Saturday, October 20, 2012

A Quick-ish Re-Cap

First of all, I'm sorry that I missed blogging, yesterday. But the reason for that is one of the things that will be coming up in the re-cap, below.

The past couple of weeks have been... well... interesting around here.

Christopher had the stomach flu. I battled for a week with a cold that never quite took hold, but also wouldn't go away.

I took my car in to get a rattle checked out, and as I was paying the $58.80 for that fix, they took the time to inform me that the drips we'd been seeing on the pavement were caused by one of 3 things that were leaking: the housing around the water pump, the transmission casing, or the front struts. All of which ought to be fixed before: a) the weather gets cold; or, b) I take a long trip. Gee... It's October in Minnesota, and the next two months include a trip Up Nort' (4 hours away), and two trips to my parents' in South Dakota (5.5 hours away). So... Can't wait to see how close to zero my bank account gets after that bill gets paid.

Then there was the installation of the new air conditioner and furnace. Both of which happened at pretty much the perfect time. They went in just before our final warm spell of the year (so we got to use the a/c), and then the weather got cool so now we're using the furnace. Although... The furnace has already had a couple of follow-up visits. But - on the up side - those were free because the problems weren't our fault.

Along with the new furnace, though, was a new gas line, which was installed by cutting a hole in the downstairs bedroom closet ceiling. Leaving the entire room (and closet) and pretty much all of its contents covered in drywall dust. Have I mentioned that that's the room - and closet - where all of my clothes are? Many loads of laundry later, I've also filled a trash bag with clothing to donate to a local non-profit which helps out homeless teens and young adults. So... maybe not all bad.

And yesterday, when they came out for the final (fingers crossed) trip for the furnace, they forgot to turn the water heater back on. Which meant no hot water this morning. Unfortunately, Christopher got the brunt of that problem, since he was the first to attempt to take a shower. And after he re-lit the pilot light and we gave it some time, we were back to hot water, again. Thankfully, that did not happen on a weekday.

Yes, I know that I'm sounding like I'm trying hard to be positive about some of that stuff, but assuming that I don't bounce any checks before my next paycheck, I think we have reason to take it all with a grain of salt (or even a nice, tasty salted caramel).

And although the work-a-day world has been the usual, we've been lucking out and having really good times on the weekends. So far, in the past two weekends, we've had 5 (out of 5) very nice - and very different - dinners with lots of good friends and family. And I'm quite happy to say that one of the latest of those dinner events was last night, which is why the blogging didn't happen. (Tonight's dinner ended a good 2 hours earlier than last night's - hence tonight's blogging.)

So... Yeah... That's what we've been up to around here, plus all of the usual day-to-day stuff and trying to watch TV without yelling at any of the political ads.

How's by you?

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