Yep, we bought a car!

Mama and Grandpa came home with the car and title yesterday morning. Mama got here to the office about lunch time, driving Victoria’s car, so I took her out to eat before we went to the title agency. Even though Mama had the signed title in hand I expected there to be some hurdles to getting a clear title. In the case of title transfer after the death of someone – even if that person is your mother or father – there are extra document requirements in every state to clear the title.

Most of the paperwork was set up to ensure that the state gets its taxes at each end of the inheritance; the transfer to the heirs and the sale of those inherited assets to any buyer from the heirs. Not only was that the case with the car we just bought, but the daughter, who had the power of attorney for her mother, signed the title in the wrong place. Not only was she not supposed to sign the title, she signed as the seller and the buyer. It may take some days to get the right papers to clear it to us for purchase. We will pay tax on the purchase and they will pay tax on the sale.

Everyone is breathing a sigh of relief except me. Grandma and Mama were really worried about leaving a check with the seller and coming home without the car. Grandpa was a little frustrated by having to make the extra trip to get the car and Victoria was worried about losing the car through a botched sale. So the car is sitting in our driveway at the farm. I am the only one waiting in an anxious state at this point. I have a lot of money tied up until the title is cleared and the loan to Victoria reimburses my account.

I am hoping for that to come very soon so I can buy the metal for the roof of the shop. Most everything will be on hold until that settles so the timing is a little problematic. I was planning on taking off this Thursday and Friday to put on the roof. It turns out that I financed a car instead of getting the roofing material. It will all work out ---eventually.

Chase and his fellow occupants of Amarillo got pounded with a true blizzard yesterday; seventeen inches of snow delivered with winds gusting to 75 mph. I do not imagine the roads will be clear by this morning. The focus will be on opening up Interstates 40 and 27 and removing the wrecked and abandoned vehicles from those throughways so traffic flow can resume through the panhandle. It will be much later today that the parking at his apartment is cleared.

This morning’s temperature there is nineteen degrees. The melting will come this weekend when temperatures will get into the sixties. It will work out to be a good thing for the area which has been in severe drought for months, but it will be messy as the melting snow runs off into the playa lakes.

Last night we had some blowing snow for several hours. It was bad enough in the early evening that Mama and I opted out of going to church. (We are having revival services through Wednesday.) The temperatures were warm enough that the snow was gone by this morning. I wish it had taken the winds with it but they were sustained at over thirty mph through the night.

We did get to keep some of the moisture from the precipitation, but not much.