2010 started off with a bang. Or should I say jingling; as the sound of change in the bottom of my checking account may be all that is left at the end of January. As usual, my hubby left for a New Year's Day hunting trip and all hell broke loose. I normally don't complain about the small stuff breaking down, everybody has it happen to them at some point. But 3 things - no, 4 things??! Really? Was I that bad last year Santa?
To start it all off, my kids were crazy bored after being out of school for 2 weeks and about to kill each other so I took them out for the day to run errands (mainly for my sanity so I could walk away from them and pretend they were not mine). When we arrived home, I found my washer full of wet clothes and standing water. Unrinsed, unspun, and standing completely still. I figured the previous week of a vomiting stomach virus and 12 loads of laundry had finally done it in. It did come back to life when I turned it spin but it would not rinse. Oh well, one more shopping trip and high dollar expenditure right? Deciding what color washer and dryer I would purchase would soon fade from my mind as I discovered we had NO RUNNING WATER. Nada, no drips, nothing. I texted my husband as frantically as I could since my calls go unheard when you are deep in the throws of hunting and camouflaged up to your eyeballs. Somehow texting is not as rewarding as yelling into the phone. You get my drift? He called right back this time though and walked me thorugh the standard questions: breaker tripped? water flooded in garage? well leaking? Diagnosis: looks like the pump is out on the well. He then smoothes the situation over with a sentence that ended in "... close to $5000". I almost passed out. He started talking about sponge baths and filling up water jugs in my car at the neighbors and I think the phone went dead or I had to sit down, I am not sure which. Looks to me like an emergency call to the water well service guy, Saturday afternoon or not. It is almost 32 degrees outside and I am NOT sloshing water home in my new-to-me-car to take a luke warm sponge bath WITH my kids. I will be at the Best Western if you need me.
Suffice it to say, 6 hours later, well was fixed and the damage was NOT $5000. I have never been so happy as to write an $1800 check in my life and my water was working! And I have a new company to add to the list of great service providers for your well. Round one - win for Mama.
The next day brought on more issues. Sunday AM: headed to church for needed dose of how great my life is and the engine light comes on in my new suburban. Great - the ink is not even dry on my extended warranty yet and I am already trying to use it. After close to 2 hours of phone calls this week, I spend my only day off from my would-be part time job (and to top it off school was canceled this day for the cold weather) driving myself and my kids 30 miles north of town for the dealership to tell me the gas cap was not on tight enough and my fumes were polluting the environment. Smartass. As my friend Sarah said, the Aggie jokes will never end.
In amongst all of the major issues happening and my fear that I am going to have to sell a kidney to pay for the next occurrence, my microwave craps out. Do you know how hard it is to live without a microwave when you have kids? Talk about no patience! And a dependence on microwave popcorn that I may need to start looking into. Now this is not the first time our micy has quit. Our high dollar one quite about 4 years after we moved in (plastic dripping from the ceiling as a stalactite was my first clue). We replaced it with the only one we could locate that fit the stainless trim kit and moved on. Evidently Walmart mics don't last forever either and while determining how to proceed this time with new vs. repair, I bought a cheapy at Target for $39 and would you believe this one shuts off after about 4 minutes and has to reset itself before you can restart it? After pricing new mics and the trim kit ($199!) that surrounds our built in version, we are attempting to have it repaired this week. Stay tuned....
Although our home central heat works, we as a family enjoy our gas logs in our living room and turn them on to cast a warm glow on the evening round of nit-picking between my two children. These logs have now taken on a life of their own and shut-off when they so desire. This makes me really nervous and I choose not to attempt to rectify this problem as I normally would and they are currently not in use. Chalk this one up to respect of Mother Nature and natural gas....
Oh no, we are not yet finished my friends. Back before Christmas the water dispenser in our refrigerator quit working as did the door ice dispenser - 6 years old, mind you. My fix-it-all hubby was able to replace a part and the ice now functions as it should. The water? Not so much. I did discover that he may be correct in his diagnosis that the water line is frozen after reading this on the internet. GE feels so strongly about this problem that they created a heating element for the water line of my fridge. Looks like we might be getting that for what - Valentine's Day? OOOHHH - too fun, hold me back.
It seems everyone is getting into the action - literally. Once back before Christmas, and I mean ONLY ONCE! My lovely canine came into heat and managed to weasel her way out the front door for a romp around the 'hood. After driving for 15 minutes screaming her name with no luch, we headed back to the house to find her in the drive of course, with a friend. I am guessing it was a HE as he high-tailed it as soon as he heard the engine and has yet to be seen since. Approximately 14 days later, my dog begins to look like she is nursing an invisible brood of puppies. Several phone calls to educated persons and finally a $50 trip to the vet only to be told "we just can't tell", we still don't know if Hazel is a Mama or not. I sincerely believe it to be a false pregnancy as she is not gaining weight and has not gotten any larger in the breast area but Good Lord, anything else??!! I guess if she is pregnant, maybe we can sell the puppies to buy a new microwave and invest some in a CD for what gives out next.
So far, all is well and we made it through the sub-zero weekend of cold weather unscathed. If I can only convince my children to wear a coat and hat, I might be able to skip the flu but I doubt it.
Happy New Year Everyone!
Queen Bee
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