So $150 wasn't a bargain

We woke up this morning without hot water. Again. After it was "fixed" yesterday. Sigh...

Plus it was snowing.

And, to top it off, Spunky Baby was showing "sick" signs.

So...

Call furnace guy first who tells me he can't fix it but maybe his buddy can. So call furnace guy #2 who agrees to come over around 10:00.

Call pediatrician second. After waiting on hold for 15 minutes I get an appointment for Spunky Baby at 2:00.

Call into work. I work about an hour or so from home, depending on the traffic. With those appointment times there's NO WAY I can go to work and juggle this schedule. Plus, did I mention, it's SNOWING again?!?! I explain I have a dead furnace and a sick baby (make sure not to incite panic by mixing those two up.)

There goes my day.

The sitter watches a very cranky fussy baby while I work from home on my laptop. I feel guilty that she's dealing with him in such a foul mood and I think he just has an ear infection or something not contagious so she's OK watching him, but still... I break to talk to the furnace guy (very nice guy - Pete - he ended up being here 1.5 hrs so this isn't going to be cheap and I still have to pay for yesterday too - ugh), work again, eat lunch, work again, go to doctor's office (Spunky Baby is fine, no ear infections or anything, probably just a bug or little virus, if it gets worse call...), work again while he naps because I sent the sitter home, and then Spunky Daddy calls to tell me he's working late and will see me around 11:00 or so, so I give Spunky Baby dinner, bath, playtime, bottle and put him to bed, then check in with work email one more time just in case something came through (I try to do more when I have to work from home - I am an excellent telecommuter and I don't want anyone to think I'm slacking off...). Finally I throw in a load of laundry, do the dishes, clean up the playroom, and collapse on the couch.

Now it's 9:45 p.m. and I'm ready to fall over from exhaustion. What the heck did I do today that wore me out?!?

Goodnight, all. Hope tomorrow is better. If I don't have a hot shower in the morning, you'll hear me in San Francisco...

I Need Hot Water

Do you have any idea how many times a day you use hot water when you have a child? Let me tell you, in the last 24 hours I learned it's a lot. Laundry. Dishes. Rinsing things in the sink. Using a wet washcloth to get the carrots and cookies off Spunky Baby's face and hands (he HATES cold water). And when you don't have hot water, things get tough. Sure, you can microwave a cup for some uses, but what about his bath? Or MY shower? Or the supplemental heat for the upstairs (we heat primarily with a wood stove ducted to the first floor...but it was 13 degrees last night...we need some extra heat to help warm us!)

Yesterday morning we woke up to very little hot water. It's happened before and to fix the problem we just go down into the basement and manually fire the boiler. That's what I did. Many times. Even waking up at 2 a.m. to go down and fire it to make SURE I could take a hot shower this morning. Fast-forward to 6:00 a.m. No hot water. Darn.

So the furnace guy is coming out to look at it this morning. I'm just thankful the sitter is at home and can let him in. Right now I can't imagine trying to take a morning off of work to deal with this.

"Dear Furnace Guy: Please don't call and tell me that I should come home and say goodbye because it lived a good life. I don't want a $6,000 replacement bill. Not this week..."

I'm still not out of the funk from yesterday.

Update: It was a $150 fix. No new furnace needed. Whew! I'm taking a hot shower when I get home. And Spunky Baby will get his bath. Good times!