Staying busy and paying people

B's car ended up not costing us a TON, mostly because we went to a different mechanic. Note to self: always take notes on what needs to be done and then get quotes from other people. Wow! Our total cost went from a quote of $800 to a final bill of $325. The mechanic we ended up going to is awesome. I've taken Goldie there before. He spent over 30 minutes with us going over how we can be checking our own systems at home, saving us time and money. He says yes, other mechanics would charge for things, but their idea is that if they go over things with their clients, then their clients will know they're not getting ripped off, will know when others try to rip them off, and so will return to the good mechanic. I like that philosophy.

Saturday I cleaned cleaned cleaned. B came home around 3:30 and then he cleaned too. The garage, which a few days ago we could not easily walk through, is now passable! In fact, we can almost park BOTH cars in there, although we plan on parking only one.

I discovered I have a lot of shoes. Some weeding needs to occur.

We created these massive laundry piles, partially because we just needed to get organized, and partially because we weren't quite sure what was clean and what wasn't.

And then, halfway through the laundry, the washer refused to drain and rinse.

NOOO!!!!

After some quick researching revealed the fix was outside of our expertise, I managed to get a repair guy out on a Sunday afternoon. It wasn't that expensive of a fix, whew, BUT!!! he also checked out our AC system.

If you recall, we were having some difficulties with our AC... and we wanted to get it fixed, but we were worried about 2 things: 1) the cats, and 2) calling the landlord out for possibly a situation that was stupid (ie: oh, you forgot to flip a switch).

The technician found the problem: the motor in our furnace was a goner. Which means nothing was working the way it should. No hot air going out, no cool air going in, etc etc.

Our LL, is super happy that we have already diagnosed the problem (go us), AND we avoid him having to come over for a visit. The technician is getting me a quote today, and then I'm forwarding that to our LL for approval. So, the whole problem could be fixed by early this week. Which is great, because it does get stuffy. Yes, I can survive without AC, but heating, as it turns into fall... that'd be nice to have. And, well, we agreed to rent this place becuase it has AC! It should work. :)

So yea, all in all, it was a boring weekend. But we feel a lot better since the place LOOKS a lot better.

I'm still not sure why it's taken us so long to get things together in this place. Maybe it's because we're TRYING really hard to be organized? EVERYTHING I unpack is analyzed to determine whether to keep or send to donationville. I like that we're not just stuffing things places. But, it does certainly take time. I also like that we're taking that time because that's a good indication that we like it here.