Our winter travels ended on April 1st and we have been home most of the summer other than a brief five-day trip by car to celebrate Cindy’s birthday in early June. That was the last time we could afford to do anything away from home! It turns out that the things that cool and heat your home, that give you hot water for showers, that make sure your basement doesn’t flood and that make your lights and computers work - well, they simply don’t last forever! In our case they all seemed to crap out at the same time resulting in a rapid depletion of savings. I’m told that all of our household systems really lasted longer that they should have, but that does little to soothe.
I'll spare you the fiscal details but we could have gone on three two-week Atlantic crossings in a large suite on all-inclusive cruise lines for what our Staycation has cost this summer. Replacing AC units, furnaces, heat pumps, hot water heaters, sump pumps, electrical outlets, whole house humidifiers and hot water re-circulators requires vast sums of money and on top of that you have the installation costs of plumbers and electricians which now seem to me to be astronomically high. (There is a reason more neurosurgeons are becoming plumbers.) I purchased my first home in 1974 for less than I did for repairs and replacements this summer. C'est la vie, as the French people say.
Our summer here in West Virginia has been, I’m sure, similar to yours wherever you live. Too much heat, too little rain, too many bugs and too few humming birds. The good news is that I’ve not had to mow the lawn very often; the bad news is that I really don’t have a lawn anymore, just this brown crunchy stuff where green used to live. Because things are so dry, when we do have a strong thunderstorm the winds break off huge limbs of tinder-dry trees, littering streets, sidewalks and yards. We patiently await the locusts!
This weekend began the ten-day celebration of our fortieth wedding anniversary and we kicked it off in grand style. All of the kids and most of the grandkids were here for a long weekend of Champagne, BBQ, salads, cakes and pies and beer, wine and chips galore. It was non-stop laughter, toasts and stories, punctuated by a few rounds of trivia, scratch-off lottery cards, wine tastings, cocktail lessons and photo album viewing. We had a ball and the house seems so empty and QUIET right now, but we’ll get used to it I’m sure.
Cindy leaves for one of her music camps in a week, an event she looks forward to since it affords her the opportunity to play lots of music with lots of professional coaching. We are hoping that we get our car back in time for her to take it to camp so she doesn’t have to depend on the rental. What’s that you say, you didn’t know about our car crapping out? Surely a relatively new car with only 30K miles shouldn’t be giving you trouble! Guess again!
Two weeks ago while coming back from shopping the "Check Engine" light came on. I took it to an auto parts store where a technician did a computer check and said the number two cylinder was misfiring and we might need new points or plugs. This of course meant nothing to me, so I brought it to our usual car maintenance shop. After a few hours they gave me a call and explained that fluid had been leaking into the cracked cylinder. I didn’t know what that meant either and only asked when it would be fixed. He then told me that I needed a new engine. Now I REALLY didn’t understand; how could a 2018 car with 30K miles need a new engine? "Ford Fatigue," he explained, which I came to understand meant that this model was subject to this problem.
I checked our warranty on the car and found that it had expired last week. Did you know a new engine costs $10,000 to replace? I searched and found our Extended Warranty (my mother always told me to get extended warranties on expensive purchases) so I called the Ford dealership where we purchased the car. I am still waiting to hear from them! I took the car to another Ford place where we had purchased our work truck and they checked the extended warranty and said everything was covered and kept the car. They have had it for ten days and promise it will be ready in time for Cindy’s camp. Aren’t you glad you asked?! Ciao for now, Cindy and William
