Oh the joys...

Of owning your own home.

So the boyfriend and I moved into our first house about a year ago, and it has surely been an adventure! We started house shopping in July 2008, put in a few offers, walked away from a few of our options, searched high and low, and finally found "our" house. It then took us 6 months to CLOSE on our house. (loooooong loooooong story) From there... the fun began.

We (with lot's of help from our family!) ripped out walls,

tore down drywall, chipped up tile,

(plus tons and tons more fun stuff - like scraping popcorn off the ceiling)

and then put it all back together again

before we ever even moved in our toothbrushes. Just when we thought the fun was all over with.... we realized we had issues! It's just what happens when you OWN a home. Things get old, things break, and you are responsible. (and I wouldn't trade it for the world! I LOVE my house! Have I mentioned that I have a pool?!?!?!?)

There have been plumbing issues in this house for quite some time.... but we have learned how to avoid them becoming catastophies for the time being. For example, our guest bathroom toilet gurgles when the washing machine drains and sometimes suds even come up in the bowl. This is not a problem. The problem is when you FLUSH said toilet while it is gurling and suds are coming up into the bowl. At this point, the toilet overflows. It's joyous. Really. Our drains don't always drain at an optimal rate either. We had plumbers come look at it, and they were pretty much stupid and useless. Therefore, we have put these things off until the boyfriend has some time to do some research (and dish out some money of course) to fix the problem. When the drains plug up so bad that we can't deal with it, he cleans them out and pours some Draino in there until it works. It's a temporary solution, but it works.

So anyway, the point of this post.... The other day our air conditioning stopped working. It's 90 something degrees outside, and our cooling system SHUT DOWN. Gross. We thought it was just frozen from running too hard (and we may have possibly really needed to put in a clean filter). We shut it off for a while, and changed out the filter and it worked. YAY! And then the kitchen sink stopped draining. Not drained slow.... it stopped. Working air... plugged drains... no good. So we got some nasty drain cleaner stuff from Lowes to try. The stuff with the least pretty label is usually the most potent/commercial grade stuff right? Apparently so.... this stuff burned your nose from 10 feet away and started eating at the stainless steel of the sink! Ed votes we use the amateur stuff from now on. lol.... Anyway....He was able to fix the drain issue after a few hours of sniffing sulfuric acid and sweating his booty off on the roof. Yay! Working air, and working drains! Until.... about 3 am the next day. No more air. It was sooooooooooo stuffy and hot! I came home from school later that day and it was 89.5 degrees in here! Ed made a phone call to a buddy who does air and he was able to troubleshoot and figure out what it was. Unfortunately, we were going to have to go another night without a/c. Well... until McGuyver Jr. got a hold of it! Ed rigged some crap up that involved an industrial floor fan that we use in the garage and a yard sprinkler. Was it safe? Probably not... but we had a cool house overnight! He got the part to fix it this morning, hooked it up this evening, and we have working air!!!! It only cost 2 days without cold air and $92. Yay for a handy boyfriend!!!!! He's so awesome. We had plans to do stuff tonight, but he got a last minute call from a friend to go fishing instead.... so of course I let him go do that. He big time deserved it! I also forgot to mention that this weekend he spent almost all of his Sunday at my grandparents house helping my grandfather trim trees on his property, just because. He's the bestest. And to think... he thinks I'M the best for letting him cancel our plans and go fishing. That was easy compared to everything he does! (but we won't tell him that, he might let it go to his head)

I'll be sitting alone on my couch tonight blog stalking, eating whatever I scrounge up for dinner, and studying. But at least it'll be in the a/c!!!!!!!!