well, we had the roof guy out yesterday, and things didn't go quite as planned. we showed him the flashing in the back, but as we had also asked for an estimate on the whole roof, he set up his ladder up front and started looking around. i think he'd been up there less than a minute before he came down, knocked on the front door, and asked if we knew that we had hail damage. um, i'm going to go with no on that one. well, apparently we do. the good news is that that's the kind of thing homeowner's insurance covers, so i'm going to call them in the morning and find out what we need to do to get that process started, getting an adjustor out and all that. apparently in addition to the loose flashing, though, we had some loose nails higher up that were likely letting in water, so there's a large-ish area of the roof that might need some work done ... yikes. we have our fingers crossed about insurance panning out, but nothing's guaranteed yet. (did you know that colorado is one of the biggest states for hail damage? california has earthquakes, oklahoma has tornadoes, and colorado has hail. sweet.)
as the roofer was on top of the house, scott and i were inside talking, and found the situation quickly escalating. we had him out to look at a piece of loose flashing, and it looks like we may need a whole new roof. scott pulled out the piece of wood we had meant to cut down and paint to replace a missing slat in the front shutters, and i mentioned that you can actually buy new vinyl shutters for less than $40/pair at home depot. we were discussing the merits of that when scott asked if the color match on paint would be close enough ... which led me to mention that we really need to get our trim re-painted at some point, as it's, well, ugly in general, and really peeling on the gutters ... oh, and by the way, the gutters leak, so we'll need to think about replacing them at some point. and, by the way, the soffits are looking a little bit worn, so i'm not sure if we need to replace them or just sand them down and paint them. in my mind, i'd been pondering these things for a while, but in scott's he knew we needed the flashing nailed down, and suddenly found himself looking at a new roof, new shutters, new gutters, getting the trim painted, and replacing soffit board. he wasn't very excited about the possibilities. (which i get. i really don't love spending money on house projects.) the roof guy happened to also mention all of those things when he came down to talk about next steps and give us an overview of the roof situation. we'll see. the talk with the insurance company needs to happen before we make any other plans. and regardless of what happens with the roof, i'm going to be so nervous every time we have a hail storm - i remember this summer's hail storm (particularly because i was at home alone in the basement when it hit) and watching the news with people out in aurora shoveling hail off of their driveways like snow and lamenting broken windows. i had no idea it might have actually done anything to our house!
anyway, so that was yesterday morning - after roof guy finished up, we bought me snow pants and headed up for night skiing. it was fun! i did six runs on the bunny slope before deciding i really needed to do a real run. scott took me on a blue, which was much better than last year, but i still fell twice. then i sat out for a while to watch kinley while mike and maura skiied together - kinley and i made like five trips up and down the stairs and the "ella" - elevator - then played in a water fountain for a few minutes, during which she got very wet, whoops, then hung out in the bathroom for literally like 15 minutes because she was enamored with the enormo handicap stall. oh the things that can fascinate an almost-two year old, who knew! they came back and found a change of clothes for their daughter, and scott took me back out for an illicit green run. for whatever reason, the resort has the greens closed during night skiing, but since it's right next to the blue, scott found a little trail through a break in the trees that we could use to get onto the green ... for the most part, there was enough light from the giant full moon and the blue run right next to it, but there were a few spots that felt a little bit eerie. i could see the overall slope of the hill and knew that i was moving down, but i couldn't specifically see the snow or the grade changes, so i just went down slowly, enjoying the stars and the quiet and the amazing view and hoping i didn't fall. i liked the green much better than the blue. we all stopped for pizza at hernando's in winter park on the way home, so we didn't get home until close to midnight ... needless to say, i've been a little sleepy today.
as it were, though, i need to stop typing and go do dishes. we had small group over for dinner tonight, and even though i tried to do dishes as i went, we inevitably have a counter full. (on the menu for tonight: hot & sweet drumsticks, normal italian breadcrumb drumsticks, herbed basmati rice, broccoli, and brownie squares for dessert.)
handyman
i love our new handyman service. they were at the house for precisely 4 hours and 15 minutes on wednesday, and charged us for the exact time. the one guy was able to do tile/drywall, plumbing, and electrical, and the few things that came up that he wasn't able to figure out immediately, he told me right away. (like the flashing issue on our roof - he took a look, found that the board underneath is rotted, and suggested we call a roofer since they'll have to pull up some shingles and whatnot and would be able to do it all properly.) plus, the guy was very professional-yet-friendly, prompt, and seemed to be working hard and quickly the whole time he was there - no standing around or taking his sweet time. i was impressed, and happily put their little magnet on the fridge for the next time we need them.
