when it rains, it pours

sometimes it feels like you just keep getting hit by brick after brick after brick.

like, sure, why not have more things happen? it can't really get much worse at this point.

ya know - the point where it just becomes humerous because it's so ridiculous!!!

(it's even more ridiculous when we bring some of these things on ourselves.)

well that was our last couple of weeks. let's start from the beginning...

Jae's truck needed to be registered in april. it also happened to need emissions and inspection done. we've just had this truck for a year, so this was the first time we had to do all of this for this particular truck. i told Jae at the beginning of the month let's hurry and get this done and not wait til the last minute so we can just get it out of the way. so on about the 25th of april (wait, didn't i just say let's not let this go til the last minute??....) i finally made a call and scheduled an appointment for Jae to go in that friday and get both emissions and inspection done so he could then get it registered.

so friday comes, Jae takes the truck in, and they informed him since it's a diesel, they can't do the emissions - that has to be done by the state. that would've been good to know beforehand, but whatever. but they can do the safety. so they do that, and they fail him. tint on the front two windows (that we paid to have done) is too dark, and since the truck has to go to the state for emissions, this place can't possibly pass him on the tint because the state will then see they passed him and they'll get in trouble, yada yada yada. SO i called the state place to make an appointment, and, of course, they're booked through the 2nd of may. lovely. we got the tint taken off (yes, paid to get it on and now paid to have it taken off) and he went in to get his emissions done. failed. turns out whoever had the truck before us put an after-market catalytic converter in that isn't cool enough for the state to take (i also found out the state place in kaysville that us davis county peeps have to go to is the only place that won't accept that kind of converter. of course.) and they told us it had to be replaced. now i don't know much about cars or trucks, but i do know that catalytic converters are NOT cheap. i immediately got on the phone with a couple of places, and found a place that happened to have an exact one of what we needed in their shop (it had been ordered for someone else and they never showed). and it was about half the price of a new one from the dealer (for reasons that i don't really need to go in to). getting one from the dealer would've been well over $1600. $1600!!!! vomit. long story, short (too late, i know) we took the truck in, got the new catalytic converter put in, all special and certified and crap, we had the safety and emissions re-done and passed and got it all registered. we were only like 8 days into the next month. oops.

in the middle of all of the truck hooplah, our dryer became unusable. again, without getting too much into boring details, it has some issues with the vent, and one night while we were doing some laundry, our house smelled with an awful burning/melting smell. there wasn't anything else on or going, so it had to be the dryer vent. and honestly, we're not quite sure how to fix our problem and haven't really had a lot of time to dig deeper into it, so that problem still stands.

and then, i put a load in the washer, left for a couple of hours, came back to put it in the dryer (that was threatening to light on fire. smart, i know) and there sat our clothes...in a pool of freezing water in the washer. doing nothing. not clean. nada. so i pulled all the clothes out, one by one rung them out, put them in plastic sacks, and drove to my parents house to wash and dry them. our washer then sat for the rest of the weekend, completely full of water because i couldn't get it to do anything. i tried every setting, tried plugging it into different outlets, checked the breakers. nothing would make any difference. it just did nothing! well my sweet mom saved the day - she called a repair guy and he came on monday. turns out the lid sensor was burned out so it thought the lid was open all the time, hence it wouldn't run or do anything. thank goodness it's working now.

there's probably more i could complain and cry about, but i suppose that'll do for now. i must say, though, we had some nice, happy things happen lately too, and i can't forget or overlook those. for example, we got some random credit on our gas bill because 'gas prices have dropped the last few months' and after that was applied, our gas bill for last month was a whopping $0.96!!! um heck yes! we also got a surprise cute plant and card from a neighbor our of nowhere. i'm struggling to keep the plant going, but i am trying! oh, and Jae got his truck all fancied up.

this is my chance - yes i will give a plug for Jae's company.....if you have any lawn care/landscaping needs, call Jae!!! he kindly provided his number for you via his truck :)

roughly $800 and something dollars later, we're back in business at our house. (well except that dang dryer...) life is so fun sometimes, isn't it? i guess we should be grateful for the crazy, crappy times because that means we should have something totally wicked awesome coming our way soon, right?? ;)