Another One of Those Days

I'm overwhelmed and teary right now, so I'm hoping writing will make me feel better. I woke up and was so restless this morning, that I laid back down. Two and a half hours later, I woke up again (10:30 a.m.) and the whole day has felt off since. Thankfully Buck had awakened in time to take Caelan to her nanny job; I didn't even hear him get up.

Buck then mentioned there was a weird smell in the laundry room. We'd noticed the water wasn't heating correctly in our 20-year-old water heater since we got home from birthday visits and helping mom. So Buck, the puppy, and I went to investigate. I said I smelled gas; Buck said he smelled burnt electrical. We were both right.

The pilot light on the water heater was lit, but feeble. Buck put a lighter under the water heater and an immediate ball of flame shot out the top and directly at him from the bottom. He barrel rolled over the puppy who ran off in a white blur. Then Buck noticed the singed hair still clinging to his forearm and the rest on the laundry room floor. "I told you I smelled gas!!!!!" I was freaking out, he was laughing because he was okay. That could have been so not good.

He figured out how to get the pilot light adjusted so that it wasn't leaking excess gas (we think somehow putting the puppy kennel in or out bumped the knobs). But we still smelled the burnt electrical. Buck noticed that the air conditioning unit was running, but there was zero air movement from the vents. Sure enough, the temp had climbed two degrees despite the constant running. We shut the thing down for the third time this summer, and called the repairman. He was booked solid for the day, but would get here when he could.

An hour later, he had a postponement for one of his jobs and could come to our house right away. Praise God! Twenty minutes later, we discovered our assessment was right. The repairman carried away all the interior guts of our blower motor capacitor. We said, "How much will that be?" as he walked out the door with this huge metal contraption. He said, "I don't know, they are all different prices." And where does one find a 20-year-old blower motor capacitor anyway?



He called Buck back an hour or so later and said he could get the part ordered and hopefully have it repaired tomorrow for under $300. No problem, Brennen has plenty of money he can lend us :) Today it was 90 degrees outside, and our temperatures inside climbed to 87 upstairs and 85 downstairs in our usually cool basement. Miserable. I have not stopped sweating all day. So gross.

What else? Well, the washing machine kept showing an alarm light for something I'd just fixed. So, on an off chance it might work, I pulled the front filter for a cleaning (and flooded the floor onto a towel; at least I was ready for that one). But now I needed to test the washer to see if the light would go out (and to make sure the filter wouldn't leak all over the floor like it usually does after a cleaning). But I had no detergent. Not my big jug, not even my back up jug. All the soap containers had all been used completely dry. So, I sent Graysen to our neighbor's house with an empty laundry detergent cup, begging for some liquid cleaning power.

He returned with a full cup, and I decided to split it between two loads (we had zero kitchen towels left for washing or drying dishes) and a big, wet pile of towels we'd used to bathe the dogs before we left (another not so great smell in the already smelly laundry room, which now also smelled like burnt hair). I dripped the last of my Lysol sanitizer into the machine to try to boost the half cups of detergent (apparently I really need to go to the store), and hit start on the washer. No leaks, and the warning light went away. Yes!

Being in the mood to get things done today (my list basically got flushed down the toilet), Brennen had mentioned the vacuum needed a repair also. I knew this, I was ignoring it. But he was right, it had gotten to the point where the wand that fits the hose was no longer connecting and our need to vacuum is massive around here--daily. 

Buck jumped in and glued the pieces together . . . only we discovered six hours later (after the glue was super super stuck), he accidentally glued it upsidedown :( Now the part that fits into the arm handle of the vacuum that connects the hose for suction so we can use the roller bar at the base, does not fit at all. The vacuum is basically useless unless we want to suck up the entire house with the end of the hose (we do not want to do this). 

Brennen and I looked up how to remove super glue from plastic on google. It said use acetone nail polish. Caelan had approximately three drops of acetone nail polish left in her bottle. Ugh!!!! We dripped it into the most likely glue spots and left the whole thing in the sink. Buck thinks he can snap the pieces apart, but he's got two overnight shifts (he'll be home by 1 a.m., I think) in a row, so I'm not sure when he'll find time. I decided to order the replacement part from Dyson, just in case it doesn't come unglued via Buck's efforts. Well, I about came unglued when they said the broken part is not covered under our warranty (which is good for three more years), but they would waive the shipping costs. We should expect the replacement part in TWO WEEKS!! Yes, just a mere 14 days. By then, the dog hair and kid fluff will be piled up to our knees. You think I'm exaggerating? I'm hoping Buck can temporarily rig the thing, so we can at least fight back the fur.

I don't watch too much tv, but I do like the summer session of So You Think You Can Dance. I've missed three weeks in a row due to unavoidable events. Not a big deal. Youth group tonight was absorbed into prayer night, so we just decided to stay home. I thought, the kids and I can sit in the slightly cooler basement and catch up on the dancing. We tried the ipad, my phone, the chromecast, and finally the big computer. Fox refused to stream. We ended up watching two hours of choppy, buffering, sporadic dancing because we were all too hot to do anything else.

There is one bright side in the past couple of days. We had three friends, all named Melissa, offer to bring us meals. In fact, they all wanted to bring meals on the same night. Two did end up missing each other by 15 minutes, because one meal I had already accepted and the other said she was just leaving a meal in my house (she has the code :) It was a glorious abundance of food, because I have not made meals in weeks. Approximately eight weeks. I went to write up a grocery list today, and we've used up basically nothing. Except laundry soap and ice cream. It's been a rough summer.



Thankfully tonight, the third Melissa had pizza delivered. So happy that we didn't have to turn on the stove or oven to add to our overheated mess of a house! I also find it somewhat hilarious that all three Melissas brought us chocolate brownies for dessert . . . and here I was just craving chocolate brownies :) Fresh green beans, homemade raspberry jam (from self-harvested berries), cherries, mashed potatoes, chicken and noodles, cowboy stew, homemade brown bread, a beautiful salad . . . it is so nice to feel loved and cared for by our friends.



And looking back, we did accomplish some good things today. Brennen mowed the abandoned look of our front lawn away, he collected a bakers dozen of eggs, Gabby got the chickens watered and the bathroom cleaned, Graysen ran every errand I came up with, and Caelan kept three children happy and healthy at her nanny job.

Of course, there is more going on emotionally than these surface things. But man do the surface things seem to stack up when there is a lot going on emotionally! I feel calmer now (and seriously need a shower), thanks for "listening."