on that note, i found a roofing company through the same referral list online, and they're coming out to do a free estimate on the roof repair (and a roof replacement, since our inspector guessed we had about 5 more years out of our roof when we moved in almost 2 years ago - this way we'll know what we need to save) on saturday. another company i called did not do estimates on repairs, they just wanted to charge $250 for the trip fee/first hour, then $95/hr after that. maybe that's reasonable (yikes), but i have a hard time paying that much money not knowing what the final bill is going to be.
as this is friday (hoorah!), tonight is date night. what fun and exciting plans do we have, you ask? shopping for snowpants for me. sounds thrilling, i know. scott had bought me a pair of snowpants for christmas that came up approximately three inches past my bellybutton, which is just too much in my book so we returned them. apparently snow pants for women who are short, actually have curves, AND don't want to spend $100+ on a pair of seasonal pants are hard to find - go figure, right? tomorrow is night skiing, though, and scott told me i'm not allowed to wear his old fleece-lined wind pants as snow pants anymore (which makes sense since they're really not that insulatory, even with my long underwear underneath), so shopping it is. with maybe some tivo'd lost afterward since we never finished watching last season and the new season starts on tuesday!
on that note, i found a roofing company through the same referral list online, and they're coming out to do a free estimate on the roof repair (and a roof replacement, since our inspector guessed we had about 5 more years out of our roof when we moved in almost 2 years ago - this way we'll know what we need to save) on saturday. another company i called did not do estimates on repairs, they just wanted to charge $250 for the trip fee/first hour, then $95/hr after that. maybe that's reasonable (yikes), but i have a hard time paying that much money not knowing what the final bill is going to be.
as this is friday (hoorah!), tonight is date night. what fun and exciting plans do we have, you ask? shopping for snowpants for me. sounds thrilling, i know. scott had bought me a pair of snowpants for christmas that came up approximately three inches past my bellybutton, which is just too much in my book so we returned them. apparently snow pants for women who are short, actually have curves, AND don't want to spend $100+ on a pair of seasonal pants are hard to find - go figure, right? tomorrow is night skiing, though, and scott told me i'm not allowed to wear his old fleece-lined wind pants as snow pants anymore (which makes sense since they're really not that insulatory, even with my long underwear underneath), so shopping it is. with maybe some tivo'd lost afterward since we never finished watching last season and the new season starts on tuesday!
pride of ownership
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labels:
house
when we were looking for houses, one of the big things i'd see on house ads was "pride of ownership" - it makes sense, where renters may be willing to let things slide, owners are going to take care of the home better because it is their investment, their property, their future. and, dare i say, because as the owner you're going to live in the neighborhood long term and don't want to be known as the slacker neighbor who leaves their shutters broken and bushes scraggly and untrimmed.
on that note, i called a handyman service today - they're coming tomorrow morning. my list of things we need to have fixed, not necessarily all tomorrow:
the handyman said it'll take him about 4-6 hours tomorrow, so i'm just taking the whole day off of work. i've needed to get an eye checkup for a few months now, but put it off because we need to find a new eye doctor near our house - i was able to find a place near us that takes our insurance and has an opening tomorrow afternoon! i was very proud of myself for economizing my day off.
on that note, i called a handyman service today - they're coming tomorrow morning. my list of things we need to have fixed, not necessarily all tomorrow:
- patch drywall/tile in master shower where our plumber had to cut in to replace the leaky handle
- fix our leaking sink (scott clogged the pipe with potato peels that our garbage disposal didn't like, and in the process of undoing the trap and all that, we discovered that a seal under the non-disposal side of the sink seems to be leaking)
- a piece of flashing on our roof needs to be nailed down, and the area needs to be checked out for water damage (fingers crossed)
- our shutter slat needs to be replaced because we are those slacker neighbors who haven't fixed their broken shutter since they moved in 18 months ago and i'm tired of feeling guilty whenever i see the front of our house. this one we can probably do ourselves, we just need to do it.
