUS lots of storage space whenever we need it! That third seat, where the carseat would normally go, folds up for underseat storage, the whole back seat folds flat, and the bigger backseat, where the two seats are in this picture, also can fold up to put stuff underneath. Super cool!

Oh, and I needn't mention the difference in gas mileage. Aside from only having a 10-gallon tank, making my gas fillups about a third cheaper every time than they were in the Maxima, it gets between 35 and 40 miles to a gallon. Which is a lot, considering it's basically a low-setting minivan. Sorry Mom, it's definitely not an Up Car. But there is LOTS of head room, giving it the illusion from the outside of being one! Haha.

I love it, and Matthew knew I would. With as little as I know about cars, the Honda Fit is the one car I actually talk about seriously liking the look and driving ability. We see/hear about it a lot on Top Gear, our vice of choice (although lately he's been getting into Dirty Jobs and Mythbusters - no no no) but in England it's called the Honda Jazz. I'll be honest, I like that name a lot better. I kinda wanna change the little emblem on back to one that says Jazz. It's on the list of expenses :P

Stay tuned for my next post, which is about our other adopted family member ^_^ She came just a little bit later in the week after this girl arrived.

TTYL, TFMM.

:-D

Developments!

All right folks, the future McCaslins (one current and one future, now that you mention it) has been doing some serious work and serious sitting and watching, respectively, on the lifeless baby Datsun. The first step was to push it into the garage on a beautiful Saturday morning, which was pretty fun. Wanna see the work that we've done? Chyeah I knew ya did.

One of the head bolts broke off inside of the engine block while Matt was trying to take off the cylinder head, so he has to buy new head bolts and drill out the broken one before moving any further. This is the exhaust-less, pretty much everything-less view.

Well, it's definitely been a discovery process to try and take apart this car. Lots of things have come out from under the hood and been declared useful or complete junk. I actually am learning a lot! I'm going to do my very best to accurately caption these photos, but please don't hold me accountable for all the technical terms I'm going to screw up! It's been a few days since we actually took these pictures and Matt explained what I was looking at. In retrospect everything looks like wires.

A side view, for those who actually know what this is a picture of. For everyone else, look at that weird red plastic squid thing in the top left corner! I can't remember what it's for, but it still sits there watching us.

The carburetor, valve cover, cylinder head, and a BUNCH of other stuff got taken to work with Matthew to be cleaned. Luckily for him, most of the parts are in good enough shape that he can just clean them up and put them back in under the hood. It amazes me to think that he's going to be able to figure out where all that tubing goes, but I guess this is sort of his career. Perhaps I need not be so very amazed. 

Pile of parts that are now in line at the part cleaner at Tim Castellaw Ford. Apparently the carburetor (bottom left, crazy looking) is ridiculously complicated compared to modern ones.

 Though we got lucky with the amount of stuff that could be reused, there has also been a sizable accumulation of junk. The head bolts, a crazy amount of little bitty tubing, and all the gaskets are going to have to be replaced. Luckily, it's none of the most expensive parts that need to be replaced. Also, obviously, the interior is going to be redone. You remember that picture from my first post?

Seats are a pretty high priority, right after actually making the thing run. There's not any reason to sit in the car if it won't go anywhere, after all! 

Pile of crap!

 Take a moment to notice that Matthew did break down and let me wash the windows. Hooray! They're bright and shiny now. It's wonderful.

There's your update on our 35 year old baby! Stay tuned, kids!

See Y'all!

TFMM

The Datsun

The future McCaslin family has a new project. It's sitting outside Matthew's garage, and it looks remarkably like this:

1978 Datsun B210 

I don't know why looking at it makes me so happy and expectant about my life together with Matt. I guess it really thrills me to be spending the rest of my life with someone who actually carried out the projects he wants to complete. Also, not putting down my somewhat less automotive-savvy immediate family, but a guy who knows how a car operates is really, really...cool. I am only just beginning to realize this about myself. Driving to the shop to see Matthew for whatever reason just makes me so happy. He may feel self-conscious about the perpetual grease underneath his fingernails and calloused hands, but I love it. I feel like I am being so cliche by loving it all, but I guess I am actually just a little bit traditional in everything I do. On the other hand, I dropped out of college and moved to Tennessee, so I might need a little tradition here and there to keep me on track with all of that craziness.

Items that came with the car that Matt is excited about and I am clueless about! Yay!

It is my theory that this car will evolve purely as a labor of love - Matthew's for classic imported cars, and mine for him. This car is going to symbolize a lot for me, little does he know. My heart beats faster just thinking about bringing him lemonade when it's hot, coffee when it's...well, coffee in any weather at any time of day or night, knowing him...and learning what promises to be precious little about cars by helping him. I'm a work in progress in that realm.

If nothing else, I can volunteer to help wash it!

Another view of the beauty: yes, that is a chunk of bumper.

Please stay tuned to hear more about the work being done to our new family member, Mr. Datsun. Trivia for all you people that know as much about automotives as I do: did you know that Datsun is the original brand name of what we now just call Nissans? This means that once it is up and running, Matthew will be driving around the same car as me...mine is just 23 years younger. I'm sure he would disagree...because there is probably a whole lot of difference between our two cars -_- but according to me, his car is the father of my car. And that's all there is to it.

The baby car :)

I don't know if I'm supposed to put up pictures of license plates but the tags are out of date by about 14 years...I'm just wondering how the car got from California to here in the first place.

I believe the first few adjustments we're going to put on will be basic housekeeping to make the thing run again. Something about sparkplugs....and the carburetor...um, so what that means is: the next couple blogs I post about this, if I post about this, will be somewhat anticlimactic. Stay with me kids!

Xoxo,

The future Mrs. McCaslin