Month: January 2009

Leakage

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Last night, as we were getting ready to go to bed, Joe was making sure all the doors were locked like he always does when he discovered water all over the laundry room floor. It was like our own mini flood. Apparently something in the water heater burst. It wasn’t that way when I got home from work – I pass through the laundry room coming in from the garage – so it happened sometime while we were home but we didn’t hear anything.

Luckily my boss is laid back and didn’t have a problem with me working from home today while waiting for a plumber since Joe had important things to cover at work.

$1100 to replace the water heater (it was 11 years old so it was due). Can you believe it? The equipment itself is worth $400 – it’s the labor that costs so much. At least the plumber was a good one – very courteous and knowledgeable. It’s always my fear when hiring someone that they are going to be incompetent, rude, or both. He was neither.

If we were living in our “forever home”, I’d totally get one of those tankless water heaters. They are more expensive initially, but they are more energy efficient and have a much longer warranty. Plus if you get a higher capacity model, two people can take a nice hot shower simultaneously. That would be nice on the weekends we have the kids and four people are trying to get ready to go on an outing.

I’m just happy to be able to take a shower again! One morning without one and I already felt disgusting.

Frozen tires and Bingo

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Friday after warming up my car in my employer’s parking lot, I backed out of my spot and realized something was not quite right. I pulled into a different spot and checked the car, only to find that one of my tires had frozen flat! I have never seen anything like it.

I immediately called Joe who luckily doesn’t work very far from me and hadn’t left work yet. I headed back into my building to wait for him where one of the women joked that she wouldn’t trust her husband to change a flat. My husband is actually quite good at it and it wasn’t terribly long before the spare was on my car and I was able to drive home.

Unfortunately it did prevent us from meeting up with our friends for dinner as planned, but we were still able to make it to Bingo, so it could have been worse. Joe won a game, but just like the last time he won, had to split the pot with more than one person so we didn’t make much moolah unlike one of our friends who has won too big pots to date. And I swear if I hear said friend say, “don’t hate the player, hate the game” one more time, I’m going to hurt the player! ;)

Pack Rat

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We took on a fairly big project this morning – cleaning our master bedroom’s walk-in closet. I am happy to say it looks much better, and even has space for more stuff now.

I am exhausted and plan on doing nothing more the rest of the day except laundry. It snowed last night and was still snowing earlier, so it’s a stay in and hibernate kind of day. Maybe play video games too. I also have quite a few episodes (thank you, marathons) of What I Like About You (a recent discovery) and Forensic Files on the DVR. Party time at Nicole’s! ;)

One of the things I came across in the closet was my old Yamaha keyboard (anyone having thoughts of Ross from Friends here?).

My old keyboard

It’s still in great condition and it’s a good 15+ years old. I took a photo to remember it by as I plan to give it to E and since he’s a boy, I’m not sure it will survive.

Here’s a photo of the box it came in. The price tag says $80. I’m pretty sure I got it at Service Merchandise. Wow. Memories.

The box to my old keyboard

Another thing I saved for some ungodly reason is every single pay stub I’ve gotten since I started working at the age of fifteen, including those from Burger King when I was making $4.25/hour. I’m going to keep a few for posterity and shred the rest.

I also have all my old cassette tapes (see photos @ Flickr – #1, #2, and Singles). I don’t think people collect those anymore, so other than my Cure ones that I can’t bear to part with, I’m either going to trash them or donate them to Goodwill.

We’re also going to donate our old Sony MiniDisc players. They are in perfect condition, just not in use now that everyone has an iPod. I have no illusions that anyone will want to buy them, seeing as how you can get a no-name MP3 player for next to nothing these days, but I just can’t throw out something that isn’t broken.