- our gutters might need a few small patches where they're leaky - or we may just need to replace them with something newer that doesn't leak and doesn't need to be repainted
- we want to get estimates on what it would cost to add a few extra outdoor lights on the back of our house (1 next to the garage back door, 1 on the patio for night grilling purposes) and to get an exhaust fan installed in our master bathroom
- oh, and we need to do a radon test to see what the radon level is - when we had our place inspected, they said the level was moderately high, but recommended retesting before we do any remediation. (apparently radon is the leading cause of lung cancer for non-smokers!)
the handyman said it'll take him about 4-6 hours tomorrow, so i'm just taking the whole day off of work. i've needed to get an eye checkup for a few months now, but put it off because we need to find a new eye doctor near our house - i was able to find a place near us that takes our insurance and has an opening tomorrow afternoon! i was very proud of myself for economizing my day off.
late night and future fun
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labels:
crafty,
date night,
friends
poor scott worked 15.5 hours yesterday. 8am to 11:30pm. not fun. he's actually been working long hours for the past few weeks, but i've been trying to adapt my schedule to it and hang out with girlfriends in the evenings so i'm not sitting alone at home. it has been nice - i got together with girls a few times last week, and had goo and miranda over to watch "post grad" (which was awful, but really so bad it's funny) and have dinner on tuesday. last night was my first night with scott working super late and no outside plans for myself, so after watching tv and sitting on my butt for a while, i actually managed to motivate myself to do the dishes, clean the kitchen, put away laundry, and wipe down the bathroom vanity. i was pretty proud of myself, not going to lie.
not sure what his night tonight will look like, so i'm trying to brainstorm more semi-productive activities for myself. maybe i'll finally get around to cutting the fabric for my picnic quilt. speaking of, how cute is this quilt? i love the circles on the edges of the squares. all those round edges seem like they'd be a bit of a challenge, though, so i'm trying to limit myself to straight edges for now - i can work up to round. and i guess i do have some jeans that need to be shortened too ... cutting fabric sounds more fun, though. we'll see.
very exciting on the planning front - denver has an event called 5280 restaurant week every year. (5280 being denver's official elevation in feet: 5280 feet = 1 mile.) technically it's two weeks (feb 20-march 5), but a bunch of restaurants across the metro participate with a pre-fixed menu, usually three+ courses for $52.80/couple (or $26.40/individual). some of the restaurants, you have to wonder who goes during 5280 since you'd likely spend less there on an average visit (like the overpriced gourmet pizza place we went to on saturday - each got a little pizza and a beverage and spent $30). some of the restaurants, however, are smokin deals. last year we went to a place called rodizio, which is a brazilian steakhouse, so they come around with giant skewers of fresh meats and cut a little bit of whatever you'd like off for you, all you can eat. so we spent $52.80 on that, whereas normally it was like $35/person + $5/ea for salad bar (although i just checked their website and i think they've lowered their costs, as it's now only $33/person including salad bar). this year, our small group is getting together and going to the restaurant kevin taylor, which is the only four star restaurant in denver, and as such is supposed to be absolutely amazing. two of my coworkers have gone there with their spouses, one ended up hitting it at the tail end of 5280 last year and said it was amazing, the other went during a normal time and said they spent close to $200 on dinner, with just a glass of wine each. crazy! (just checked the menu, and the appetizer and entree together are about $49/person, plus a dessert ... all of which we will be enjoying for $52.80 total!) anyway, we're doing that opening weekend of 5280, and since my birthday happens to fall the monday after the closing weekend of 5280, i managed to swing a second fancy dinner from it this year. as we typically celebrate my birthday with some sort of cultural event (since we've been married: symphony, ballet, underwhelming lifehouse concert, and art museum/night out downtown), i was looking around to see if anything struck my fancy in the local theaters - no ballets or operas, and the denver theater company downtown was doing mary poppins which i don't think i'd be able to drag scott to if i tried. then i remembered that littleton has a theater company downtown, and it turns out that they're doing "guys and dolls" that weekend - perfect! not to mention, there's a fondue place a few blocks away that i've been wanting to go to since we moved here, and it's a part of 5280!
actually, now that i think about it, we actually have quite a bit of fun stuff coming up on our calendar: night skiing with friends next weekend, suns v. nuggets game with goo and the guy she's dating the week after that, a baby shower for a friend from grad school (fun for me, and fun for scott in that he doesn't have to go), restaurant kevin taylor, kinley's 2nd birthday party, another nuggets game on my boss's tickets, and then my birthday date! whew. i'm feeling much more content with staying home and cutting fabric now. (although i do still feel bad for scott having to work such late nights.)
