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Monday, October 22, 2007

101 Uses for a Vintage LIMO #5: BIRTHDAY GIFTS

So far we have given free LIMO RIDES to:

Sunii's teacher on her birthday
We took her and three friends to The Cheesecake Factory, shopped around while we were waiting and then took them all home again. Sunii enjoyed wearing the limo driver hat and opening the door for his teacher!

Everyone at Sofi's friend's birthday party
I tried my hardest to finish the LIMO transaction before the weekend because Sofi's best friend was having a birthday party. Part of the party involved driving around looking for clues in a treasure hunt. I offered the limo as a "just for fun" experience. The girls all loved it!

To a friend who invited us to her birthday luncheon
We called her and said "why don't we come and pick you up?" (she didn't know about the LIMO). She said "wow! That is wonderful. My car is in the shop today!" So we went by her house to pick her up and take her to her birthday luncheon at the Art Center. The look on her face was priceless! And the food at the Art Center was amazing as usual!


And....now we are ready for more!

OK! The Blog is ready, I updated the website and I am ready to go! I have to admit that I didn't think I would be ready so quickly but when I get inspired and excited about something I just can't stop myself. I finally caught up with all my packing and shipping so I took a little time today to finish up the BLOG for launching (before I go catch up on correcting tests, knitting and the other work I am behind on...)

So I would like to open (the floodgates?) for FREE LIMO ride nominations. I can only afford the money and time to do one a week for now, but we will see how this all goes and I may be able to offer more in the future. To nominate someone all you need to do is to go to the nomination link at the right and fill in the information. Write me a little bit about WHY this person needs a LIMO ride.

I know I will get many more nominations than I can fill so if you own a limo yourself and would like to participate please contact me. If you would like to make a donation to help me continue this project please use the donation link and if you nominated someone and they do not get a ride "right away" please be patient. I am just starting this idea so things will be slow at first...

101 Uses for a Vintage LIMO #4: CONFIDENCE BOOSTER AFTER AN ACCIDENT

Did you ever have the experience of not knowing what you were getting into?

Just the phrase itself brings to mind a lot of scary moments for me. Like the time I decided I was going to live in the "poor district" of Cairo, Egypt to have a more "realistic experience of the city" or the time I decided to drive to Colorado (11 hours) by myself, or the time I decided it would be a good idea to take a photo of a rescricted military area and I was arrested...the list could go on.

But THIS TIME, "not knowing what I was getting into" has turned out to be all good. I didn't really give owning a LIMO a lot of thought. It just started out as an intuitive feeling. The ideas about sharing it with friends, sharing it with others and having fun with it came after my own experiences of driving the limo around for one day. That one day of driving inspired all these ideas. Because when you drive in a limo something happens. And you don't realize it until you are actually in one.

You can see them on the street and sit in one for a bit, but there are a lot of things I never realized until I got behind the wheel of the car. Here is a list of things that happened to me in just one day:

1. At least half the people I passed on bikes, cars or walking stopped to stare and point or smile at the limo. A few people looked impressed. A man in a rennovated Jaguar looked at it with admiration (ok, so I can't take credit for the work, but I get to drive it). All those stares of admiration just made me feel so special! I basked in a feeling of SPECIALNESS.

2. I got a lot of respect on the road. I wanted to merge into the right lane a few times and people actually slowed down to let me in instead of wizzing past me to "get past me before I merged". I went from feeling like this beaten-down taken advantage-of-by-the-bigger cars-driver to this respected driver. What a change! I basked in RESPECT.

3. I realized I had to be a lot more careful when I was driving a limo. No way can you drink coffee or talk on the cell phone (which you shouldn't do anyway, but at least you CAN do it in a smaller car) and you have to consider carefully how you turn, where you are going to park and which streets you want to take so you won't be stuck in a lot of left turns. It takes a lot of concentration and skill to manuver these limos. I felt really proud of myself that I could do this so I basked in a feeling of PRIDE.

