If it's not one thing, it's another!
Oct. 19th, 2010 09:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuIn the first year of our marriage, Snippy and I had a week in which the refrigerator, the dishwasher, the microwave, and the television that sat on a counter in the kitchen all failed over the course of a few days. Yowza. We didn't need that. Nonetheless, we managed to get it all handled.
This week feels like that one, only bigger.
We're trying to sell the house. Which has involved endless packing. And sorting of possessions into categories: keep (and keep out for daily use), keep (but pack for temporary storage), hold temporarily for a yard sale, and disposal (by donation or tossing into a dumpster). We've arranged for a contractor to come fix the foundation of the house, and we talked to another about doing a lot of little fix-ups to the house. (Some of them were things we were originally going to do for ourselves, but the longer this project drags on, the more we say, "Screw it! We'll pay somebody to do it. We'll get it back when we sell the house!")
But, you know. Contractors. The foundation guy says we're on his schedule, but we can't get a firm date for when he'll start (it should take about a week to do the job). Probably a couple of weeks, after he handles two other jobs ahead of ours on his schedule. The other contractor never got back to us--it's been a week and a half now since we went over the list of projects--so we're going to contact another thru our realtor to see if maybe he wants to earn some money.
I've disposed of two dumpster loads of crap. And there's still junk in the basement and garage. Some of it we've been holding onto in order to hold a yard sale. But Snippy is at the end of her rope and we've decided to bag the yard sale idea. I'll probably take photos of some of the furniture and post them on Craigslist for sale. The rest of it we'll either try to sell if there's a quick and easy way (taking books to Powell's, for instance). Otherwise, we'll donate it all to Goodwill or the Salvation Army or something just get it the hell out of our lives.
My dad's getting hospice care (at home, but still). We're going to go visit in the very near future. It'll be good to see my parents again, but--nobody flies anymore unless they have to. They've wrung all the joy from it. The trip will be something to be endured.
Monday night the radio started cutting in and out in the car while I was driving to pick Snippy up from work. It failed entirely by the time I parked to wait for her. Then the rest of the electrical system started acting wonky. Then the automatic transmission began to labor at changing gears. We almost made it home before the engine died. So Snippy walked home to meet our realtor while I waited for AAA. They towed the car to the dealership, where it lurks even now. It should be fixed tomorrow, but the fix for that plus some other work on it (all needed, but...) is gonna cost us.
The other car wouldn't start this morning, so I called AAA again to come out. It needed a new battery (as in the old battery was dead as disco). But I eventually got Snippy to her office. Then I took the car for some much needed and overdue maintenance of its own*, before getting it inspected and re-registered.
I'm not writing much lately either, what with all the housework and the stuff with my dad*.
So all in all, it's been...swell. On the bright side, Snippy and I are both trying very hard to remember that we are not the enemy, and not to take out our stresses and frustrations on one another. It's easy to do when we're each the closest person, and handy for snapping at. But we're doing very well at that, and at taking caring of one another.
And we saw RED over the weekend. It was great fun and we'll be seeing it again before it leaves the theatres. We highly recommend it.
*I'll cop to that. We seldom drive this car anymore, and I haven't been starting it up enough to avoid running down the battery repeatedly, to its detriment. I also got an engine flush, oil change, oil filter, air filter and new wiper blades. If I'm gonna be driving it more often, it needed all those things anyhow.
**One of the things that may have contributed to my dad's most recent hospitalization was the stress of waking up to a foot of sewage (courtesy of the town sewage system) in the basement a couple of weeks ago, and to not being able to do anything about it while my mom dealt with it. Plus, of course, the inevitable ensuing fingerpointing and blameshifting by the town council and their insurance carrier over who's going to pay (and how much) for the clean-up, restoration, and replacement costs.
This week feels like that one, only bigger.
We're trying to sell the house. Which has involved endless packing. And sorting of possessions into categories: keep (and keep out for daily use), keep (but pack for temporary storage), hold temporarily for a yard sale, and disposal (by donation or tossing into a dumpster). We've arranged for a contractor to come fix the foundation of the house, and we talked to another about doing a lot of little fix-ups to the house. (Some of them were things we were originally going to do for ourselves, but the longer this project drags on, the more we say, "Screw it! We'll pay somebody to do it. We'll get it back when we sell the house!")
But, you know. Contractors. The foundation guy says we're on his schedule, but we can't get a firm date for when he'll start (it should take about a week to do the job). Probably a couple of weeks, after he handles two other jobs ahead of ours on his schedule. The other contractor never got back to us--it's been a week and a half now since we went over the list of projects--so we're going to contact another thru our realtor to see if maybe he wants to earn some money.
I've disposed of two dumpster loads of crap. And there's still junk in the basement and garage. Some of it we've been holding onto in order to hold a yard sale. But Snippy is at the end of her rope and we've decided to bag the yard sale idea. I'll probably take photos of some of the furniture and post them on Craigslist for sale. The rest of it we'll either try to sell if there's a quick and easy way (taking books to Powell's, for instance). Otherwise, we'll donate it all to Goodwill or the Salvation Army or something just get it the hell out of our lives.
My dad's getting hospice care (at home, but still). We're going to go visit in the very near future. It'll be good to see my parents again, but--nobody flies anymore unless they have to. They've wrung all the joy from it. The trip will be something to be endured.
Monday night the radio started cutting in and out in the car while I was driving to pick Snippy up from work. It failed entirely by the time I parked to wait for her. Then the rest of the electrical system started acting wonky. Then the automatic transmission began to labor at changing gears. We almost made it home before the engine died. So Snippy walked home to meet our realtor while I waited for AAA. They towed the car to the dealership, where it lurks even now. It should be fixed tomorrow, but the fix for that plus some other work on it (all needed, but...) is gonna cost us.
The other car wouldn't start this morning, so I called AAA again to come out. It needed a new battery (as in the old battery was dead as disco). But I eventually got Snippy to her office. Then I took the car for some much needed and overdue maintenance of its own*, before getting it inspected and re-registered.
I'm not writing much lately either, what with all the housework and the stuff with my dad*.
So all in all, it's been...swell. On the bright side, Snippy and I are both trying very hard to remember that we are not the enemy, and not to take out our stresses and frustrations on one another. It's easy to do when we're each the closest person, and handy for snapping at. But we're doing very well at that, and at taking caring of one another.
And we saw RED over the weekend. It was great fun and we'll be seeing it again before it leaves the theatres. We highly recommend it.
*I'll cop to that. We seldom drive this car anymore, and I haven't been starting it up enough to avoid running down the battery repeatedly, to its detriment. I also got an engine flush, oil change, oil filter, air filter and new wiper blades. If I'm gonna be driving it more often, it needed all those things anyhow.
**One of the things that may have contributed to my dad's most recent hospitalization was the stress of waking up to a foot of sewage (courtesy of the town sewage system) in the basement a couple of weeks ago, and to not being able to do anything about it while my mom dealt with it. Plus, of course, the inevitable ensuing fingerpointing and blameshifting by the town council and their insurance carrier over who's going to pay (and how much) for the clean-up, restoration, and replacement costs.
