Darwiniana: Gripe Session

Next week we return to our regularly scheduled programming. This week we didn't have the flu, but at a certain point I thought we did, and believe me, everything else went by the wayside. It's the sinus thingie with fever (confirmed by urgent care), and it's a week-long event, but that week has been staggered throughout seven children who are getting cabin fever. Bonus: the house has been thoroughly disinfected, and the urgent care doc told me that all OTC sleep aids are basically benedryl, so if you have children with feverish insomnia, take this to heart. 

Also this week: the big van died in the middle of our street. Haha, two alternators in two different cars in just over two weeks! We'll have it back after the weekend, I hope, and thank goodness that we're now a three-car family, but oof.

Also oof: the plumbing job to make our low-pressure shower run more smoothly initially had an estimate of $600. What was supposed to be a one-day job ran into complications, cost 50% more than estimated, and has left us with a hole in the bathroom wall, a shower with the water shut off, and a further estimate of $1200 to finish the work. NB: this is not the bathroom with the hole in the ceiling, where the shower works just fine.

Speaking of the bathroom with the hole in the ceiling: the living room ceiling under that shower has started to bulge. We are familiar with bulging ceilings, which means plaster that must be replaced. Fortunately, the bulging plaster is held in place by paper, which we suspect that previous homeowners put up to hide previous water damage to the plaster. Cost to repair: unknown as yet, because I'm turning a blind eye to it until other things are paid for.

Ah, fall! Time to bake some bread! That is, if you have a functioning oven. But this past Saturday, while the girls and I were at the theater, while Darwin was doing some baking, he noticed a bright flash in the oven. Opening it, he saw a spark, like the flare from a welder's torch, moving along the bottom heating element. As it traced its way along the wire, the wire seemed to melt. Very interesting. Also now very unfunctional. We are told that this is an easy part to DIY, which is good financially but disappointing from the standpoint of having bought this thing as a placeholder for the good gas stove we'd like to get one day, and it's not dead enough to replace yet.

None of these things are insurmountable, and most of them are predictable, especially the old moneypit problems. In the grand scheme of things, none of them are really terrible. Most of them can be solved with money and time, both of which we have. Yet it does feel oppressing to have them all come at once, and in a show week, natch. But it's been lots of little opportunities to die to self, and that's better than no opportunities to die to self.