Continuing House Saga

Would somebody please just shoot me and put me out of my misery?

The plumber came by this morning on the issue of replacing the gas line, as Frank had suggested. The plumber feels it's not necessary (yea!) but says I should put in a new and larger water heater and replace the copper pipe above the water heater to bring it up to code. He'll cut me a little break if I have them do the water heater at the same time as the other work (i.e. no second trip), so it will cost me a little less than $1,000, probably, rather than the $2,500 extra I was going to have to pay.

So this water work will cost $4,000 instead of $5,500.

The painter was supposed to start this morning and I moved all the furniture out of the babies' room (as you saw in the earlier post) to help him get started more quickly. He came last night to sign the contract and I gave him a credit card advance check for $1,200 and change. He called me this morning and said his bank said it would take two weeks for this check to clear. Fucking A. (What does that mean anyway? I hear it all the time. I use it all the time. I don't know what it means.) I called him back and asked if he couldn't just go to Dunn-Edwards and let me give them my credit card number over the phone so he could get the paint and get started. His policy is that he won't start the work until he has 50% of the contract price in hand. I appreciate that. I understand that. But look at me. I'm an ethical person. I'm good for the money. I gave him a key to my house, for Pete's sake. Look what I'm going through with this water fiasco. Every day he delays starting is one more day before the house can go into MLS. Give me a FRIGGING break! (she shouted)

So I went online to my ScotTrade account to sell my investments there and at least get $1,000 in hand. Of course every button I pushed gave me an error message. "You don't know what you're doing," it screamed at me. So I called the local branch office and got a Very Nice Person who practices Excellent Customer Service who put in the order to sell my holdings and will send me a check as soon as the sale clears today. Yea. One nice serviceperson in my life.

Tomorrow morning the movers will come to move a bunch of boxes and a few pieces of furniture to the storage unit. Yesterday I was feeling peaceful and very Zen-like. Today I'm overwhelmed and ready to cry or scream or some combination.

Where is my winning lottery ticket? Where is the good job offer with the decent salary?

This morning I got an e-mail from a sorority sister about the death of another friend's husband. I needed to send out an e-mail to the entire alum club about this gentleman's death. I couldn't remember the last name of the woman who sent me the e-mail. I've known her for eight years and couldn't remember her name.

I'm losing my mind.

Thanks for listening to my rant, says she who will be sleeping on the couch tonight because she can't get into her bed until the painter finishes the guest room.