grace number one hundred and seventy six

i've been pretty frustrated this week when it comes to money.
specifically money that i don't have yet, but i need to spend...

i'm driving my car from massachusetts to virginia tomorrow morning and today it is finally finished.
i am thoroughly lucky to have a brother who works in the auto body world. especially since i do not have the best of luck with cars. i get my parts discounted and i barely have to pay anything for labor.
the problem with this is that my stuff gets fixed when he has time to fix it. which is quite infuriating at times. especially when i try to be patient and need things done asap. anyway, while my brother was fixing my car, he found MULTIPLE BIG things which needed to be fixed. at one point the approximate COST (of parts, not labor) was well over a thousand dollars. yikes.
i mean, i am on my way to a vacation in which i am paying to stay at a hotel (i usually stay with friends in VA) and i have to get a present for the wedding i'm giong to... and i have bridesmaids stuff to do which is going to be costy once i get back from vaca.
umm, let me remind you folks. i'm pretty poor.
one thousand dollars isn't something i can just throw around.
anyway, back to the whole grateful thing...

my car is fixed.
and not only is it fixed, but we avoided two of the huge, expensive problems. i majorly lucked out.
my brother just took a little time to look at some things and realized i didn't need to buy new parts. i just needed to "clean up" or manipulate what i had. so one of the projects simply cost 20 dollars.... the parts i was going to have to buy (if it didn't get fixed like it did) was about 750 dollars.

UMM, holy crap that is a big difference.

so yeah, i am so glad i have my brother who is willing to help me do these things.
i am so happy that the problems i thought i had didn't exist.
and i am so glad i have transportation to virginia that i feel safe in.