Catch up + household calamity edition

Hello! Things have been a little crazy hence the radio silence on the blog. 🙂

This summer has been full of so many great and fun things and ALSO has been a lot!

• big family vacation
• several weekends and days full of helping my parents move/ move-related activities
• a spontaneous (amazing!) long weekend to see SHU, kind of crammed in there with an early morning flight Saturday+ late arrival home Monday. I also took a “flex” day off from work instead of using PTO on Monday, meaning I had to work extra hours the rest of the week and it threw off all of my regular rhythms.
• my sister and family then arrived Wednesday from Ireland!!! yay!
• Ivan’s mom has been here throughout all of it, staying with us from Sunday- Wednesday every week
• the World Cup was in the mix, which may sound strange to list as clearly I did not PLAY in the World Cup nor did I even attend, but it truly dominated a lot of our free time in June/July. It was super fun though and I loved watching the games as a family (in many cases), so no regrets 🙂
• Work has been busy and we also had our big CMS survey!!!!

All to say, the fact that it is July 26th today is mind boggling because isn’t it still the end of May??? Ethan starts his senior year in exactly 2.5 weeks.

Meanwhile, I am mostly unsure what day or time it is most of the time, I’m discombobulated and feeling a little old and tired. Haha. I’m also simultaneously loving life because there’s been so many good and fun things happening!

Oh, and we leave for a week in Florida on Friday! 🤪

Oh again, I also forgot to mention the series of minor household calamities we’ve been experiencing, too.

Briefly, in the last week or so, our 100 gallon solar water heater started gushing water all over our basement floor from the pressure relief valve (on a 97 degree day, right when we were headed out for Ethan’s 18th birthday dinner), prompting a frantic clean up and multiple plumber visits that week and a (so far and not yet including diagnostic fees or other labor) $765 bill. Bonus, no one is actually sure what’s wrong with it, so the $765 new pump we just installed might have also been totally pointless, nor are we entirely sure it won’t happen again. (Blinks multiple times and smiles forcefully.)

Ironically, the same night, our air conditioner stopped working, because why not (also on the 97 degree night). (I woke up in the night SO HOT and was like, Am I having my first hot flash or what is happening?! 😅) So then we had HVAC people here. We got a $500 bill there and the A/C is working again but also our furnace and A/C are both almost 22 years old. So….. we really just need to replace them, probably. (Although technically the A/C is back up running for now and nothing else looked terribly ominous on either unit.)

We ended up getting two different quotes this week for full replacements and are still deciding what to do on that. (Replace them now pre-emptively? Or ride it out until they officially die. I mean, we could possibly get another couple years out of them… but then we of course run the risk of the furnace dying on a 4 degree January day… ha.)

All of these plumber and HVAC appointments have had to happen during business hours, which means during my work days…. Thankfully I do work from home, but it’s very disruptive and means I’ve had many days with no actual break (besides dealing with service people). It’s also fun waiting to see when between “12 and 4” they’ll actually show up.

The one HVAC company spent TWO HOURS here to give me a quote. They also called me ~10 min before arrival to give me a heads up they were on their way, and casually mentioned, Oh, by the way, we’ll need to go into every single room in the house to count all the vents. I was like, What?! Neither boy was home and both of their rooms (especially Asher’s) were a big mess at the moment. 😩 (Note- the little “basket system” and “put everything in its place” plan I tried to implement for Asher does, ahem, not seem to be working. 😩😏 During the school year we have a general “make your bed in the morning” policy but summer tends to be a little loosey goosey, and also, why are teen boys such slobs…..🤦‍♀️)

Ivan religiously makes our bed every morning but of course on that particular day he had an early meeting and had rushed out of the house, so he did not make our bed that day and our room was also quite a mess (which it usually is not).

So, I dropped everything and kind of raced through the house to make it presentable and gathered up armloads of teen crap and shoved things in hampers and quickly made their beds. I mean, I know I do not need to impress some random HVAC guys, but I can’t help it- if someone is going through my entire house, I at least want it straightened up and presentable.

In addition to the HVAC and solar water heater issues, we also realized that we badly need a new roof. It’s complicated to explain, but getting a new roof impacts what we do with the solar water heater. We have 4 huge solar panels on our roof, and getting a new roof means dismantling the entire solar system, draining it and then reinstalling everything, which, I just learned, might cost $5,000 (not the roof- that will be much, much more- but I mean $5k just to put the solar panels back on!). What?!

