When it rains, it pours. That's what my mom's words of wisdom were for me this morning as I whined to her about my growing problems at home. Not marital problems, no worries there. House problems.
I love our house. I remember the excitement I felt the first time we looked at it. As we walked through the front door, I instantly felt home. I imagined my girls running down the beautiful open staircase in their jammies and slippers on Christmas morning, big family Thanksgiving dinners, and birthday parties. I loved it. And I still do, but.....
It's been quite the money pit. I won't go into detail (as I'm sure my husband wouldn't appreciate it), but let's just say, we've put way more money into repairs than we would have liked in the short 3 years we've been here. We expect a certain amount of repairs to be done on an older house, but when we have to repair the same thing more than once, twice, even THREE times, it's more than a tad frustrating.
Case and point - our central air. It stopped running on a Sunday. On Monday, I called a local heating and cooling business (I won't mention any names) and got prompt same day service. The technician changed our embarrassingly dirty filter, changed some batteries, trimmed the bush that was overtaking the outdoor portion of the cooling unit and it appeared to be working. Yay! Two days later, it stopped working. So I called again. And again I got prompt same day service. They sent the same technician out. Turns out we needed a new control board. So, we got charged a second hefty service call fee and another big chunk for the new control board. We were frustrated to say the least. We felt it was unfair to be charged for a second call for the same problem that should have been taken care of on the first visit. In fact, I was just about to write a letter to the company about it when.......our air stopped working. AGAIN!
Well, you can imagine how extremely unimpressed we were with the situation at this point. And of course since I'm the one that's home during the day, I get to deal with all the phone calls. I was not looking forward to calling this place a THIRD time for the same problem. I was literally shaking as I was dialing the number. I was so mad and so scared at the same time. I knew that I wouldn't be able to hide my frustration with the situation and the tech that seemed to not be able to deliver anything except more bills. Cha-ching!
So I was straight forward with them and told them that I wasn't trying to be a jerk but I want this fixed NOW and I'm not paying another stinking service call fee at $95 a crack! "...and if you can't do it, I'll take my business to someone who CAN!..." Luckily they were very understanding and wanted to make the situation right. They sent out a tech with more experience ('bout time) and got the problem fixed. Well, so far it's still fixed, knock on wood. Turns out, there was some sort of clogged tube (which explained all the water we now had all over our basement floor - making a musty stench that I'm not sure we'll ever get rid of) and the water was dripping all over the new control board AND the fan wasn't working. So we got a new control board (again) but under warranty (thank the Lord) and new fan and we didn't get charged another fee. In fact, they were going to see about refunding one of the service call fees and any other charges that seemed unnecessary because of a misdiagnosis by the first tech. Also, we might even get a discount on the expensive new fan we had to have installed on the third visit because of all of the troubles we'd been having.
It's been a frustrating few weeks.
To top it all off, yesterday, as I was working on the website for Prints Charming, the computer made a loud ZAP noise and wouldn't turn on. The stench of some electrical fry job was in the air. Of course I'm freaking out because my LIFE is on that computer. And as you may or may not know, our internet has been in and out (mostly out) over the course of many weeks, and when my husband finally ordered a new router, it turned out that we needed a new modem as well. DOH! So he ordered a new modem and it wasn't on the "approved" list as per our internet provider. So we had to send it back and get a different one, which hasn't arrived yet. Honestly....I'm thinking that the universe is trying to tell me something. Anyway, ever since the computer got fried, the internet won't go on even for a second and I'm wondering if it has something to do with the fact that while our air was spazing out and dumping water all over our basement floor (exactly where our router, modem and whatever else is down there buried under 50lbs of cables) it shorted something or ruined something down there. Let's hope it's not the brand new router.
Sigh....
So, you see, when my mom said "when it rains, it pours" she was speaking some wise words. I'm typing this from my mom's computer. I am literally just wandering the house, not knowing what to do with myself now that I have no computer or internet access (other than my cell phone). I can't work on my photos, or my website, or my blog....and I'm going insane! What did I do before there was internet???!!!
I apologize for the pity party, but I wanted to explain why I'm not posting very much lately. Hopefully we will be back online with a working computer and reliable internet connection once again very soon. And also, that our air will continue to work for more than two days (fingers crossed).
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