Cars and cleaning

Thank you all for the tips about used car buying.

It doesn't appear my credit union has a used car broker, although that would be nice. My dad, however, is best friends with a used car salesman (back in Michigan), so he's on the lookout for me. I think I've narrowed it down to 6 or 7 cars: CRV, Rav 4, Nissan Versa, Subaru Forester, Kia Sportage, Toyota Matrix, and a Scion. I fell in love with a blue Rav 4 in the parking lot at Trader Joe's yesterday, and that's my #1 choice right now. I found a blue 2004 Rav 4 for around $11K on Craig's List today, and called the number, and might test-drive it this week sometime. I'm looking to spend $14K at the top of my price range, but I need a good interest rate too.

(By the way, the car has to be blue, red, orange, or yellow. No browns, tans, grays, whites, or blacks for me.)

If the friend in Michigan comes through, he'd charge me his minimum upcharge (I think it would be $800 more than he paid for it), and my savings would probably be worth all the hassles of getting registered in Maryland with a car bought in Michigan.

I'd really like to buy by Christmas.

That's all. I'm also re-considering combining my blogs back to this one. I get about 75 hits a day there, and, unbelievably, over 100 hits a day here, so it might make sense to keep everything here. Everyone who wants to know who I am knows anyway. And I so like the name 'Epiphany in Baltimore.'

Lastly, can anyone recommend a good housecleaner in Baltimore? I know this is kind of ridiculous, but I think I might need a deep cleaning of my house and maybe even a regular thing. I just can't do it, or I don't care enough about it, and a recent visit to the house by someone of the opposite gender sort of confirms that I should care about it more. And it's almost all dog hair that makes things a mess, nothing else. But that is overwhelming to me, and the vacuums don't work on it, no matter how many new vacuums I've bought over the last several years.