not sure what his night tonight will look like, so i'm trying to brainstorm more semi-productive activities for myself. maybe i'll finally get around to cutting the fabric for my picnic quilt. speaking of, how cute is this quilt? i love the circles on the edges of the squares. all those round edges seem like they'd be a bit of a challenge, though, so i'm trying to limit myself to straight edges for now - i can work up to round. and i guess i do have some jeans that need to be shortened too ... cutting fabric sounds more fun, though. we'll see.
very exciting on the planning front - denver has an event called 5280 restaurant week every year. (5280 being denver's official elevation in feet: 5280 feet = 1 mile.) technically it's two weeks (feb 20-march 5), but a bunch of restaurants across the metro participate with a pre-fixed menu, usually three+ courses for $52.80/couple (or $26.40/individual). some of the restaurants, you have to wonder who goes during 5280 since you'd likely spend less there on an average visit (like the overpriced gourmet pizza place we went to on saturday - each got a little pizza and a beverage and spent $30). some of the restaurants, however, are smokin deals. last year we went to a place called rodizio, which is a brazilian steakhouse, so they come around with giant skewers of fresh meats and cut a little bit of whatever you'd like off for you, all you can eat. so we spent $52.80 on that, whereas normally it was like $35/person + $5/ea for salad bar (although i just checked their website and i think they've lowered their costs, as it's now only $33/person including salad bar). this year, our small group is getting together and going to the restaurant kevin taylor, which is the only four star restaurant in denver, and as such is supposed to be absolutely amazing. two of my coworkers have gone there with their spouses, one ended up hitting it at the tail end of 5280 last year and said it was amazing, the other went during a normal time and said they spent close to $200 on dinner, with just a glass of wine each. crazy! (just checked the menu, and the appetizer and entree together are about $49/person, plus a dessert ... all of which we will be enjoying for $52.80 total!) anyway, we're doing that opening weekend of 5280, and since my birthday happens to fall the monday after the closing weekend of 5280, i managed to swing a second fancy dinner from it this year. as we typically celebrate my birthday with some sort of cultural event (since we've been married: symphony, ballet, underwhelming lifehouse concert, and art museum/night out downtown), i was looking around to see if anything struck my fancy in the local theaters - no ballets or operas, and the denver theater company downtown was doing mary poppins which i don't think i'd be able to drag scott to if i tried. then i remembered that littleton has a theater company downtown, and it turns out that they're doing "guys and dolls" that weekend - perfect! not to mention, there's a fondue place a few blocks away that i've been wanting to go to since we moved here, and it's a part of 5280!
actually, now that i think about it, we actually have quite a bit of fun stuff coming up on our calendar: night skiing with friends next weekend, suns v. nuggets game with goo and the guy she's dating the week after that, a baby shower for a friend from grad school (fun for me, and fun for scott in that he doesn't have to go), restaurant kevin taylor, kinley's 2nd birthday party, another nuggets game on my boss's tickets, and then my birthday date! whew. i'm feeling much more content with staying home and cutting fabric now. (although i do still feel bad for scott having to work such late nights.)
processing
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labels:
opinion
the haiti earthquake was precisely a week ago today, and they're still finding bodies in the rubble. apparently there are 72,000 confirmed deaths so far, but death toll estimates range from 100-150,000. to put that in context, the 2004 tsunami in south asia killed 250,000, hurricane katrina killed 1,800. the entirety of my hometown is 110,000 people. (!!!) five years post-katrina, new orleans is still struggling to put itself back together; haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere.
the daily telegraph out of london had an interesting op-ed piece about differing responses by world superpowers to the the earthquake, and in essence commended america for quickly and decisively choosing to help this poverty stricken nation in its time of great need. i think that i found it particularly interesting because my own first reaction to hearing that president obama had pledged $100m to the relief effort was, "do we have $100m to give?" - chiding my government for its debt rather than commending it for its call to action. on facebook, when a friend posted a link to the telegraph's article, someone posted the quote by alexis de tocqueville, "america is great because she is good. if america ceases to be good, america will cease to be great." yes, "good" is a relative term and i don't know the context for de tocqueville making that statement, but still, i found it poignant. doing good in the financial sense needs, i think, to be balanced with a good budget, but when we see a need we need to find out what we can do to help it - whether that help be by praying, giving, or going. cnn.com says that just over $220m has been raised by nonprofit relief groups for the earthquake, and if you are able to give but have not yet done so, i heartily encourage you to do so. america's goodness comes from her people as much as it does from her government. there are plenty of organizations lobbying for your dollars right now, but i'll put in my two cents for compassion international. haiti needs food, shelter, and hope in god right now, and compassion can help provide all three.
