It always comes in threes

It's been quite the week in this house. Let me tell you how my time off has gone so far:

We decided to repaint the bathroom, since we both had grown to dislike the coral color we painted it last year. The weekend was spent matching color swatches to the tile, picking out the paint, gathering (and purchasing) supplies, and finally, a lot of careful prep work. We sanded walls, taped corners/edges/windowpanes, and covered everything in plastic drape cloths. Last time we didn't prepare carefully enough, and it showed. We were determined to do a better job this time! On Monday morning, all the preparation was finally done, so we started applying the first coat (primer) to the walls. An hour or so into said application, I started to drip sweat. I had an uneasy feeling....and went to check the thermostat. 

The air conditioning had quit working. Horror (mostly on my part) ensued. 

All work on the bathroom came to a screeching halt. I called around until I found an HVAC repair service that could come out in two days, on Wednesday. The office person I spoke to assured me that if a technician had an opening sooner than that, they'd call. Of course I told her we'd take what we could get, especially with the holiday coming up. 

So.....we had no air conditioning. In South Carolina. In July. Add to the fun the fact that the entire main bathroom (our only source of a bath or shower!) was draped in sheets of plastic and tape. It looked like one of Dexter's kill rooms. 

Y'all. I nearly cried.

But the fun didn't end there, oh no! After setting up fans around the house and opening windows, we sat down to watch some tv for the distraction. As soon as we turned it on, there was a weird flash, and the screen went dark. 

For no apparent reason, the tv had just up and died! We couldn't believe it. There's something else we'll end up replacing sooner or later. *

That was Monday. We were fortunate in that Monday night the low temperature was lower than it had been in weeks...67 degrees. It could have been so much worse. Then we got lucky again and early yesterday morning the HVAC place called and said they had a technician who was free to come by before lunch. Hooray! It ended up being a relatively simple repair, and our unit is still under warranty for defective parts, so for less than $200 we had a/c again. And had only been without for 24 hours. What a relief!

Well, back to business, right? We finished the coat of primer in the bathroom and were waiting for it to dry...when we noticed water seeping out around the toilet. A lot of water. It was immediately obvious that we were going to have to find a plumber. F*ck! 

At least this time I wasn't too worried. We have another half bathroom we can use, so there's that. But it was sure aggravating after everything else that had happened. 

A plumber came out this morning. It was a really, really simple fix and ended up taking the guy maybe 10 minutes. It was also very cheap, something I've never had the privilege of saying about a plumbing repair before. Again, it could have been so much worse. 

Moving on.......

Last night we stayed up until after midnight, painting. It's all done now save for a few minor touch ups, and today after the plumber left it was dry enough that I could finally take a long, hot shower. We're really pleased with how the paint job turned out, too.

Tonight I'm grateful for a working air conditioner, a non-leaking toilet, and a finished home improvement project. 

This paint color is called "River's Edge".

*We're not in any hurry to replace the tv. There's a smaller one in the spare bedroom that will do just fine for now. 

Are we done yet?

They say things happen in threes. Good luck, bad luck, visitors, coincidences. Well, I hope that's so, because if things keep breaking around here I'm going to run away from home.

First our dryer died,  so we immediately called around and found a repair service to come out and look at it. The service call plus the repair, although minor, cost $300. Okay. Well, at least it's working now and we got it done quickly and easily, we said. Haha!

Our washing machine stopped working (mid load, full of water and soap) less than 48 hours later! We couldn't do without a washing machine for long, so we had to go right out and buy one, which meant spending another nice chunk of cash. I prayed to all the gods and saints that nothing else would break, but deep inside I felt that it was just a matter of time before one more thing would happen. I'm not generally a superstitious person, but for some reason the rule of threes (things happening in threes) has always held true for me. So I waited, and watched, and after a week or two went by I forgot about it.

Yesterday Gregg decided it was (past) time to cut the grass. We've had a lot of rain and all of a sudden the grass is getting out of hand. So he went out, filled the machine with gas, and began to mow...

and the lawn mower CAUGHT ON FIRE. As in, flames shooting out of one side, cut off the mower and somebody run for a fire extinguisher (or in Gregg's case, the water hose because it was closer). Luckily the fire went out on its own when the engine shut off. We dare not try to crank it again.