4. As I was driving around I realized that nobody was telling me I could not buy this car. Nobody was telling me I shouldn't buy this car. I was a single mom, independant and nobody was running my life anymore. I am my own boss and if I want to own a limo I can and I DID! I felt a sense of FREEDOM for the first time in years.

5. I enjoyed being able to take the 1st grade neighbor girl and her friend on a spontaneous limo ride around the block and being able to offer it to my daughter's best friend for her birthday. Watching the smiles on these girls' faces made me feel a sense of SELF-WORTH. Ok, I admit, I do a lot of service work, so I feel that a lot anyway, but I love the feeling of being able to make people happy :)

6. I enjoyed showing my children the car for the first time and letting them take their friends around in it. One of the many reasons I purchased the car is because, as a mother, I want my kids to have the most fun they can have as children. Sometimes I feel I grew up to fast. Offering my kids the opportunity to ride in a limo for a while was a way I could express my LOVE to them and my feeling that THEY ARE SPECIAL to me. And they do feel that way. (see the story in the next post). I basked in the feeling of MOTHERLY LOVE.

7. As I admired the interior of the car and the outside I realized how many hours and how much work "phil" had put into the car and I felt this warm glow - the kind you get when you purchase a nice art piece from a crafter or artist. You purchase because you enjoy the piece but also because you want to show your admiration and support and honor a person who has put so much love into that art. I felt the same way as I was driving the car around. I felt like I had taken a great piece of art out of hiding and was allowing the artist to shine and the world to enjoy it. I felt HAPPY and JOYFUL.

The feelings and experiences I had when I drove the car that first day were so powerful and positive and that was what inspired me to want to share those feelings. I never realized I would experience all those positive feelings just because I purchased a limo. I was actually feeling a bit depressed for the past month and that all seems to have vanished now. Not because I own a nice car, but because of the feelings it evoked in me. I am sure many things can evoke those feelings - eating Hagen Daaz also evokes positive emotion in me - but in this case it was a surprise that a limo could be such a powerful personal experience.

I certainly didn't know what I was getting into!

101 Uses for a Vintage LIMO #3: TO UPLIFT YOUR SPIRITS

One thing I have noticed in this world is that there are a lot of ways we can be made to feel very "small" - perhaps it is when the bank treats us like we are a number, perhaps it is when someone says something cruel to us, or perhaps it is when we just can't earn enough to support our family or provide them with the things we think they need.

In a spiritual sense, feeling small can be a good thing. One can feel the awe of theb universe when they look at the stars and one can feel their one-ness with the earth when they look at the ocean. At such moments we seem to vanish into the wonder of what is the world and everything in it.

But the smallness I am talking about is not that good small-ness. It is that feeling that we don't deserve things, that we are not worthy, or that we are unimportant.

And it may seem shallow, but doesn't riding in a LIMO take that feeling away - if just for a moment?

But in reality, these things that seem shallow really have a lot more depth than we realize. Having children has made me realize that often it is the small things in life that make us happy and not the big things. It is a kiss goodnight and a chapter read before bedtime that makes a child smile for years. It is an ice cream cone and a little hand-knit unicorn that they will treasure memories of until they are old. It is the small things that uplift us.

And I am sure we have all had the experience of having a "bad day" or a "bad week" or even a "bad year" and then one LITTLE thing happens and our life is changed for the better. It is a mystery how this works, but it seems to be an ongoing theme in many people's lives. You often hear people tell the story: "I was so depressed and then this person said something to me and I just woke up out of my depression and started a new life"....or..."I felt I had nothing and then I saw this scene one day and I realized how much I had". These are gifts - little epiphanies that help us move on a reach farther in life.

