What a week this has been! Everything decided to break down in the past week. The A/C in both my house and car haven’t been working well. My washer shut down a week ago, and now my dryer doesn’t work either. Thankfully, between my landlord, friends and family, the whole ordeal will only cost me about $120.
My A/C in the car hasn’t worked in the car in extreme heat most of the summer. It does ok to keep the car cool if the interior isn’t already like a greenhouse, but if it’s already over 80 degrees or so, it just won’t cool. I know the problem. The same thing happens every year. I have a pinhole leak in the hose. Unfortunately, to repair or replace, the whole engine would have to be pulled out. My car is 11 years old, and since I plan to have a new one within the next year or so, it’s much cheaper to but the Freon at Wally World to fill it back up when needed.
I’ve been driving around with Freon in my trunk but have not found anyone who can put it in for me. Alas, Uncle Jim to the rescue. Rugrat and I are off to visit our cousins in Ohio tomorrow, and he thinks he has the tools necessary to fix it! Yay! We are leaving early tomorrow, so should be fine for the drive up, and on the way home, if all goes well, I will have a fully charged A/C for nothing more than the cost of a couple of cans of Freon, roughly $20.
If a hot car isn’t enough, my house’s A/C has been acting up for the past month or so, too. No A/C in the Ohio Valley in July and August no es bueno. The first time it was just the unit froze up because it had been so hot it was constantly running. I shut it off 4 hours, and my landlord changed the filters, and I was good for a week or two. Then the damn thing stopped blowing cold air again, so I shut it off for a few hours. When I turned it back on it barely was blowing cool air, and I figured it just needed more time to defrost, so I kept it off for 12 hours overnight. I turned in on the next day around noon, and it barely got the house cooled down to normal before it stopped cooling. AGAIN. I finally broke down and texted my landlord again yesterday morning, and he checked it out and confirmed that we needed to get a professional. By then end of the day, it was up and running again, and I slept a solid eight last night (cue the chorus of angels: “Hallelujah”!
It miraculously rose from the grave!
Another long awaited repair happen yesterday as well. My washer had shut down right before the spin cycle last week, and my favorite brother-in-law came by yesterday and miraculously fixed it within five minutes. I was never so ecstatic to be able to do laundry. I hate laundry. Who doesn’t?
It took four cycles of wash to get rid of the mildew smell from the load that was in the standing water for a week. Finally this afternoon I was able to put them in the dryer. Turned the dial, pulled out the nob and voila! Nothing. Actually, it wasn’t nothing. The nob came off. “No sweat,” I thought. I just grabbed a pair of pliers from the toolbox. (Yes, I’m a single woman. Yes, I have tools. Yes, I know how to use them.)
I sauntered back over to the dryer, clamped down on the pliers and pulled. Hard. Nothing. I tried again. Harder. The back panel started moving forward as I pulled. Thinking that was probably not a good thing, I may or may not have said a couple of choice words that I shouldn’t repeat in my blog. Especially since I’m pretty sure my pastor, his wife and several other members of my church family at least sometimes read this blog.
Friends Carrie and Drew to the rescue! The recently moved back to the area and the sellers of their new house left their washer and dryer there. Since that set is nicer than what they had, they are selling me their old set for only $100. They are even delivering them to me and helping set them up and get them running for me.
As I said, friends and family are awesome. Did I mention that I also got to see my good friend “L” last night? We all know life gets in the way of spending time with friends, and we hadn’t had any one on one time in over a month. She is part of my Wolfpack I met up with a couple of weeks ago, but last night we just sat on her deck, star-gazing, sharing a 6-pack and discussing the single life. It was very fun, and if it weren’t a “school night” for us, we would have stayed up for hours longer just talking. I love those moments with my loved ones.
Deliciousness!
Oops….just saw headlights turn in the driveway. The Sleep Police must have figured out that Rugrat is with me tonight. I didn’t tip them off because after a playdate after school, we went to dinner at our favorite Chinese buffet with all-you-can-eat crab legs and ran a couple of errands. Knowing I needed to blog and he had a brand new game to play, I was hoping to let him stay up just a little later than normal, but still early enough to hit the road for Ohio bright and early. Guess that time has come, so look for a great blog in a couple of days about our weekend adventures! Shhhh! There is a pounding at the door!
Adventures from the Maple Tree 