the daily telegraph out of london had an interesting op-ed piece about differing responses by world superpowers to the the earthquake, and in essence commended america for quickly and decisively choosing to help this poverty stricken nation in its time of great need. i think that i found it particularly interesting because my own first reaction to hearing that president obama had pledged $100m to the relief effort was, "do we have $100m to give?" - chiding my government for its debt rather than commending it for its call to action. on facebook, when a friend posted a link to the telegraph's article, someone posted the quote by alexis de tocqueville, "america is great because she is good. if america ceases to be good, america will cease to be great." yes, "good" is a relative term and i don't know the context for de tocqueville making that statement, but still, i found it poignant. doing good in the financial sense needs, i think, to be balanced with a good budget, but when we see a need we need to find out what we can do to help it - whether that help be by praying, giving, or going. cnn.com says that just over $220m has been raised by nonprofit relief groups for the earthquake, and if you are able to give but have not yet done so, i heartily encourage you to do so. america's goodness comes from her people as much as it does from her government. there are plenty of organizations lobbying for your dollars right now, but i'll put in my two cents for compassion international. haiti needs food, shelter, and hope in god right now, and compassion can help provide all three.
breathe
am i the only person who feels like it's been a few months since christmas, not almost-three weeks? goodness. i feel like this year is flying by, but i suppose that realistically it's not. (not that i'm complaining, but i think the 50* sunny weather with a feel of spring in it is adding to that feeling. i'll change my tune come the march/april snowstorms.)
we did end up getting a new washing machine last weekend - on friday, i called the repair guy and he said he thought it was likely the drain (or something like that) and would be about $160 to fix. long story short, we hit up three scratch and dent appliance places late saturday afternoon and ended up with a top loading high efficiency fisher & paykel elba machine from the sears outlet that was on the rebate list - and better yet, it was only $450 before rebate, bringing it down to $300 (plus tax) after rebate! yes, i would absolutely rather been able to continue using our old washer, but i think this was a good decision given the circumstances. we did a few loads of laundry tuesday night, and so far i give it two thumbs up. it's not quite as sexy/flashy as a shiny front loading machine, but it's efficient and it works - cycle times are a few minutes longer (and certainly shorter than a front loader), but drying time is shorter because of the high rpm spin cycles. and, you know, it does its job of cleaning our clothes and hopefully lowering our bills.
this week has been an odd mix of responsibility and fun: actually mostly busy at work, which is a nice change of pace; lots of fun evenings out - tutoring monday, then hanging out with miranda to watch gilmore last night and meeting girls for coffee tonight; but conversely not much time at home so i feel like i have projects lining up there, and that i want a night to just chill at home with scott. this weekend is the missions retreat for church, with meetings friday night and allll day saturday - then after church sunday, one of scott's former coworkers is coming over for some help with a project (he's still consulting for them), and we're hosting small group that night. i'm currently trying to remind myself to breathe and enjoy life as it comes, rather than looking to the next event or trying to find a week with no plans on the calendar.
we did end up getting a new washing machine last weekend - on friday, i called the repair guy and he said he thought it was likely the drain (or something like that) and would be about $160 to fix. long story short, we hit up three scratch and dent appliance places late saturday afternoon and ended up with a top loading high efficiency fisher & paykel elba machine from the sears outlet that was on the rebate list - and better yet, it was only $450 before rebate, bringing it down to $300 (plus tax) after rebate! yes, i would absolutely rather been able to continue using our old washer, but i think this was a good decision given the circumstances. we did a few loads of laundry tuesday night, and so far i give it two thumbs up. it's not quite as sexy/flashy as a shiny front loading machine, but it's efficient and it works - cycle times are a few minutes longer (and certainly shorter than a front loader), but drying time is shorter because of the high rpm spin cycles. and, you know, it does its job of cleaning our clothes and hopefully lowering our bills.