I want to give those little moments to people as gifts. My plan is to offer the limo once a week (I better start slow because I tend to over-give of my time otherwise and end up overwhelmed) to someone who needs to be uplifted in some way. I want them to have a half hour or an hour to experience what it feels like to be important, respected and special so that they walk away from the experience thinking "I want to feel like this all the time and I deserve to feel like this all the time." I want to pick them up in the limo, open the door for them in my limo drivers outfit (Ok, so it is not only kids who like to play dress-up), and take them to their favorite place in Des Moines. Perhaps they want to take their children out to lunch and pick them up at school. Perhaps they want to take some friends out, perhaps they just want to go to have some tea at a nice cafe. Everything would be my treat. I want this person to feel like they are the most important person in the world - and they are.

We all are. I just don't think people take enough time to tell each other how much they mean to each other. People don't take enough time to see how important they are and sometimes even if they look they don't see it. Everyone has a gift and a reason and a beauty about them and the world would be a much happier place if we all realized that about ourselves.

I realized how important this inner feeling was when I sought help from a friend in running my business ten years ago. "I just can't seem to make any money" I said to her. "I work 24 hours a day and I barely break even". Knowing me very well, she said to me, "Your problem is that you don't think you deserve to be paid. Someone in your life has made you feel unworthy and now you don't think you deserve even to ask for the things that are rightfully yours. If you went to see a naturopath or healer wouldn't you want to pay them?"

"Well...yes"
"Then why don't you feel comfortable charging people for your services?"

That simple statement changed my life - personal and business life. I realized that I was "shorting" myself in a lot of areas of my life because I didn't feel I deserved things. As a mother I didn't think I deserved to take any time for myself. As a wife, I felt I should be serving my husband all the time and he should never have to serve me, as a businesswoman I felt it was hard to ask people for money.

Many people can relate to this, I am sure. How about women who get paid less than men because they are scared to ask for what they are worth? How about the mom who never takes a minute for herself because she thinks she has to be serving her children 24 hours a day? Or the caregiver who is so busy helping an ill person that they forget they are also a person...and the list can go on and on for pages...

Because of my own experiences in life I feel especially close to the experience of abused women and would like to offer them A LOT of limo rides. I know what it feels like to be told you are unimportant and stupid for years on end. Another soft place in my heart goes out to children who are ill or who are feeling down in some way. People at school can be cruel to kids, parents can even be cruel (even the best intentioned ones) and if a child has an illness or financial challenges this often compounds any pain they may be feeling. Children are not given much of a voice in this world sometimes and I would like to recognize that children ARE people way before we treat them like people. I feel so strongly about this because I remember my experience as a child very vividly. I did not have a tragic childhood but I do remember being teased at school, and being treated like I was a fence post by most adults - very few people were able to see my wisdom and abilities at a young age but they were there. I wonder how many children today are also being ignored.


I am going to be out of town most of this week so I will make some calls next week and start my "dream limo service" then. I look forward to sharing an uplifting experuience with as many people as possible...speaking of which...riding in a LIMO is a VERY uplifting experience I have realized...

101 Uses for a Vintage LIMO #2: TO TREAT YOUR FRIENDS & YOURSELF

On the way home from the purchase - along with getting used to driving a big car down the road - my imagination was spinning with ideas. I was going to have so much fun with this car. It WAS a new toy, I realized. And, do you know what? I deserve it! I have not purchased myself something JUST FOR ME since...well..let's see...since...gosh I can't remember.

Everytime I get a cent I spend it one something the kids want and I love doing that. Or I put it into my business. Even the house is not "mine" - In all this square footage I can only claim a small corner of the kitchen that I converted into my home office...and we all know how busy a kitchen can get!!!

Sometimes a woman just needs to do something like this for herself. Some women reach that moment and they buy an expensive necklace, or perhaps a nice coat or designer dress or perhaps treat themselves to three days at the spa. Or get their nails done. I just decided to buy a limo without even realizing what an uplifting experience it would be for me. I had not realized before how much I was in need of something that was "mine" in this world.

But ironically enough, this "mine" is not a selfish mine. The importance of it being "mine" was because I have been yearning for a long time to have something physical that I can offer other people. Something physical. As a single mom a lot of people have helped me out over the past few years and it always seems I am borrowing someone's lawnmower, or computer or camera with nothing to give in return but a smile and perhaps some nice home-cooked pumpkin muffins.

