September 17, 2011 - Done at Last!!!

Well what a day.
OK so my last post left off with us having to wait to mid-week for my chimney to be done. So after Chris left, then the guy that was working on the chimney left I put myself down for a nap. At 3:00pm, the guy called me and said that he has the part and wanted to know if I wanted him to come back today or to wait. I told him that I wanted heat. So he said he'd come and finish it. Around 4pm, the guy came and went to work. He was done around 5-ish and so I then asked him to wait for a full cycle from the furnace to make sure all was working good. He said he would. The furnace worked, but was blowing some cool air into the house. Next thing I knew it was over 80 degrees in the house and we were all sweaty.
I told the guy that I only had the amount of money he said it was going to be for the other part, and that if I took his truck a moment, I could get the rest. Of course he wouldn't let me, so on Monday, I'll have to go to the bank and get a money order for the remainder of the cost. He said that was fine and gave me the address so that I could send it out to him.

It's done and the house is so warm that its hot in here....

YYIIPPEE!!!!

Till later....

September 17, 2011 - Continued Woes...

Well drat!!!

As our woes continue, the furnace chimney has yet to be replaced. The guy came and after removing the rusted out part from the furnace tried to install the new part. Unfortunately the part he brought was 2" to short. So now we wait for his company to get the correct part and for him to come back and install it. Of course, a longer part is going to cost me an additional $25.00 bringing the completed job to cost me $400.00. When they guy left, he not only took his part that he brought, but also took the top part that Chris had installed earlier. So instead we have hole in the roof from where the chimney was covered by some vinyl and a board to hold the vinyl down till about midweek. Yes we are very disappointed that we have to wait, but when its done, will be done right and my furnace should work properly.

Some of you reading this will ask why we are putting up with this, and other's would say that they'd go to someone else. I can tell you if you've read my last post, you understand why we are having the guy from the housing company we bought our house from, doing it. He has been with the company for many years and is a great guy. He knows what he's doing, and not only that, because of all the people I did talk to, he would complete the project with the least amount of cost to me.

While the guy was us there, he assessed our shingles on the roof. He said that they were very brittle and really needed to be replaced. We've never had our roof redone so it is about time. I think that is going to be our next spring/summer project.

Well that's the update to my woes...
Till Later....

September 16, 2011 - Woe to us AGAIN!!

Well its another cold spell and we are having problems with our furnace AGAIN!!!!.
On Wednesday, Sept 14, 2011 in the evening, I had Sammy turn on the furnace. The furnace worked kinda one time and then didn't work right. I reset the furnace and it ran 3 times but still was not working correctly. Earlier this summer Chris replaced the upper section of our chimney with one that was brand new. After taking off the old upper part, he found out the the inner wall of the lower part was rusted completely through. Chris put on the newer upper part anyway and we've left it as that. Now that its been getting colder overnight and into the morning we have once again been using my stove to heat the house up to a comfortable level.

Today I was able to pay my gas bill and put in a request for our furnace to be look at again. Shane (he's the one we really like!!!) came over and the first words outta his mouth were: "What ya break this time....lol" We told him that we replaced the top section of the chimney but the lower inner section was rusted out. After looking it all over, he said that we really need to get that fixed, otherwise there could be some major damage to the heat exchange which would involve getting a new furnace. That wouldn't be so bad to do anyway and it wouldn't cost me anything. We upgraded our service plan to include a better "fix or replace" it plan. So if it came to the time that we had to have a new furnace, it wouldn't cost me anything. COOL!!!!!!

I then called the company that we got our house from and talked to their guy that works on their houses. After doing some measurements over the phone, he is going to look and see if he has what is needed in stock and give me a price. I hope that he does have what he needs and can come and fix it soon. So now we wait to hear back from him.....

Hopefully this won't be to expensive and can be done quickly as I hate to be cold. I don't mind being chilly cause I can always dress warmer, but being cold isn't so easy.

Well till later.......

September 2, 2011 - Shopping Marathon

Well the kids and I are officially done with school shopping!!! YIPPEE!!!!!

Most of the time, we get just enough things to get us started and buy what we need as we go along. It all adds us quickly. This year with some major help from my sister with shirts for the kids, we didn't have to buy a lot of things this time. The kids, Chris and I went through all of our "Inventory" of school supplies that we have gotten the previous years. Like when it comes to notebooks, instead of buying one for every class, it was just easier to buy an entire case (24) notebooks. Pencils, pens, markers (Sharpies and Highlighters) were all bought in bulk in prior years. Same with pocket folders, buy in bulk and have more of them later. So anyway after going through all our inventory, we wrote on my white board things we needed to get. We then go through all the kid's clothes and decide what needs to go and what do we need to replace. My sister has given the kids about 20 shirts that are almost brand new from her shopping sprees. So we didn't need to buy any shirts this time.

Inventory of school supplies?   Check
Inventory of school clothes?    Check
Made up list of things to get for this year?    Check

So this morning we set off on our shopping spree. Knowing that I didn't have much money to work with, it was time to really pay attention to prices. First stop Wal-Mart. Composition notebooks $.40 (The kids didn't want spiral notebooks this year due to having to rip out pages) Kid's clothes....To much! We ended up getting just about everything we needed at Wal-mart. We then headed to my sister's for a visit and came home with about a dozen more shirts and stuffs. Then off to my mom and dad's for a short visit. Then off to ALCO in Moose Lake. Here we found paper dual pocket folders and jeans for the kids. Sammy is so much easier to get pants for. They always have her size. Alex on the other hand is really hard to find pants for. Luckily ALCO usually carries his size. Why can't other stores sell jeans in a 29X34????? Do they think that people only come in big and bigger and not tall and skinny???

Finally got to come home. I've been sitting in my chair just shaking my head at what we got done today. This is the first year that I can remember getting EVERYTHING we needed for the start of the school year instead of getting just enough to get buy. Thank goodness 11th graders don't have a huge school list. Just the basics.

Well now its time to take a nap, then I have to leave and get Chris home from work in a few hours.

Till later......