Hot! Hot! Hot!

Well, with Memorial Day this last week summer has officially arrived here in NC. While it's nice to go outside and be in the sun for a while, it's not so fun when the 80-90 degree (plus humidity of course) comes inside to stay for a while. This week our air conditioning broke. We had been having some problems with it previously, and the maintenance people came in Tuesday morning to replace the thermostat. I thought, "wow, now we'll actually be able to control when and for how long the AC runs!" because it's been very unpredictable. However, this was just the beginning of our problems. The guys went out back to check that the connection from the unit outside to the thermostat was working correctly-and of course it wasn't. So, the worked on the connection, replacing a part or two, and it still wouldn't work. Actually, it wouldn't even turn on making it now officially 'broke' (not 'broken', we are in the South). So it was Tuesday afternoon, 90 degrees outside, I was doing laundry and something else (maybe the dishwasher was running, I don't remember) and it was miserable. About this time I thought it would nice to go to the mall or something but being the end of the month we were out of money. So I sat at home in my sauna of a living room. They said they'd be able to fix it for sure the next day. Of course it didn't work. Thursday morning they got an entirely new unit in, and finally by around 4pm on Thusday the ordeal was over. It was gross, and we are soooooo glad it's done now. We should have a great reduction in our electric bill now though.

Now to our housing issues...I wrote last week that I saw a house I really liked. Well, it turns out that Joe really liked it too. It's small, in an okay neighborhood (not great schools though) and the yard is really great (as in size, not quality; it needs some work). So Saturday we made an offer. They were supposed to let us know by Monday (even though it was technically a holiday). On Monday their realtor called our realtor and said it would be Tuesday before anything happened. The couple who owned the house were in the process of splitting up, and they were being argumentative with each other. So Tuesday came...and went. Wednesday came, and our realtor called us to say they hadn't responded yet and she wasn't sure if they were going to, there was another offer on the house, and it just wasn't going well. Well, we had to let our apartment complex know if we were moving 60 days in advance of our lease ending (which was June 1). With our house prospects fairly dim, we called it quits on buying and since we have a new AC unit in this apartment we'll just stay where we are for now.

Besides those two stories, the only other thing I've done this week is grocery shopping. Being on a fairly tight budget, by the end of the month I don't let myself leave the house much. If I go anywhere that has things for sale I'm afraid I'll buy something-anything-and I don't really have the money for it. So I go to bed kinda down the last few days of the month because I don't really feel like I've done much. Then magically, I wake up on the morning of the first day of the month and I have money again! And not only do I have money that I can spend, I actually MUST go and spend money, since by this time we're almost completely out of food. So today, being the first, I made my enormous grocery list and headed out. First I bought Karen's baby food (thank goodness she will only need it for a few more months-it's so expensive!) at one store, then headed out to Super Walmart to get most of it. On the way back after about 2-3 hours of shopping, we make a quick stop at the bread store (discount, almost expired bread that lasts really well in the freezer!) and we're back home just in time for lunch. Of course today, like most shopping trips, Karen fell asleep in the car on the way back, which meant that she skipped lunch, but it was much easier to bring in all the food since she wasn't trying to follow me out the door on every trip out to bring in more stuff. Sadly, this is the most exciting shopping trip of the month. I actually look forward to it, plan for it, and feel a bit of a letdown when it's over, knowing I won't do it again for another month. However, now we have our Costco card, so tomorrow is another mini shopping trip to look forward to (especially the free samples!). Well, now that you know all about my grocery shopping obsession, I think it's time for me to be done for now. Here's a picture of the house we almost (kinda) bought.