My past few days have not been for the faint of heart. Let's start with yesterday. Luke and I have known since spring that during the previous winter, we had enjoyed the noise and astronomical prices of our archaic gas furnace for the last time. For once we decided to do the responsible thing and not wait until it became an emergency. So yesterday we had an appointment for the Sears consultant to come take a look at our system and see what they had to offer. And while we were at it, we figured we'd also check out air conditioners too, since ours is the original one that came with the house--which is 17 years old--and they usually only last 15 years or so tops. Let me just say that I was not prepared for the ordeal. I figured the guy would come out here, hitch up his pants, spit, and say "Yeah, that'll run ya about so-and-so...", and then we'd spend the next thirty minutes trying to talk ourselves down to the cheapest possibility while he added in hidden costs every five minutes or so. Well, this is not at all what happened, and I'll take the time right now to go ahead and plug Sears for all your HVAC needs. The guy came out at 11:00 and walked around for an hour and forty-five minutes talking to Luke, inspecting our current system, taking measurements of our house and then writing up quotes for five different systems. Then we proceeded to sit down and discuss those quotes for another hour and a half. In the end, he actually recommended the cheapest option, gave it to us for the employee price and then set up a no-interest account to make it actually doable. I'm telling you, it's hard to find customer service like that these days. So we got a new heat pump, which is a single unit that somehow heats in the winter and cools in the summer using the air outside. And it's electric, and very energy-efficient, so no more breaking the bank over the natural gas bill in January. And even though I dropped a few G's for it, I feel good about the purchase, which is very unusual for me. Usually, I have diarrhea until the balance is paid. Eeek.
And as if that wasn't enough, lately our main TV has been on the fritz in a major way. But it was hard to get mad, because Luke bought it fifteen years ago and it's had a good life. It's like when your very very VERY old dog keeps pooping on the floor, but you don't mind, because he's been so good about not doing it for all these years. Anyway, we decided to say goodbye to the TV and we gave it to the Salvation Army in the hopes that someone even more poverty-stricken than us might get a few weeks of enjoyment out of it, and off we went on Thursday evening to go buy a new TV. I've got to give Luke props for planning this out so well in his evil mind, because heaven knows, if we hadn't gotten it before we signed in blood for the new heat pump, then we wouldn't have gotten it at all. I would've told him to shut up and content himself with watching a blue screen. At any rate, I wasn't prepared for this purchase either. I don't live under a rock, so I know all about plasmas and LCD screens and the like...what I didn't know is that projection TVs are all but extinct. I really thought we'd go in there and buy the same size and shape TV that we had before, the kind I've been watching my whole life, but with a flat screen this time. Oh no. Not at all. The showroom was a plethora of sleek, futuristic looking screens, all perched atop their shapely pedestals and grinning at us with wide wide WIDE screens and pixels galore. Off in the corner were two projection TVs, dragging their massive hind sides around by the hair and modeling the latest in caveman TV animal skins. My first instinct as a cheapskate was to suck it up and adopt one of those awful snaggletooth projection models, but after comparing prices, even I could see that the obvious choice was a more updated model. So we are now the proud owners of a 32-inch flat screen LCD TV, with a price tag that wasn't too bad.
My only concession was that it must fit into my entertainment armoire, which is a beautiful piece of furniture that Luke and I bought just before we were married, and I would never ever buy a TV that wouldn't utilize it. Luke said that this one could actually hang on the wall, but that is the epitome of tackiness, so I'm not even going to go there.
Thus, today was deemed a no-spending day, as are the next seven days or so, with the exception of groceries and gas. So when I went out to get something out of the freezer for dinner tonight, I noticed a formidable trail of ants on the side driveway and, having just in the last week conquered an attempted uprising in my kitchen, I decided to investigate. I followed the trail, which wasn't hard, since there were millions of them, and it led me straight to the garage and into the trash can where we store the dog food. I took the lid off and almost fainted. Then I had to stand there for the next ten minutes and figure out what to do, since Luke had just bought a 50-lb bag of dog chow and by golly after the past two days, there was no way I was throwing all that food away of I could help it. So I analyzed their weaknesses, planned my strategy, and began my attack. It began with a can of Raid for the outside of the trash can and the trail of critters leading down the driveway, and ended with the hose and what has affectionately become known as the "ant sponge"...and I'm happy to say, the huge vat of dog food is now ant-free, chemical-free, and just a slight bit damp. My work here is done.
And as if that wasn't enough, lately our main TV has been on the fritz in a major way. But it was hard to get mad, because Luke bought it fifteen years ago and it's had a good life. It's like when your very very VERY old dog keeps pooping on the floor, but you don't mind, because he's been so good about not doing it for all these years. Anyway, we decided to say goodbye to the TV and we gave it to the Salvation Army in the hopes that someone even more poverty-stricken than us might get a few weeks of enjoyment out of it, and off we went on Thursday evening to go buy a new TV. I've got to give Luke props for planning this out so well in his evil mind, because heaven knows, if we hadn't gotten it before we signed in blood for the new heat pump, then we wouldn't have gotten it at all. I would've told him to shut up and content himself with watching a blue screen. At any rate, I wasn't prepared for this purchase either. I don't live under a rock, so I know all about plasmas and LCD screens and the like...what I didn't know is that projection TVs are all but extinct. I really thought we'd go in there and buy the same size and shape TV that we had before, the kind I've been watching my whole life, but with a flat screen this time. Oh no. Not at all. The showroom was a plethora of sleek, futuristic looking screens, all perched atop their shapely pedestals and grinning at us with wide wide WIDE screens and pixels galore. Off in the corner were two projection TVs, dragging their massive hind sides around by the hair and modeling the latest in caveman TV animal skins. My first instinct as a cheapskate was to suck it up and adopt one of those awful snaggletooth projection models, but after comparing prices, even I could see that the obvious choice was a more updated model. So we are now the proud owners of a 32-inch flat screen LCD TV, with a price tag that wasn't too bad.
My only concession was that it must fit into my entertainment armoire, which is a beautiful piece of furniture that Luke and I bought just before we were married, and I would never ever buy a TV that wouldn't utilize it. Luke said that this one could actually hang on the wall, but that is the epitome of tackiness, so I'm not even going to go there.Thus, today was deemed a no-spending day, as are the next seven days or so, with the exception of groceries and gas. So when I went out to get something out of the freezer for dinner tonight, I noticed a formidable trail of ants on the side driveway and, having just in the last week conquered an attempted uprising in my kitchen, I decided to investigate. I followed the trail, which wasn't hard, since there were millions of them, and it led me straight to the garage and into the trash can where we store the dog food. I took the lid off and almost fainted. Then I had to stand there for the next ten minutes and figure out what to do, since Luke had just bought a 50-lb bag of dog chow and by golly after the past two days, there was no way I was throwing all that food away of I could help it. So I analyzed their weaknesses, planned my strategy, and began my attack. It began with a can of Raid for the outside of the trash can and the trail of critters leading down the driveway, and ended with the hose and what has affectionately become known as the "ant sponge"...and I'm happy to say, the huge vat of dog food is now ant-free, chemical-free, and just a slight bit damp. My work here is done.