this week has been an odd mix of responsibility and fun: actually mostly busy at work, which is a nice change of pace; lots of fun evenings out - tutoring monday, then hanging out with miranda to watch gilmore last night and meeting girls for coffee tonight; but conversely not much time at home so i feel like i have projects lining up there, and that i want a night to just chill at home with scott. this weekend is the missions retreat for church, with meetings friday night and allll day saturday - then after church sunday, one of scott's former coworkers is coming over for some help with a project (he's still consulting for them), and we're hosting small group that night. i'm currently trying to remind myself to breathe and enjoy life as it comes, rather than looking to the next event or trying to find a week with no plans on the calendar.
save money to spend money
subtitle: efficiency, a decision making process
goo got me a few seasons of gilmore girls on dvd for christmas (yay!), and since scott's been working a lot of late evenings with his new job lately, i invited her over on tuesday to hang out, have dinner, and watch some gilmore. as she is recently graduated from college and her main income is babysitting, she's free during the days, and decided to get here early to do her laundry. that's clearly fine by us ... but then i got a call from her around 4pm asking why our washing machine wasn't draining. ummmm - i don't know?? i told her to fiddle with it, try to drain it on a different cycle, etc, but otherwise she'd have to wait until close to 6 when i get home. alas, still no draining by the time i got home, and i couldn't get it to work either, so we ended up wringing out her towels and bath mat by hand (she washes on cold - brr!) and putting them in the dryer for like 3 hours, then bailing out the washer with a plastic pitcher, a measuring cup, and a turkey baster. sweet.
scott and i tried the washer again the next day, and still no draining, but there is a discernable "click" where you can hear the washer try to switch to draining, but then nothing happens. we called sears first off as it's a kenmore, but they wanted $130 for the service call - no thank you. i googled around trying to find a less expensive option, but none of the appliance repair places i found listed their prices on the web. my parents suggested that one of their local appliance places has a $15 service call fee, which gave me renewed hope to look around. then this evening, i remembered the local news guy who gives his seal of approval to reliable/affordable companies around the metro, and went to his website to see if they have listings of companies he endorses - lo and behold, they do! one of them is an appliance repair guy who will give you a free over the phone diagnosis and estimate, and according to the reviews on the web, he's very willing to give you his honest opinion about fixing vs replacing. i'll be calling tomorrow.
very relatedly, i started shopping around for washing machines this week. i stopped into a scratch and dent place yesterday after browsing ads online, printing off consumer reports' ratings, and downloading the info on our water company's rebate on high efficiency machines. at that point, i was pretty set on (if we do need to replace) a front loading machine because of the energy/water efficiency (ie, savings), but apparently there are also top loading high efficiency machines. who knew? they are apparently a smidge less water efficient, but have the same overall energy efficiency as front loaders. and they're usually cheaper. my first reaction was that if i wanted a top loader, i'd just go with craigslist and save my pennies for a cool (ie, front loading) machine down the road ... but then i realized that that's ridiculous. yes, i did look at craigslist, but most of the h.e. machines are still pricey, you don't get a rebate on used machines, and i'd rather get something new and have somewhat more of a guarantee of a longer product life. i could get a cheap standard top loader used on clist, but we're so not-handy that i really don't want to put myself in this same position in another year. plus, the outlets have some great prices on new machines - the shop i visited the other night had a top loader h.e. machine for about $379 after water rebate.
not to mention that i finally installed our magicjack, and not going to lie, it's pretty awesome. literally plugged it in, typed in our info, and i was in business. we got it in the mail a month ago and i kept putting off installing it because i didn't want to deal with troubleshooting it if there were problems. anyway, the device was like $46 after fees, and provides me with free local and long distance calls for the next year, and will be something like $20/year after that. we had been paying $27/month for local only to the phone company - i called and cancelled our service today. so that's a savings of what, $280 this year? sweet.
anyway, i figured that if we're saving $280 on phone service, and we'd probably save around $50/year on our electric/gas bill with a high efficiency washer, that's $320 that we're saving right there this year, so a $380 machine sort of balances out. we'll see what free-phone-estimate appliance repair guy says tomorrow, though.
