Stuology

I picked up Fallout 3 for Mac for his anniversary present, and we also picked up Lego Batman. Then the 360 decided that all of our game discs were unreadable, even the one we played this afternoon. The first troubleshooting technique didn’t work.

Next up on the list of broken things: the Mazda. We are down to one car, and I have to run Ada from Raintree to Googols every afternoon. It would add about another two hours to my morning if I took the T and its stupid, inefficient routes. It is a high priority to get this one fixed. Again.

I started it this morning after packing Ada in to take her to school. We were already running a little later than I like to leave because she spilled her milk all over her pants. The car started fine and then it just died. It didn’t sputter and die. The engine quit and everything went black. When I turned the key, nothing. Mac went out there while I was taking Ada to school. I’m not sure why, unless he heard me explain to Ada that the car was broken and that was why we needed to get out and into the suvvy. He tried it and said it clicks when you turn the key, but still, nothing. I didn’t hear any clicking when I tried it right after it died.

Battery? Please? I don’t want yet another car repair bill right now. Blah.

I had really strange dreams last night about lobsters and a guy who wanted to be a murderer but he was limited to his options by being wheelchair-bound. He just stalked people instead, looking all creepy.

Early this morning…like 1:00am early this morning, Mac and I heard this strange beeping. He hadn’t been home for long, going out to a friend’s birthday party while I stayed home with the kids and packed. So, we were still awake. Our first thoughts was it was originating in the kids’ room. Even though most of their noise making toys are in the basement, it would be the first logical place to go when you hear strange beeping. At least from our bedroom. We stepped in the room, and heard nothing. Waited. Nothing. Then we heard it except it was now coming from behind us. We both spin around and look in the laundry closet. It is the dryer. I say, “Why is it on 65 minutes^*?” as opposed to just saying “Why is it on?” See, I hadn’t turned the dryer on. I hit the stop button. It falls silent and all the lights turn off. We go back to bed, and just a moment later we hear the beeping again. We go back, and the dryer is on again, set to the highest settings with 65 minutes left to dry. I hit the stop button. We stand there and wait, and it turns back on again. I tell Mac to take the clothes out, like I’m trying to save them or something. I hold the off button for awhile. Then we step back, and once again, it turns itself on. Mac unplugs it, and we go back to bed. We lie there for a bit, just listening. I say, “If that dryer comes back on..that dryer better not come back on.” We agreed that we’d have to move out if it did. It didn’t.

We have left it unplugged. I’m going to plug it back in as soon as I post this. Hopefully it will stay off. Auto-start was not a feature that was listed in the specs of this dryer. If it does it again, we can add it to the list of things in our house that is breaking.

*Our dryer gives an estimated count down of minutes until it is done drying.

How about a cracked pan of lasagna in the oven, found by me when I suddenly said, “What smells like it is burning?”

And a dryer that won’t dry the clothes that Mac brought back from the laundromat a little damp. It has been 1.5 hours on high, and they are now just getting dry. We are checking the vent.

ETA: Mac went out to dig into the dryer vent. There was some lint, some twigs, and oh, a big spider. He decided to attack it with the hose. Now there is water in my laundry closet because, you know, the vent leads inside to the dryer. Heh.

I took out the cracked pan of lasagna, and touched a hot spot with my arm. I of course, exclaimed “s**t” which James then repeated about three times.

Quote Mac: “Maybe if we open up a bottle of wine, things will get better.”

I put in a load of laundry, and it worked great. Until the end of the load. And then I got the “LD” code again. And I did my MacGyvering trick to try to get the water out of the pump^*. I then started another load, and it filled the soap bin with water^**, and then it paused, and then it drained all the soapy water out of the washer instead of filling the bin with water. Then it sat for a few minutes and gave the “LD” error code. If I keep trying, it will eventually go through the wash cycle without putting water in the wash bin.

In other words, they didn’t fix a single thing, and I still have a washer that might do one load a day if I’m lucky. They said they can fit us in on Wednesday^***.

My husband, being the wonderful person that he is, took a ton of laundry and Ada and went to a laundromat. James and I are going to stay here and do a few more chores–including baking my husband the oatmeal raisin cookies he asked if I had planned on making again.

*The water isn’t getting stuck inside the bin with the clothes. It is getting stuck inside the washing machine with the pump. However, this is a brand new pump, and it makes me wonder if something is wrong with the circuit board that controls the pump and tells the washing machine that it needs to drain.

**The water doesn’t fill up inside the bin, it flows through a container that holds the soap and the soapy water then goes into the bin. Unless the machine is broken. Then it just drains all the soapy water out and does nothing.

***We talked about just going out and bringing home a new washing machine. However, this one is still under warranty, so it isn’t costing us to fix it. It is just taking too much time to fix it. And I’ve read so many bad things online about this particular washer, including the fact that there was a class action lawsuit against Whirlpool on account of its craptacularness. I wish we had known it before we bought it.

I went to the doctor this morning. He ruled out strep and mono, and just labeled it as a virus. They took a culture for more info.