Nobody has ever asked for a return on their help and I know that everyone has enjoyed helping - but for me, somoeone who also enjoys giving, I have been wishing I had something I could offer in return. There is something in me that feels happy now that I have something. I can offer free limo rides to the neighbor who has lent us his mower for about 2 years. I can offer my friend (who's computer I am using) limo rides whenever he needs them, and I can offer my other friends rides too.

And that is where the repair fund comes in. Before I owned a LIMO I only used one once - for my eldest daughter's birthday party. Now this may seem an extravant way to take her friends to the movie and back but she was due to go live with her father overseas in four months and I wanted her to have some unforgettable "going away" experiences. When your 12-year-old is leaving the nest a bit early one tends to do crazy things like that.

What was crazier was the price. It cost me $180.00 to have the limo pick the kids up, take them to the theater 15 minutes away and then pick them up again and take them to my house 10 minutes away! And that was the cheapest service I could find in town AND I negotiated a discount because it was a weekday. WOW.

So my idea is to offer limo service to my friends - something that would have been a DREAM for me a year ago when I was looking for one - and in return I can start a little savings fund for any repairs that might need to be done on the car and I can afford to keep it up and continue my volunteer service as well. I would like to be able to offer free rides to the women's shelter 3-5 times a week but I can't afford that on my own right now. So if friends wanted to donate it would be a win-win situation. They get cheap limo service and in return they support the continuation of this project.

Even if I had to wait for round trip services I would not mind because I have A LOT of knitting to do for my business so the time would never be wasted for me. Plus I LOVE driving the LIMO! I could drive for their child's party, they could surprise their wife, husband, sister, mother or friend with a limo ride. They oculd even use it for clients or business.

And all these ideas just keep coming...how about a birthday party for a few kids where I give them all dark glasses and perhaps some feather boas and they have a "celebrity" party in the limo? How about offering to pick up massage clients or other clients in a limo?

But my desire to "share the fun" goes beyond returning favors and cooperating with friends...I also want to bring some joy to people who need some more in their lives...

The Vintage Limo Monologues #2: The Suspense

Now that the purchase was made, the realization sinks in. I just purchased an 1985 LIMO from a person I don't know and I am holding the title in my hands. Is this car really OK? Is it going to break down in 3 months? Surprisingly this didn't bother me - I was convinced it was OK, but it bothered my friend. The next day he took it to the mechanic to have it checked up on. Thirty minutes later we had the diagnosis -

The issue the seller had told me about was actually BETTER than he had described. Instead of the entire front exaughst needing repaired and replaced it was just one piece of the system. They did it in a half hour and gave the rest of the LIMO a clean bill of health.

The mechanic's two comments were, "Someone has been working on this a lot and there are a lot of new things. It looks great" and "So, someone has a new toy now?"

I called up Phil to tell him the good news. After all - if not for his hard work the past 5 years I wouldn't have this great car. He was happy to hear it and mentioned that he had actually put about "Z" amount of dollars into fixing up the car - about four times as much as I paid for it. Wow. But I sort of figured it was something like that. The car was just too nice.

So now everyone is happy. Friend is happy that I did not buy a limo lemon and I am happy that he can sleep again and that I don't have any more repair bills to look forward to in the near future....speaking of which...I have a great idea...

Sunday, October 21, 2007

The Vintage Limo Monologues #1: The Purchase

Before I purchased the car my friend said to me, "Let's take it to a mechanic and get it looked at". My response was, "You can do that if you want, but it is a waste of time. The man who owned it for the past 5 years knows more about it than any mechanic and I am going to buy it anyway because I have already fallen in love.

He just shrugged his shoulders as most people do when I go into stubborn mode and said "Ok, Iowa has a 3-day return policy on used cars anyway."

