Enough!

I'm ready to run away from home.

Sigh.

If it's not one thing, it's another.

My car is in the shop for at least a week. My husband accidentally backed up against a big concrete planter in a parking lot, and there are deep scratches down the entire passenger side. It's going to require lots of replacement parts (bumper, side panels, etc etc.) We also have a $500 deductible to pay before the insurance will pick up the additional $2000. Then we discovered that the insurance we have doesn't cover a rental. Thank goodness my mom offered to let me use her car until mine is back. We certainly couldn't afford a rental on top of the $500 and sharing one vehicle (with very different working schedules) would have been a major headache.

My stomach hurts. I've been putting off seeing the doctor since my ER visit last October, hoping things would resolve themselves if I was careful about what I ate. No good. So I'm finally seeing the doctor tomorrow, and will probably have to have a whole lot of tests to see what's going on in there. I could barely sleep last night.

And yesterday, the heat in our house quit working. Actually, it works a little bit, but something inside the vents is making a horrible clanging noise whenever it's on that will slowly drive you crazy. In order to sleep last night, we had to turn it off and depend on the fireplace in the den. Which of course means that the rest of the house is frigid. The repair guys are supposed to be on their way today.

And work, as usual, sucks. I dread going in today. Although at least it's warm there.

I hope everyone is having a better week than me!

Machines hate me

For some inexplicable reason, my husband and I are downright incapable of keeping certain kinds of machines working. While living in our first apartment, we managed to kill three lawn mowers (one of which was borrowed and we had to pay for it). It's the same way for us with appliances.They will work just long enough to be past the warranty, and then they will die.  (Especially if they're expensive, like washers or dryers or refrigerators.) We are on our third vacuum in this house alone. It drives me crazy.

This morning I attempted to cut the grass in our back yard. Mind you, my dad repaired our lawn mower last fall, and it was working just fine for him the last time it got used. It's been in storage since. I got all prepared for the year's first mowing: picked up large sticks that had fallen from the trees, moved the hammock out of the way, gathered dog toys and other foreign objects from the area, filled the mower with gas, checked the oil, and then tried to crank the mower......

and tried. And tried. And tried some more. The engine just sputtered a few times, but never really fired no matter how hard I tried to crank it. Eventually I was sweaty and cursing, pulling the stupid lever over and over and nearly taking my shoulder out of joint in the process. I was so. pissed. off. Eventually I gave up, but only after kicking the machine a couple of times and sending a  colorfully worded (ahem) text to my husband (he's at work) expressing my frustration. So much for cutting the grass!

To add to the joy of discovering the mower is broken (again!) we've been planning to buy a new washing machine. We don't have much choice. Our current one is leaking water all over the floor during the rinse cycle. And forget getting anything repaired these days. We live in a throw away society; shops that repair appliances no longer exist.  They just continue to sell you crap quality new machines that are guaranteed not to last half as long as they should. And coming to my house is like a death warrant for them anyway!

I don't know why machines hate me so much, but I do know one thing: I'm about to have a glass of wine (nevermind it's just past lunchtime) and forget all about that f*#!ing mower for the day!

Well, crap...

What a week! And I don't mean that in a good way!

First, I went online to make my car payment. I submitted it, then checked the next day to make sure it had gone through. It wasn't there. What was there was a big red notice that my payment was past due. So I panicked, and made a payment again, only to discover (as I hit "confirm") that there was a disclaimer that said "payments may take up to three days to show on your online statement". Of course it was the weekend, and I just had to wait and see if I had paid twice. And guess what? I had. When I called the customer service number yesterday to see what we could do about it, the nice guy on the phone was apologetic, but the only thing they can do about it is to issue me a paper check refund....which would take minimum 10 days to get here. It wouldn't help my bank account now. So I am holding my breath that we don't end up overdrawn because of this nonsense. On the bright side, we won't have a car payment in August...not that that's helping our poor bank account now.

Another reason I'm worried about overdrawing my account also has to do with my car. At the end of April we traded in a 2007 Toyota Corolla for a 2012 model. We got our tax bill at the end of May, and the property taxes were due at the end of June. I went up to the tax office and paid, and they said my 2013 decal would arrive in the mail; I just needed to have my receipt with me in case I got pulled over. So I waited. And waited. Eventually (this past weekend) I got a notice from the DMV that I had paid taxes on the wrong Corolla. Which meant leaving work early, going to the tax office to straighten out the mess, and discovering we owed another $200 above what we had already paid. After I (reluctantly) paid the difference, I had to go to the third circle of hell  DMV office and get my decal. What a hassle!

So now I've paid out over $500 unexpectedly this week, and I'm hoping our bank account stays afloat until we get paid on Friday. If it doesn't, then we're going to  get hit with service charges, which will really piss me off.  What a bunch of crap!

Mercury is retrograde...and although I don't put a whole lot of faith in astrology....this is just fitting! So I'm blaming Mercury!!!