(in case you were interested about water savings between a standard machine and a high efficiency machine, it's about 40% savings per load. wow, you think, that's awesome! well, the realistic savings there is maybe 20 gallons per load. say we do three loads at a time (lights, darks, whites), and we do laundry three times a month. 20*3*3=180 gallons of water a month that we save. multiply that times 12 months in a year, that's 2160 gallons of water saved. awesome, right? well, environmentally, sure, it's fabulous and definitely adds up ... but financially? i checked our water bill, and we pay $2.46/1000 gallons. so saving 2160 gallons of water over the course of the year will save us a grand total of $5.31. per year.)
goo got me a few seasons of gilmore girls on dvd for christmas (yay!), and since scott's been working a lot of late evenings with his new job lately, i invited her over on tuesday to hang out, have dinner, and watch some gilmore. as she is recently graduated from college and her main income is babysitting, she's free during the days, and decided to get here early to do her laundry. that's clearly fine by us ... but then i got a call from her around 4pm asking why our washing machine wasn't draining. ummmm - i don't know?? i told her to fiddle with it, try to drain it on a different cycle, etc, but otherwise she'd have to wait until close to 6 when i get home. alas, still no draining by the time i got home, and i couldn't get it to work either, so we ended up wringing out her towels and bath mat by hand (she washes on cold - brr!) and putting them in the dryer for like 3 hours, then bailing out the washer with a plastic pitcher, a measuring cup, and a turkey baster. sweet.
scott and i tried the washer again the next day, and still no draining, but there is a discernable "click" where you can hear the washer try to switch to draining, but then nothing happens. we called sears first off as it's a kenmore, but they wanted $130 for the service call - no thank you. i googled around trying to find a less expensive option, but none of the appliance repair places i found listed their prices on the web. my parents suggested that one of their local appliance places has a $15 service call fee, which gave me renewed hope to look around. then this evening, i remembered the local news guy who gives his seal of approval to reliable/affordable companies around the metro, and went to his website to see if they have listings of companies he endorses - lo and behold, they do! one of them is an appliance repair guy who will give you a free over the phone diagnosis and estimate, and according to the reviews on the web, he's very willing to give you his honest opinion about fixing vs replacing. i'll be calling tomorrow.
very relatedly, i started shopping around for washing machines this week. i stopped into a scratch and dent place yesterday after browsing ads online, printing off consumer reports' ratings, and downloading the info on our water company's rebate on high efficiency machines. at that point, i was pretty set on (if we do need to replace) a front loading machine because of the energy/water efficiency (ie, savings), but apparently there are also top loading high efficiency machines. who knew? they are apparently a smidge less water efficient, but have the same overall energy efficiency as front loaders. and they're usually cheaper. my first reaction was that if i wanted a top loader, i'd just go with craigslist and save my pennies for a cool (ie, front loading) machine down the road ... but then i realized that that's ridiculous. yes, i did look at craigslist, but most of the h.e. machines are still pricey, you don't get a rebate on used machines, and i'd rather get something new and have somewhat more of a guarantee of a longer product life. i could get a cheap standard top loader used on clist, but we're so not-handy that i really don't want to put myself in this same position in another year. plus, the outlets have some great prices on new machines - the shop i visited the other night had a top loader h.e. machine for about $379 after water rebate.
not to mention that i finally installed our magicjack, and not going to lie, it's pretty awesome. literally plugged it in, typed in our info, and i was in business. we got it in the mail a month ago and i kept putting off installing it because i didn't want to deal with troubleshooting it if there were problems. anyway, the device was like $46 after fees, and provides me with free local and long distance calls for the next year, and will be something like $20/year after that. we had been paying $27/month for local only to the phone company - i called and cancelled our service today. so that's a savings of what, $280 this year? sweet.
anyway, i figured that if we're saving $280 on phone service, and we'd probably save around $50/year on our electric/gas bill with a high efficiency washer, that's $320 that we're saving right there this year, so a $380 machine sort of balances out. we'll see what free-phone-estimate appliance repair guy says tomorrow, though.
(in case you were interested about water savings between a standard machine and a high efficiency machine, it's about 40% savings per load. wow, you think, that's awesome! well, the realistic savings there is maybe 20 gallons per load. say we do three loads at a time (lights, darks, whites), and we do laundry three times a month. 20*3*3=180 gallons of water a month that we save. multiply that times 12 months in a year, that's 2160 gallons of water saved. awesome, right? well, environmentally, sure, it's fabulous and definitely adds up ... but financially? i checked our water bill, and we pay $2.46/1000 gallons. so saving 2160 gallons of water over the course of the year will save us a grand total of $5.31. per year.)
