I've been procrastinating a bit on this blog post because I haven't been sure what I was going to talk about; it's been kind of a crazy week or so. It started off last Friday, when we had someone coming over at 6:00 in the evening to give us an estimate to remodel our shower. That in itself isn't so crazy, but at about 5:30 Denine goes into the utility room to dry a load of laundry and the dryer does nothing but go "click." So, after a cursory look before the estimator showed up I detrmined that A) it was, in fact, the dryer and not the breaker, and B) I had no idea what was wrong with the dryer. I didn't have a lot of time to mess with it and decided that I would just not worry about it for now and instead focus on the estimate for the shower. The estimator arrived relatively on time and was very curteous and professional, particularly given our daughter's proclivity for interupting the conversation and playing with his samples. Which made it even harder to graciously tell him that we would not be able to go ahead with a $5000 shower remodel right now. I decided to leave off the fact that I don't think I would be able to justify $5000 to rebuild a bathtub-sized shower enclosure under any circumstances, short of receiving a landfall of money that would allow me to pay off all my debt, pay cash for two newer vehicles, and still have several thousand for home repairs.
With the estimate out of the way and shower repairs officially no longer my first priority, I spent Saturday morning determining that I still had no idea what was wrong with the dryer, and scouring Craigslist (rather unsuccessfully) for deals on a gently used washer and dryer. I did manage to find a place that sells refurbished and floor model washers and dryers, but Denine was not impressed and decided that she'd rather spend a little more for new units. Luckily, we had thought the washer was about to buy the farm a few months back (that ended up just being a clogged drain line), so I had already researched decently priced new washers and dryers, and just had to verify that the models from a few months back were still well reviewed. The best price I found would require me to order said units, but we wanted to get a look at them first and the only place I found in town that had them was Fry's on 59. I always jump at the opportunity to take a trip to Fry's, plus I thought they might price match, so off we went. Turns out they couldn't price match them, but we did get a chance to check them out before we ordered them, and as a bonus Ren and I both found games we were wanting to buy priced cheaper than anyplace else, which then rang up for even cheaper than they were marked (I love that store!). So, we went home and dropped a grand on new appliances. Which, by the by, was the first major appliance purchase we've had in twelve years of marriage.
Oh, yeah, our twelfth anniversary was the ninth. Woot for us. No, we didn't do anything; we're boring that way.
Sunday was the first day of LTC practice, which meant that we had from 12:00 when we get out of church to 1:30 when practices start to eat lunch and get back. Thankfully, we usually eat at my brother's house, which is literally about two mintues from the church, so almost none of that time is spent commuting. After practice we headed to our life group, and when we got there noticed smoke coming from under the hood of the van. Well, there was nothing to do about it then, so I told Denine to keep an eye on it. Monday morning she calls and tells me that it started smoking again on her way to work. So off to the shop went the van on Tuesday morning, which actually worked out okay since we already needed to get the shifter cable replaced.
The week started to turn around on Wednesday. The new washer and dryer arrived and work like a top, so that particular concern was over. Then that afternoon we got a call from the mechanic. Nothing was wrong with the van (aside from the shifter cable) and the smoke was just from a plastic bag that had gotten stuck to the radiator and was burning off. And there was much rejoicing. This also helped with another problem. Jamie has to do a science fair project for a grade this year, and it was due on Friday. He is doing an experiment to observe to correlation between age and gender and lung capacity. As of Wednesday he had not done any of the "field work" to get test results, and was banking on getting people at church Wdenesday night to blow up balloons for him. The problem with that was that with the van being at the mechanic's, we couldn't go to church, hence he was going to fail his project. However, we got the van back Wednesday afternoon and we had no problem getting enough people to blow up balloons that night. Jamie assembled his board Thursday night and got it turned in on time.