It is hard for people who research things before they purchase them to understand the concept of intuitive shopping. You know that feeling you get when you just passed up that great sale on a leather jacket and then for the next four years you wish you would have purchased it? Or that feeling you get after researching the entire housing market and then when you walk into a house you just "feel" like it is yours? What I have done over the years is to focus my awareness of that "feeling" so it is more and more accurate and to gradually let go of the need to reasearch everything. I always tell people "your intuition is more powerful than you give yourself credit for. Use it". And that is why I don't like shopping for major purchases with anyone else along. They distract my focus and they take the "fun" out of it with all these questions - "don't you think you should...."

In any case, this was a typical big purchase for me. The minute I saw the car I knew it was mine. But I do have a little "fail safe" built into my system. I wait. But then I could not sleep all night. I dreamed about it, I woke up at 3 in the morning thinking about it. I finally called the owner at 9am and said "I would like to see your car".

He was from ______, a very friendly place in Iowa and his way of talking immediately put me at ease. "He is someone like me" I sensed at once. And at that moment I made the decision that the best way to deal with this purchase would be to just be honest. I was not going to try to pretend I didn't like the car so I could get a better price. I was just going to be level and honest with the guy. I sensed he would do the same back.

And he did.

He took me for a drive in the car and along the way told me so much informtion about it and was so honest I almost thought he really didn't want to sell it. And perhaps subconsiously he didn't. He told me about all the work he had put into it and the things that didn't work in it. After 15 minutes I knew more about that car than any car I had ever owned. And my decision was still standing. It was my car.

We arrived at the lot where he was keeping it and I knew this was the time to ask about the price. It was advertised at X but on the way over I had in my head to ask him for Y. but then something told me just to ask. So I did. I said "I want this car. How much will you sell it to me for?" He said, "Well, I have not been offered Y yet, but you can have it for Y". I said "Ok, that is what I was thinking. I will come by later and buy it."

Yet another sign of our "Iowa honesty style transaction" - he took my cell phone number and actually believed me! How did he know that he could believe me? Was it the same way I knew I could trust him? How do we know these things in Iowa? Or are we just to trusting and we get lucky sometimes?

Three hours later, after picking up the check from the insurance agency and visiting the bank, I called him back. "I can give you a check today or cash tomorrow. Which do you prefer?" To my great surprise he said "Either is fine". So I headed down to ________ to pick up my LIMO.

We stood in the parking lot together. It was a nice day, a bit chilly, but no rain like there has been lately. He signed over the title and I signed over a check and we said thank you and parted ways.

Read the next post to find out how this all went...

Saturday, October 20, 2007

101 Uses for a Vintage LIMO #1: TO RECYCLE THINGS

If I had not been rear-ended by a careless driver last week I would probably not have a white limo parked outside my front door. It is interesting how we can be heading on direction in life and then, suddenly, life changes drastically and we find ourselves catching up with our own life.

I am still not caught up. I just know that a new era in our lives has opened and I am going to write about it because I think it will be an exciting era. And, as many beginnings are said to, this one also started with a BIG BANG. That is all I heard before I realized my car had been hit, my neck hurt, and my kids were OK, but that my car and I were not.

I was rushed to the emergency room to check my neck and back and came out with the diagnosis "nothing broken. You'll have to endure some pain for a week or two and see what happens". My "Scary Purple Car" didn't fare as well. The diagnosis on my car was "Not worth fixing, the frame is ruined in back. You need to buy a new one. And by the way - you need to do that in two days because we are taking the rental from you on Monday"

I had to say goodbye to my car on Thursday and I cried. It was a good car. I remember the day I purchased it on the lot. It was completely intuitive. I did a web search and found that there was one car lot that had a lot of cars I liked in my price range. I went to the lot, I asked for a purple car, the saleman showed me this 1998 Chevy Cavalier and I fell in love. I purchased it on the spot.

Do you want to drive it first, he said?
No thank you.
Well I can take 500$ off the price.
Thank you that would be nice.
Any questions?
No, can I buy the car now?