There you go; appliance #3 has broken or died. All three were items that we own, as opposed to most of the appliances in this house. Since we're renting almost anything else would have been the landlord's responsibility. Lucky us! And check this out: we lost our dryer (Air), our washer (Water), and our lawn mower (Earth), and the lawn mower died by way of (Fire). Maybe this means the circle of bad luck and breakage is now complete? I hope so!

A no-good, very bad day (off).

Today has been one of the worst days off work I've had in quite a while. Sorry to whine, but  I think that a day that's been total crap since I opened my eyes deserves a mention on the blog. And it's good to vent....right? Right.

First thing:

My husband has been up all night long throwing up. There's nothing that makes me feel any more helpless than watching someone I care about being sick. I don't know if he has a virus, or food poisoning, or what. All I know is that about once an hour he stumbles to the bathroom and dry heaves over the toilet. And all I can do is watch (and offer him a warm wet washcloth).

That's how the day began.

Then my phone rang at 8:30 am. It was an HR person from the school district office where I've applied for a secretarial position, calling to set up an interview. Nice, right? Wrong! They only gave me the option to interview tomorrow at 11:30am. But I can't be there then, I have to be in Wilmington, NC for a mandatory workshop for my current job. Not only am I required to be at this workshop, but a coworker is depending on me for a ride to it. There's no way I can get out of going, especially not with only 24 hours notice. I asked the woman if I could please interview any other day this week, at any time, because I could make anything else work. But she was vague and kind of blew me off and hung up. I got the impression that she was just some office worker herself who had been handed a list of names and times to confirm, and I was just a call to check off the list to her.

I'm so disappointed.

Then around 10:00 I remembered that I needed to call the dentist to reschedule what I thought was an appointment for tomorrow, since I'll be out of town. Well, was I surprised to discover that my appointment was actually for today, at 11:15. Just great!  I tried to reschedule on the grounds that my day was sucking, what with a sick husband and all, but the office manager said I couldn't get another appointment until late September. I really needed to have a hard permanent filling put in the last tooth that had a root canal before then. So I had to jump in the shower, and rush off to make it to a dental appointment.

All of this before noon, mind you.

I'd just as soon be at work today, I think.

The Dog Days of Summer

"the Sea boiled, the Wine turned sour, Dogs grew mad, and all other creatures became languid; causing to man, among other diseases, burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies."  Brady’s Clavis Calendaria, 1813.^[1]

Summer 2014 is finally winding down, and I have to say that it's been a most unpleasant one, both for me personally and the world at large. This last half has been particularly bad. The news is full of violence, death, riots, war, and despair. It's hot here in South Carolina, hot enough to make tempers flair and electricity bills soar. Yesterday reached 102F, with high humidity, and today promises to be another scorcher. All you can do is stay inside as much as possible and wait out the heat wave.

Bad luck and trouble seem to be hovering over my house this month. For instance, a neighborhood cat apparently wandered into our backyard the other day, and our dogs killed it. I felt terrible about it, but since our dogs are inside a fence (and it happened when we weren't home) there was nothing I could have done to prevent it. Our kitchen was infested (briefly) with tiny black ants, prompting a call to the pest control people. My husband is terribly allergic to ant bites so we had to deal with that problem immediately. Next up? George (el destructo dog) chewed holes in the walls of our garage and laundry room, and we have to find someone to fix them at our own expense, since we don't want our landlord to know that our dog is systematically destroying every part of the house he has access to. This is why, with the exception of the garage and laundry room, he's an "outside" dog right now. My job is as thankless as ever, and the coworkers I dislike the most have really been outdoing themselves with rude behavior recently. The job search continues, but although I've applied for several positions nothing has come of it (yet).

So I'll be happy to see this summer wind down. The only thing I'll miss will be the wonderful summer produce we've been enjoying. I've managed to lose 25 pounds since March, mostly by buying and preparing lots of fresh fruits and vegetables at the market. I had hoped to do some canning/freezing/preserving this summer, but time to do it has been scarce. I did make a few jars of hot cayenne pepper vinegar with garlic......

...and I bought a giant basket of peaches yesterday which I plan to freeze for later use. They smell wonderful.....

.....and next week, on my next day off, I plan to buy a box of mixed heirloom tomatoes to make sauce with, which I will either can or freeze. These tomatoes are so delicious, and they won't be around much longer.

The food has been the best part of this summer so far.

Now I'm ready to see the dog days wind down and the arrival of autumn.

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!