compatible
in case there was any doubt that scott and i are perfect for each other:
yesterday at church, i walked past the kids' wing on my way to our youngish marrieds class, and caught a glimpse of the elementary-age sunday school program. it's in a gym with a stage, all of the grade schoolers standing around with the high school youth group volunteers wearing bright green shirts, a guy in a crazy outfit crouched on stage with bright lights, the "crowd" of kids chanting a countdown "4-3-2-1!" and the crazy outfit guy standing and throwing a beach ball into the air while shouting "happy new year!"
i laughed and moved on - then mentioned to scott on our way home from church that a) i could never do youth ministry, and b) i would have hated that sort of sunday school program as a kid. when i was in maybe 3rd or 4th grade, our church went from a normal sunday school format (bible lesson on a felt board, color a few pictures, sing songs) where you're in the same classroom the whole hour to one where you do the lesson with your teacher, then go into a bigger room to do activities with a few other classes. i think i went once, and all i remember is that we were supposed to stand in line and take turns acting like our favorite rock star. umm - i was what, 8? i listened to amy grant, had never seen mtv - let alone gone to a concert, and was unbelievably shy. i tried my hardest to stay at the back of the line, and just stood there when my turn came. after that, i stayed in my normal sunday school room when the rest of the kids went to the activity - my teacher was a friend of my mom's, and told me that i really should go to the activity time, but i'd have to learn something if i wanted to stay in there with her. i was thrilled with that suggestion, so she taught me the books of the bible in order.
when i finished telling scott the story, he said that when he was in 4th grade, his family switched from a small baptist church to a megachurch with the bigger kids' program. he was totally shy, hated going, and managed to weasel his way out of it until 7th grade. then he told me that when he was in shop class in 9th grade (try to imagine that, please), his teacher had them doing book work for the first few weeks and threatened that if they didn't behave themselves, they'd do book work the entire semester and not actually build anything. oooh. while i'm sure that was a terrific threat for most of the jr. high boys, scott thought that idea sounded amazing and secretly hoped that - in shop class - they would indeed have to do book work the entire semester.
my take-aways from our shared story time were as follows: a) i wonder how many shy kids there are out there who don't go to the new high energy format sunday school or youth group because it feels awkward and forced to them? b) this explains so much about our shared level of handiness around the house. c) our kids have no hope. no hope of not being shy, and no hope of not being nerds.
yesterday at church, i walked past the kids' wing on my way to our youngish marrieds class, and caught a glimpse of the elementary-age sunday school program. it's in a gym with a stage, all of the grade schoolers standing around with the high school youth group volunteers wearing bright green shirts, a guy in a crazy outfit crouched on stage with bright lights, the "crowd" of kids chanting a countdown "4-3-2-1!" and the crazy outfit guy standing and throwing a beach ball into the air while shouting "happy new year!"
i laughed and moved on - then mentioned to scott on our way home from church that a) i could never do youth ministry, and b) i would have hated that sort of sunday school program as a kid. when i was in maybe 3rd or 4th grade, our church went from a normal sunday school format (bible lesson on a felt board, color a few pictures, sing songs) where you're in the same classroom the whole hour to one where you do the lesson with your teacher, then go into a bigger room to do activities with a few other classes. i think i went once, and all i remember is that we were supposed to stand in line and take turns acting like our favorite rock star. umm - i was what, 8? i listened to amy grant, had never seen mtv - let alone gone to a concert, and was unbelievably shy. i tried my hardest to stay at the back of the line, and just stood there when my turn came. after that, i stayed in my normal sunday school room when the rest of the kids went to the activity - my teacher was a friend of my mom's, and told me that i really should go to the activity time, but i'd have to learn something if i wanted to stay in there with her. i was thrilled with that suggestion, so she taught me the books of the bible in order.
when i finished telling scott the story, he said that when he was in 4th grade, his family switched from a small baptist church to a megachurch with the bigger kids' program. he was totally shy, hated going, and managed to weasel his way out of it until 7th grade. then he told me that when he was in shop class in 9th grade (try to imagine that, please), his teacher had them doing book work for the first few weeks and threatened that if they didn't behave themselves, they'd do book work the entire semester and not actually build anything. oooh. while i'm sure that was a terrific threat for most of the jr. high boys, scott thought that idea sounded amazing and secretly hoped that - in shop class - they would indeed have to do book work the entire semester.
my take-aways from our shared story time were as follows: a) i wonder how many shy kids there are out there who don't go to the new high energy format sunday school or youth group because it feels awkward and forced to them? b) this explains so much about our shared level of handiness around the house. c) our kids have no hope. no hope of not being shy, and no hope of not being nerds.
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