And that was it. And in three years it never gave me any trouble. It was a perfect car, handled well and was a reliable friend. And about every two months I would find a lovely bumper sticker for the back of it. And then I found a sticker that said "mom's taxi" for the side of it. I always got a lot of comments on my bumper stickers. One said "Consume Less, Share More". One said "Frodo Failed, Bush has the Ring" and another said "Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History". Surprisingly enough the police never pulled me over at all in three years despite that sticker! They probably figured I wasn't really that seriously a bad girl if I had a purple car. Although I sort of was. The reason we called it "scary purple car" was that if someone on the highway was going too slow and we needed them to move to the slow lane we would stare at them and think really hard "move, move, move" Then when they did we would say "see? They are scared of our little purple car"

So I cried as I said good-bye. I am sorry little purple car. You were good and Good-bye now. I cried all the way home. I didn't even want to look at new cars for a day. Then I realized I had to force myself or I would be walking.

So I went online and looked at all the websites for used cars in Des Moines Iowa. There was www.cars.com and www.auto.com and many many more. I think I looked at 10 sites in all and browsed at least 100 cars on each site. Most of the cars were pictures from dealers around Des Moines. A few were from independant sellers. But all I saw was tan, brown, grey, blue, green. And really common cars. Nothing that measured up to the charm of "scary purple car" at all! Then I saw HER!

A 1985 Lincoln Custom Limo.

It was love at first site. My friend says "my sister did the same thing when she was rear-ended two years ago. She had to buy a new car and she purchased the biggest baddest car she could find". That probably did have something to do with the immediate connection I had with the car...but there was more. Something inside of me said "why not?" I don't drive that much. I don't drive out of town with my car and I mostly just use it for errands so the gas mileage will not be an issue and wouldn't it be fun to be able to ride in a limo every day?

I do lust after one of those alternative fuel cars but I cannnot afford that right now. I do everything I can to be environmental - I have all the right bulbs, I use canvas bags when I shop, etc...etc...but in this case I was going to have to settle for "recycling" instead of alternative fuel.

What? You have not heard of recycling cars as a way to save the environment?

Think of how much money is wasted every year creating the newest models of cars. Think of how many people junk or trade-in their cars that are in perfect running condition simply because they are tired of their car. Think of the people who own more than one car. Think about it. Envision piles of rusty metal. What are we going to do with all that metal? I refuse to be part of that movement. I have always kept my cars as long as I could and purchased used.

This time I have taken it one step farther and purchased a recycled used car. This car was originally going to be tossed aside to pollute the earth when a lovely man named Phil (name changed to protect identity) found it at a car auction and lovingly put thousands of dollars of parts and hundreds of hours of labor into it, bringing it back to life, modern low-pollutant standards and 18mpg. He later fell in love with a Mustang and since you can't be married to more than one car he had to pass the LIMO onto another owner.

I stepped in yesterday to save this car from a life of wasting away in a barn somewhere in Iowa and to save the labor market from making yet one more metal car. I think, in the search for alternative fuels people have forgotten the most obvious solution - fewer cars in the world and fewer cars using energy and materials in their manufacture. One expert in the field (http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Research.html)
has calculated that the production of ONE car uses 1,142 gallons of oil even BEFORE it is driven a mile. And they were not even figuring in the labor that goes into getting the metal for the car to begin with, the transport of materials to the factory and the disposal of the car once it is made and its life has ended.

It is worth linking to the article above. This gentleman asks and answers a lot of questions I have had for a while. Like, what is the use of Soy fuel if you need electricty and gasoline to run the factory? Why are we running after solutions to our energy crisis that REQUIRE energy? Why don't we just use what we have now and look for solutions that are whole solutions? We will never really find a solution to our energy crisis until the factories that produce these solutions are also energy efficient.

I know some people who have probably asked these questions themselves. They purchased a USED RV and had it converted to a veggie fuel car and are driving that around the states. Hmmm...I wonder if you can convert a LIMO to veggie fuel?