Recently, my family has been experiencing a run of bad luck that hearkens back to Biblical days. Over Spring Break, we had a sewer line rupture in our new house (leading to a repair bill of $4000), my car break down ($1000), and a swarm of bees lodge in our attic ($78). Our dog has allergies and ear infections, to the tune of $700 in the past two months for special food, vet visits, and medicine. This past week we had a maddened opossum from the forest tear a hole in our deck screen. We had to get a trapper to come and catch him and take him away from where he’d been living under the house ($130). With no income this summer (we’re teachers), we’ve been sweating how we will make ends meet since a good chunk of our savings had just been wiped out. We did some schedule juggling, and though we’d hoped to spend the summer with our children and taking a break from our intense workload, we will instead be alternating summer session employment. The upside is it helps us a little financially; the down side is at no one time during the summer will all of us be in the house, so all scheduled vacation plans (family reunions, etc) had to be cancelled. Add to this the need to have the enormous tree branch hanging over our roof pruned before hurricane season, as well as the fact that we’d intended to have the windows fitted for plywood in preparation of same, and we’re seriously wondering how we will make it.
The joke has been that we’re waiting for the plague of locusts to come next.
Well, be careful what you joke about...
Today, a swarm of something suspiciously like termites attacked our house. They were streaming in the windows, near as we can figure, entering both bathrooms en masse and in the living room. We’d had our regular bi-monthly visit from our exterminator recently, so many of the insects appeared to be dead already...but many were not. We have to wait until tomorrow for the exterminator to come back and help determine for us if these were just some oddly shaped ants, or if we are looking at another expensive bill.
All this is by way of saying: be careful what you wish for. We’ve wanted our own home for years, feeling depressed that we weren’t able to provide this basic ritual of life for our kids. We got our chance when we moved from Los Angeles to a much more affordable area. We were ecstatic (if surprised) when we qualified, since we are just able to afford the monthly mortgage. However, what we didn’t realize was the unexpected expenses of owning one’s own home. While I still love my home, I begin to wonder how many of my other long held dreams might turn out to be a disaster waiting to happen. How many other things I’ve idealized as, “If I could only have X, I’d be happy.”
God is the only one who knows what will make us happy, and I’m beginning to realize that if we don’t have it yet, there must be a darn good reason why.
Another lesson learned the hard way.
TJB
1 comment:
Ohmigosh, Eve! I think we were separated at birth...
We finally took our dog off the fancy $250 a month dog food. He scratches just as much as he ever did, and we figured he can do that at $20 a bag of dog food just as easily.
Our termite bill came in at $800, since we didn't have to go the tenting route. We're doing Thermidor. Still, it's not cheap...and having a barrier built around the deck (on the same day the Thermidor bait was being laid in by the exterminator--we had dueling diggers) to keep possums out wound up costing us $400, so it sort of worked out the same. :-)
Man, I feel like we should start comparing scars or something...
You're right, though. We're stepping out on faith on our summer. Still trying to get the funds to have the arborist come, though. We found out about a great product called Plylox that can be used to fasten plywood to the windows without having to drill holes in the frame. We're going to try and do that to get ready for hurricane season, too.
TJB
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