I love owning a house, seriously, I do...but sometimes I get mighty frustrated with it and the money it costs.
A few days before Lorelai's birthday I decided we should put up the Christmas lights. As I look outside this weekend to constant rain, I am glad we did it a bit early! Anyway, we don't have a large area to decorate so tried to imagine in my mind what "look" we should go for when hanging lights. I like white lights and Chris likes color, so we did both. (I should take a picture to show everyone later) The main issue was this: I really wanted icicle lights to hang on the roof so we went and got 4 boxes @ $11.99 a piece. A little pricey all together, but my dad supplied us with the rest of our lights so that's all we had to buy. Once we were putting up the lights I realized that our front tree is rather large and is stilling holding on to most of its leaves. This makes hanging roof lights rather pointless on half the house. So I thought "Ok, no problem, I will just do it over the garage." I totally forgot that icicle lights s-u-c-k right out of the box. They do not hang down like pretty ice, they clump and bunch and look like a tangled mess. I tried to stretch them out as best I could and started to climb up the ladder to place them. About 2 feet in I decided "no." It looked so tacky, so messy, and I did not want to be that house. I took them down. I did have 2 strands of snowflake lights my dad gave me so Chris and I agreed that would be a much better look for over the garage. Teetering on the ladder I hung all 20 snowflakes and then plugged them in. Now, to be clear, I did check ALL the lights I put up to make sure they worked before I begun this adventure. They did all work...on the ground. For some reason 15 out of the 20 snowflake died from the trip up to the roof. *sigh* I shook them, hit them, yell at them, pleaded to God...but no, nothing worked. Angry, frustrated, cold, and defeated, I went inside to tackle the problem another day.
In the mean time, I went to return the 3 other unopened boxes of icicle lights. I waited in line for 15 mins, upon arriving at the counter I realized I could only return 2 of them because Chris bought some on his card...and I did not have his card. *sigh*
The next day I decided to attempt the broken snowflake lights again. I did have an extra box of 10 snowflakes (Thanks dad!) so I used their spare fuses to test the broken strands. I took down the first row, the fuse didn't help. So I said "Fine, I will just replace this whole strand, whatever." I hung the whole thing and tried the fuse change on the second half-broken stand. No go. *sigh* I took down the whole second strand. I shook them, hit them, screamed at them, tried to bargain with them...and then, miraculously, they all turned on. "QUICK!" I told myself, "HANG THEM!" I put them all back up connected them to the other snowflake and plugged them in...THEY WORKED! All of them. I was happy and thankful for the little miracle...of not loosing my mind...again.
Once the tricky lights were conquered I thought we should finally go get the gas logs for our fireplace. Again, pricey, but this was long-term house upgrade, and it would be nice to use in the winter. Chris and I went to the store, talked to a guy, and purchased a kit. "It's easy, it should take you no more than an hour." the guy said. Ha. Yeah. Right. Not only will our key not reached the gas to turn it on, but our cast iron log starter will not disconnect from the gas line. Will not budge. *sigh* So our nice, warm, new gas log kit is still sitting in the box on the other room while we try to figure out how much we want to mess with the gas, and when we might want to find someone to install it instead.
To top off this week, our heater died. The night of Lorelai's birthday I woke up around 3 am to a pretty chilly house. "Hmm, that's weird." I ignored it for a bit, but I couldn't help but think it was way cooler than I set it. I got up and sure enough, it was like 66. Now, I know some of you might think "You'll live." and you're right...but it still didn't change the fact that my heater wasn't working. I read the heater info, decoded the flashing light, and researched some things on the internet and decided, yeah, I needed to call a repairman. I dug out my old space heater and placed it in Lorelai's room and went back to bed around 5am.
The next morning was Lorelai's 12month appt, but after that I talked to my mom and got the number of a company she recommended. I called and talked to an older woman about my heater, she said they could come to my house the next morning around 10am. It wasn't supposed to get really cold until Sunday, so I figured one more night of chilly air would be do-able.
The next morning 10am came and went, and no repairmen. I called and talked to the woman again around 11am. She said she would "find out where they are and call me right back." Well, 45mins went by (almost noon now) and I was getting rather impatient. She did finally call back and then tried to tell me they didn't need to come out. "All heaters have lights on them." "Yes, but my heat is not coming on...it's getting colder." "Oh....did you try the breaker?" "Yes." "And it didn't help?" "No. That's why I called yesterday morning." "Oh...well, they won't be able to make it out until this afternoon." "Oh. Ok, do we have more of a time-frame than that?" "Like 4 or 5pm...is that ok?" "Well, I guess it will have to be...I need a working heater." "Ok. Sorry."
*sigh* I was pretty frustrated at the whole thing. I left with my chilly baby for a couple hours and came back. They did come around 3:30 and spent about 15mins to fix it. They were nice and efficient and my heater works, but after the confusing and less-than-helpful service I don't think I should have paid them as much as I did...but whatever.
I am trying not to spend any more $ than I need to this week. I still have Christmas presents to buy and bills to pay...not to mention a new HAO payment and new insurance at the beginning of the new year. I am trying not to stress. Really, I am...I don't think it's working too well though. I am thankful for my house, my husband, baby girl, loyal puppy, working heater, and money in the bank...even if it's not as much as I need to feel comfortable. Christmas season is here, and it's not about $ or presents, and that is something that not need be forgotten!
M.LEWIS
No comments:
Post a Comment