money pit

Time to resolve that cliffhanger from my last post! It's the only way I could make this entry about home repairs slightly more exciting. Well, that and the hilarious photos I'm about to share. I promise you won't regret reading this once you make it to the end.

While we were traveling, Kathy stopped by our house to feed Charlie and kindly alerted us to the fact that our house was 87 degrees even though the thermostat was set to 75. Charlie probably loved it, but I was a bit worried that our house would quickly exceed Australian desert temperatures and threaten my delicate pet store birdie. Days have been extremely humid with the temperature reaching the low 90s; I even saw 111 with the heat index! Kathy whisked Charlie back to the comfort of her house, while I scheduled the AC repairman for Thursday morning. This meant we slept Wednesday night in our 88 degree house after returning from our vacation. With a huge box fan and all the windows open, we managed to get it down to 82 degrees the next morning before the temperature started rising again. Ugh.

Thursday morning, the repairman confirmed we needed a new unit (scheduled for installation Saturday). Then, the electricity in the upstairs bathrooms decided to protest the uncomfortable working conditions and ceased operation. I scheduled the electrician and then we escaped to the refuge of Kathy's air-conditioned basement.

Friday morning, Dan met the electrician back at our house. One hour and $200 later, he confirmed that we are idiots and reset the GFI outlet that had tripped in our closet. Who knew there was even an outlet hiding there behind the clothes?? At least it took him an hour to find it so we got our money's worth from his service fee. (I bet his standard rate is $100 but he penalized us for our house being 91 degrees at the time. I can't blame him.)

Friday evening, we made the most of our impromptu sleepover and had a fun night of grilling and watching the Olympics with Kathy and Jason. We had wayyyy too much fun posing Mae at their basement bar while Jason snapped these ridiculous photos. Even Mae was cracking up. Although, she could be screaming her face off and would still smile and laugh as soon as she saw Kathy, who Jason nicknamed "the baby whisperer."

Dan captioned this one: "Hi, Welcome to Mae's. Can I get you a drink?"

And this one "Errrgghhh. I think that last one was a mistake."

Saturday, Dan met the AC installers back at the house and we were up and running with a new unit by the afternoon. It felt good to finally be back in our home!

So, that's the saga of home repairs for the moment. Oh wait, did I mention one of the toilets is broken? It's always something.