Trials

Luke and I haven't had the greatest start to the warm season. Despite trying to stay optimistic, we are re-discovering the joys of adulting. We've done it for a few years now, but if the last few months have taught us anything, it's that you never get good at it.

My parked car got schmucked by someone driving past it on Easter weekend. At first, it was just irritating. A little paint, a few small dents. I wasn't going to do anything about it. Then it starts squeaking. I take it in to the shop, they say they know what's causing it, they fix it and three other things, and $800+ later I can bring the car home.

It's still squeaking.

I bring it back the next day and the tech guy tries to tell me "oh, did you know you got hit? I think that's the piece that's squeaking."

No shit sherlock, I got hit. Why do you think I brought it in the first time? But no, that's not the squeak. You really have to shove on the piece that's dented to make it make noise. It's something underneath. But God forbid, I'm a woman and I don't know anything about cars...

Sure enough, they get it up on the lift and find that pieces underneath are dented from being hit. The very nice guy that I talked to that day tells me we're looking at maybe a grand to fix it and that I should file a claim.

Yay.

We then take it into the bodyshop. They say sure, we can fix the left rear quarter panel. It's going to cost about $3000. Thank God for the claim. Luke tries to tell them that there's stuff damaged underneath too that's squeaking. They don't really believe him.

Two days later we get a phone call. "Oh, we figured out what's squeaking. There are some damaged parts underneath. We're going to have to fix the rear suspension."

At this point, I just feel like they're all stupid.

So joy of joys, my car is still in the shop this week. Might not be able to fix both parts because our insurance will only cover up to the worth of the vehicle.

Part 2.

We discovered yesterday that our air conditioner isn't working. Don't know if it has to do with an electrical surge that flipped the breaker yesterday, problem part 3 (see below), or if it just decided to die. Just for shits, we tried turning the furnace on to see if something would run. That doesn't work either. Because we seem to be made of money lately, let's just keep stacking on the problems...

Part 3.

Some of you may know that we discovered a mouse problem in our basement last summer. With lots of traps and nastiness, we caught somewhere in the 20's mice. Thought we were done.

A few nights ago, we hear banging right under a heating duct.

They're back!

We had an exterminator come in and take a look at things. He was very helpful. However, we have now decided that every piece of insulation in the basement needs to be pulled down because the mice were tunneling through it. We also need to vacuum all of the poop out and essentially super-lysol the basement. Luke won't really let me touch it, which I'm grateful for, but I feel useless.

The worst of the cleaning is over. Now we have to re-insulate everything, catch any lingering mice, and move out ASAP.

Which brings me to an interesting point.

Luke goes downstairs tonight. The fans and lights in the basement have been on and running for the last 4-5 hours without any problem. He's halfway across the basement and the breaker flips, leaving the basement in darkness. No prompting. He didn't do a thing. And nothing had changed in hours except him entering the basement.

Ghosty is baaaack!

Have I mentioned we need to move out ASAP? My hope is that in the coming few weeks we can look at a few hopeful choices for houses and get our butts moved. Because I feel like it's time to cut our losses.

Signing off...