Friday I fixed a problem with some receptacles at the rental property, cleaned the fish tank, and got the nursery ready to be primed. Saturday morning I attended our men's prayer breakfast (three cheers for tailgating in near-freezing temperatures!) then came home and primed the walls in the nursery. So, the last couple of days have been the busy-getting-stuff-done kind of crazy, as opposed to the first half of the week being the holy-crap-there-goes-my-money kind. Then we finished up the busy week+ today with church, lunch, LTC practice, and the welcome potluck for the new youth minister.
With the estimate out of the way and shower repairs officially no longer my first priority, I spent Saturday morning determining that I still had no idea what was wrong with the dryer, and scouring Craigslist (rather unsuccessfully) for deals on a gently used washer and dryer. I did manage to find a place that sells refurbished and floor model washers and dryers, but Denine was not impressed and decided that she'd rather spend a little more for new units. Luckily, we had thought the washer was about to buy the farm a few months back (that ended up just being a clogged drain line), so I had already researched decently priced new washers and dryers, and just had to verify that the models from a few months back were still well reviewed. The best price I found would require me to order said units, but we wanted to get a look at them first and the only place I found in town that had them was Fry's on 59. I always jump at the opportunity to take a trip to Fry's, plus I thought they might price match, so off we went. Turns out they couldn't price match them, but we did get a chance to check them out before we ordered them, and as a bonus Ren and I both found games we were wanting to buy priced cheaper than anyplace else, which then rang up for even cheaper than they were marked (I love that store!). So, we went home and dropped a grand on new appliances. Which, by the by, was the first major appliance purchase we've had in twelve years of marriage.
Oh, yeah, our twelfth anniversary was the ninth. Woot for us. No, we didn't do anything; we're boring that way.
Sunday was the first day of LTC practice, which meant that we had from 12:00 when we get out of church to 1:30 when practices start to eat lunch and get back. Thankfully, we usually eat at my brother's house, which is literally about two mintues from the church, so almost none of that time is spent commuting. After practice we headed to our life group, and when we got there noticed smoke coming from under the hood of the van. Well, there was nothing to do about it then, so I told Denine to keep an eye on it. Monday morning she calls and tells me that it started smoking again on her way to work. So off to the shop went the van on Tuesday morning, which actually worked out okay since we already needed to get the shifter cable replaced.
The week started to turn around on Wednesday. The new washer and dryer arrived and work like a top, so that particular concern was over. Then that afternoon we got a call from the mechanic. Nothing was wrong with the van (aside from the shifter cable) and the smoke was just from a plastic bag that had gotten stuck to the radiator and was burning off. And there was much rejoicing. This also helped with another problem. Jamie has to do a science fair project for a grade this year, and it was due on Friday. He is doing an experiment to observe to correlation between age and gender and lung capacity. As of Wednesday he had not done any of the "field work" to get test results, and was banking on getting people at church Wdenesday night to blow up balloons for him. The problem with that was that with the van being at the mechanic's, we couldn't go to church, hence he was going to fail his project. However, we got the van back Wednesday afternoon and we had no problem getting enough people to blow up balloons that night. Jamie assembled his board Thursday night and got it turned in on time.
Friday I fixed a problem with some receptacles at the rental property, cleaned the fish tank, and got the nursery ready to be primed. Saturday morning I attended our men's prayer breakfast (three cheers for tailgating in near-freezing temperatures!) then came home and primed the walls in the nursery. So, the last couple of days have been the busy-getting-stuff-done kind of crazy, as opposed to the first half of the week being the holy-crap-there-goes-my-money kind. Then we finished up the busy week+ today with church, lunch, LTC practice, and the welcome potluck for the new youth minister.
Whew!
Current Nursery Status: Not Very Pretty!
In baby news, everything is going along smoothly; no news is good news and all. I think Denine is officially getting sick of being pregnant. Hopefully she's only got eight-or-so weeks to go, but if we've learned anything from the last two it's that it'll happen when it happens and not to get in a rush.
And to think: She's still getting bigger!
Hopefully next week will be a little more sane. Though I already know we have science night on Tuesday, church on Wednesday, curriculum night and women's group on Thursday, errands on Friday, and painting Saturday. So, I somehow doubt it...
