I am always miserable on my birthday. Growing up, no one was ever around to come to my birthday parties because of summer break from school. When I got older, I had work or other obligations that prevented me from doing whatever I wanted.

This birthday broke that tradition in a big way!

For my 24th birthday, I got myself something that I haven’t had since I was about 17… a car!

My mom and I live just a few block apart and have been sharing a car since we moved to Denver in 2006. It was fine and good when I worked at the World Trade Center downtown because it was only about 5 blocks from my building. Now that I work a little farther away (at the best job ever!) I needed my own car.

I researched and debated for a few months, driving myself and all those around me totally insane in the process, before I settled on the Prius. It’s supposed to be better in town than on the highway and 99.9% of my driving is on the crowded streets of Denver. It’s much smaller than the Honda CRV my mom and I shared, so my inability to parallel park should be relatively cured. Not to mention the gas mileage, of course!

I tried every dealership for 100 miles and came up with nothing but an 8 month waiting list. I didn’t want to completely wipe out my life savings and have to wait almost a year for a car! So, I turned to Craig’s List.

It was there that I found a little white 2003 Prius that looked like the perfect fit. I’ve never been a huge fan of the newer hatchback look for the Prius, so the opportunity to get an old school model that looked like a car was just too good to pass up.

I purchased the car yesterday (after a very generous loan from my mom) and managed to get in and out of the DMV in less than 20 minutes… a miracle in itesef!

Since then, I’ve been loving every minute of it! In fact, I’m driving it up to Red Rocks this afternoon for Film on the Rocks.