The Mountains Are Calling

I haven't even told you about the drama of the past week ~ I think I'm too exhausted to even think about it! Remember my Barbie FOMO post where I talked about my daughter inviting guests for supper? Well, while I was cooking and cleaning all day I got super hot and sweaty.

I went to see what the air conditioner was set on because sometimes Jerry turns it up when I'm not looking. This is one of those never-ending, simmering fights of long marriages; I'm always too hot and he's always too cold. In the summer he's always sneaking to turn up the air conditioner and in winter he's always sneaking to crank up the heat. I keep the heater at 65 and that's often too hot for me and I will turn it off altogether but he comes home and turns it up to 68 or 69 or sometimes even 70 and then I'm sweltering! Supposedly turning up the air conditioner is to save money and the planet but when I ask how come turning the heat up is so much less damaging to the wallet and environment I get... crickets.

Well anyway, the air conditioner HAD been turned to 72 (from 71 where I had it) but the thermostat said it was actually 75 in the house. I asked Jerry if he thought we should worry about that and he said no but then he went outside and saw the unit wasn't running at all. So, right before the dinner guests arrived the air conditioner died!

On Monday the technician came out and gave us the bad news: although it was just a small part that needed replacing, our unit was leaking Freon. It's some Freon that's been banned so it can't be refilled unless they happen to have some. If they did the repair, it would cost $1000 at least and it would just be a Bandaid to tide us over a few months before we would have to replace the whole thing. A new unit would cost $7000. Then he went under the house and informed us the furnace is on its last legs. The cost to replace both the furnace and air conditioner is a little over $10K, which is a significant savings on labor. So, we decided to do that but they can't install the new units until August 7th. Thank goodness we had the old air conditioner from the tiny cabin, which we've been using in the garage! Between the upstairs air conditioner and the little one it's bearable in here.

However, if you've been keeping score, at the beginning of the year I spent most of my own savings taking classes to improve my business skills. Then in February we decided after saving for 11 years we finally had enough money to remodel our decrepit kitchen. The kitchen cost around $10K. Right after we ripped out the old kitchen and were at the point of no return our son broke both his wrists. That ended up costing $3500. Then in May the water heater died and set us back another $3K. Last week our daughter's first college tuition payment came due. And now this. So, we are over $30K in the hole for this year so far, not even including my classes. Our savings and bank accounts are decimated.

We decided it's time for another vacation, one last one before our daughter heads off to university. We are just going up to the tiny cabin to rough it, although honestly, the cabin's lack of plumbing and large appliances is quite refreshing! There's not really anything expensive to fix.

So, I will be back on Monday, but that's the day of the a/c and furnace installation as well as our youngest son's cross country time trials AND his freshman orientation at the high school, so I'm not opening my store until Tuesday. Have a great week! I sure hope your year is going better than ours!