Much of my time and a disturbing portion of my finances this year have been occupied by everything we own deciding to break all at once. Around the time that the yearly budget for fixing such things ran out (that was, say, May), I started keeping a list. The writing gets smaller as I continue down the page, trying to make the new additions fit. The page is full. I cannot even begin to hope at this point that we are done, because everytime I hope that, something else breaks. Without further ado, the list:
Things that we have fixed/replaced:
Sprinkler valve (flooded the yard before discovering)
Swamp cooler pump
Swamp cooler hose (watered the roof for who knows how long)
Swamp cooler spider tubes
Swamp cooler floater (did these swamp cooler parts break all at once? Oh no. One at a time.)
Vacuum (thankfully repaired, not replaced)
Crock pot (pot physically cracked in half, not dropped or anything, just sitting there. Didn’t even know that could happen.)
Garage Door
Dishwasher (also repaired, but by repairman, which is not much better than replacing)
Toilet handle
Furnace valve
Windshield wipers (physically fell off the car after I spun out in the snow and got hit by a van. I parked the car and walked home.)
Windshield
Car throttle (this is the one and only thing on the list that fixed itself. Still not sure what was wrong. Don’t want to know.)
Barbeque fuel valve
Car AC (wouldn’t have fixed it, except the belt that was broken was going to kill the whole car. Stupid belt.)
Lawn Mower (replaced. sigh.)
Car battery (mysteriously died the same week as roommate’s car battery and that of said roommate’s girlfriend. Blame her.)
Refrigerator (replaced. most recent, but not most expensive. See Car AC above.)
Things that broke but we have not yet fixed:
East gate (falls off its hinges every time the wind blows. I want to just take the thing down entirely, because I have no dogs to keep in the yard, etc., but surprise:)
Power drill (battery is dead, discovered while trying to fix the east gate. New battery is more expensive than a new drill. With a freaking cord, this time.)
Sewing machine (stupid timing)
Sprinkler programming box (Whatever. I can just turn them on and off myself.)
Sprinkler heads (Happy to report that the grass is nearly recovered from its traumatic July and August. At least it grows back.)
Tires (the only thing on the list not technically broken, just so worn out we really have got to replace them before it snows)
I can’t complain too much, really. We’ve had to money to fix it all, (minus those things we haven’t fixed yet, which we can apparently live without) even if it means my precious financial buffer is slowly disappearing. But really, we’re fine enough that I can laugh about it, which I’m grateful for. (Except the day the refrigerator broke. On that day, I was not laughing.) I love our house, and I’d rather live here with everything falling apart than not live here. Though, of course, the preference would be to live here with things *not* falling apart, in an ideal world.
Ten years from now, this is going to be one of those stories we tell in church talks about how even when everything goes wrong, things still work out. Because they do. I know they do. Heck, they are.
But I’m still ready for everything to stop breaking.