In the meantime, I have terrible, horrific throat pain, and I’ve been having chills and a fever since Sunday night. I had two episodes of almost passing out yesterday. One time was while I was making Ada a glass of milk. I told her to go get daddy while I crawled to the sofa. She ran to the bedroom and then came back and said “daddy is sleeping.” I guess I should have told her to wake him up, but it didn’t matter. The dizziness passed only to happen again that afternoon while I was taking a shower.

Just having my throat swabbed and having them look down it doubled my pain. Mac is picking up Ada from Raintree and then picking up my prescription Ibuprofen to try to get the swelling down in my throat. In the meantime, I get to lie in bed almost wanting to cry everytime I need to swallow and going between feeling freezing cold and hot and sweaty.

Oh, and a small section of the ceiling in the shower decided that it wanted to fall down. Seriously. My house is falling apart. We get to add that to the list of repairs that have plagued us the last few weeks.

Last week just wasn’t my week, and this week isn’t looking good either.

While making drinks for dinner last night, I found a broken glass in the cabinet. We have lots of glasses, so no big. This morning while putting away dishes, I noticed that a plate in the cabinet was broken. It is about a 1/3 - 2/3 split. This is also not that big of a deal because there weren’t any missing or chipped off pieces so I can glue it back together, and only a close look will tell you that it broke. Last night I decided to take my camera out to get a photo of James in his new jammies. We sat in the area by the laundry closet and bedrooms. I took 174 photos, and only 1 of them came out somewhat okay. The rest were terrible. Then this morning, we woke up and the lights in that area didn’t work. Neither do the outlets–also the lights in the laundry closet, the lights and outlets in the kids’ room, and the outlet by the recliner in the living room. They are all on one circuit, so we unplugged everything and Mac went down to reset the breaker except that the breaker wasn’t tripped. None of them were. He flicked it off and on a couple of times and still no power. Now I get to MacGyver the water out of the washing machine in the dark^*. I think I need to MacGyver a flashlight to a hat.

We now get to add an electrician to our list of repair bills, and I am hoping that it doesn’t spread any further, or we have an electrical fire that burns our house down^**. We set the breaker to off until we can have it looked at.

*The outlets for the washer and dryer are on their own circuit, and are still working at this time.

**Yes, I knocked on every piece of wood in my house after typing that.

The sink plumber was a no-show without as much as a call, unless he has called Mac by now. Mac had to leave to go to KC.

The washing machine repairman came, I explained what was wrong, he took a quick look and then put in an order for a new motor and pump. Our issue is the pump, which is apparently a problem with our washer type. The other problem with our washer type is that Whirlpool had the genius idea to make the motor and the pump one piece, so we cannot just replace the pump. They realized the error in their ways, and now make them as two pieces, so we will have a new motor and a new pump put in the washing machine, and if one goes out in the future, we only have to replace that one. It seems these days that things are made poorly, but I don’t exactly think that is the case. I don’t place the blame on the engineers or the producers. I blame management. They are the ones that want thing out quickly, as cheap as possible, and the first thing that is cut out or goes down hill is quality assurance. The same can be said for software development.

In the meantime, I have to MacGyver the water out of the washing machine before it will run properly. Hopefully these pieces come quickly. The good news out of this is that it is all under warranty, so we will not pay for any of this. This repairman has visited us three times–the washer, the dishwasher and the refrigerator. I told him when he left that we will see him when the dryer breaks.

…the shower broke. It is fixable by us, and not a plumber, but still. It was angry and spurting water all over the place. Good thing I work from home since I probably won’t take one now until lunchtime.

More repairs will be made tomorrow–the same plumber to fix the bathroom sinks and a repairman for the washing machine.

I also did not need to sign up for Ikariam, but I did.

I came home from South Dakota to a broken washing machine, a broken toilet, and one –almost two– broken bathroom sinks. If the shower breaks, our bathroom becomes pointless. We have three, so it isn’t a show stopper. The kids are okay sharing their bathroom with us. As long as we don’t play with their ducks.

The washing machine is a little more inconvenient. I’ve heard there are places you can take your laundry and pay a per-use fee to use machines to wash your clothes. I have lunch plans tomorrow that I may have to cancel on account of lack of pants if we don’t get to a laundromat tonight. Mac volunteered to go to one. The only concern I have is doing my delicate load at a laundromat. Repairs won’t happen until Friday for the washing machine, so I’m going to have to trust that the machines won’t eat my clothes, or pay more money and send all my delicate load pants and shirts to the dry cleaners.

I haven’t picked up my camera since the photo of the shoes, so I have nothing to share. James has taken to throwing fits as of late. His fits aren’t terrible, but he does like to throw himself backwards or sits down and leans over forwards to hit his head on the floor. Every now and again, he tries to hit, but he does not get good responses from me for doing that, so the last few days, he starts to hit me, and then decides to hit himself in the head. That, I’m fine with. It won’t get him anywhere, but he is welcome to keep hitting himself in the head. He just can’t hit other people in the head.

On the good James front: Yesterday, he sat on the training toilet that we bought for Ada, but she refused to use. He didn’t use it, but he wanted to sit on it.