Now, while the solar water heater sounds nice in theory (that 100 gallon solar tank pre-heats our regular 50 gallon water heater, so we basically never run out of hot water= nice with teen boys who take longggg showers), “the industry” has mostly moved away from installing and even servicing these solar water systems. (We didn’t install it- it came with the house. Apparently the initial cost of installing it all was $25k!) There is not currently a major financial benefit to it, either- or at least not enough to offset a $5,000 reinstall any time soon. SO, we now might actually just take the whole thing down (which also will not be free)… which would make the $765 I just spent on the new solar pump a total waste. Because, of course. (I DID NOT KNOW that it would cost that much to reinstall the system.)

ANYWAY, I am sure no one cares about all the nuances of these decisions, but I’m just trying to make the point that this has all been a big (expensive) confusing pain. We’re planning to start getting roof quotes this week. (Side note, we are also in the market for new windows, new siding, a new deck, and a new concrete driveway. 😅😭😅😭 Oh, and we need a new hot tub cover, and our landscaping needs a refresh and we need to plant at least 2 new trees. This is called “everything is falling apart at the same time.”)

Finally, as the cherry on top, a rock hit Ethan’s windshield the other day on the interstate in such a way that we needed to fully replace the entire windshield. This is on the heels of a different incident on the interstate in November when a trailer hook fell off a truck and (very scarily) bounced on the road and then bounced onto the hood and front grill of Ivan’s car (that Ethan was driving), necessitating an insurance claim and extensive repair. AND THEN while Ivan’s car was in the shop getting fixed, a huge hail storm hit the rental Ivan was driving, meaning yet another claim to repair the rental car. 😩😩😩😩 I am terrified to see our next insurance premium renewal, with now 3 claims in a span of months, 4 cars, and 2 teen (boy) drivers.

Our next family vacation may be to the local Holiday Inn for a day pass to the pool 😆and/or we may be moving into a van down by the river. lol.

SIGH!!! Wahhh. I don’t want to deal with or pay for any of this. Are there any spare adults out there that can come join our family and handle all of this (and all the bills too please?? Also maybe take over groceries + dinners while they’re at it?). haha.

We’ll also just pretend that college tuition is not riiiiiiiight around the corner for us and that my van doesn’t need new tires.

Let’s close with a few pics from the week/ bright spots:

My dad catching up with my sister on their arrival evening Wednesday, enjoying the deck at their new house!

We had a cool snap mid- week (over now- highs in 90s today!). I took advantage and took a quick early morning soak before work, my first time in the hot tub in a while due to the hot weather.

Charlie is a bright spot in every single day of my life. 💕

We hosted my sister’s family and parents yesterday for a BBQ. I made this blueberry crumble, too!

Ethan’s high school soccer team had the annual alumni vs students game yesterday. Unfortunately, we missed it (needed to get groceries and prep for the family BBQ and the game was way on opposite side of town….), but the team photographer posted this great action shot of Ethan!

The kids had fun playing in our yard and basement yesterday. Charlie also thoroughly enjoyed it- I think they fed him about 65 treats while all simultaneously shouting “sit!”, “down!”, “shake!” at him. 😅 He was like, I LIKE THESE KIDS!!!! lol.

Now, today we have an open day (my sister + fam heading to visit some of her husband’s family). The boys both work later, Ivan is currently power washing our fence, I have some work work to catch up on and also a personal to do list about 9,000 items long (finance/ Monarch catch up- still haven’t reviewed our vacation charges!, some school forms, senior soccer photo upload due by Monday, vehicle registration, a bunch of other household tasks, and we need to figure out what Ethan is wearing for his senior pics (2 days after we get home from Florida). We also were invited to our neighbor’s house for a 1 year b-day party this afternoon for their little girl so I suppose I should run a grab a gift!

I mostly just want to go lounge on the deck with a book, but I guess that’s not in the cards. I also have not worked out in days! Oops.

Alright, that’s enough blabbing from me- have a great Sunday, all! 🙂

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for a fun afternoon with my sister + fam + yummy food yesterday!