The Last Thing I Need is Friday the 13th

Well, last week I had a brief reprieve from the massive torrent of crap that is being flung our way, and naively I thought, "Phew, that was it, we had a house sale fall through, a business owner threatened to sue me, and I almost blew up our television, but we SURVIVED!  Tomorrow is, in fact another day, and it is a much better one!"

And then Sunday happened.

Y'all, I feel like all I've been doing lately is complain, but I am just so stressed out right now, I can't even ugly cry anymore.  It's like I've gone into emotional shock... maybe I should elevate my feet or something.

So it all began--again--on Sunday, when we got an email from our property manager saying that our air conditioning unit in our South Carolina house had died on the day that the renters (and hopefully very soon, buyers) moved in.  He'd had to send out his own contractor to do a bandaid fix of adding more freon, and wanted to know how we'd like to proceed.  Essentially, we can replace the coil system and some other internal parts, or buy a new unit for maybe just a little less than twice the repair cost.  The coil system has no warranty, the new unit does.

I immediately filed a claim with our home warranty company, they were supposed to send out a contractor, but after repeated calls to them, the contractor never contacted my property manager over the next 3 days, and on Wednesday, we discovered that the company is located in Charlotte, NC and had been telling the warranty company for days that they can't service our area.  So the warranty company found a more local contractor, but THEY can't come out until next Monday, and in the meantime the a/c has already gone out for a second time, requiring more freon and our repair bills are already up around $1000.  So the warranty company told me that I can find my own contractor and then submit the bill for reimbursement, but one of the agents I spoke to told me that the most I can get back is $1500 and all we can do is the repair, because in order to cover a replacement, we'd have to provide annual a/c unit service records.

The hell??  What a flipping scam.  So, I'm waiting to talk to the repair guy my property manager has been using, but I'm expecting this whole thing will end up running us close to $5000 with all the repairs, and we'll maybe get $1500 from the warranty company.  And then there's a good chance we won't even own the home in a couple of months.  ARGH.  We were supposed to close two weeks ago, THIS WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE OUR PROBLEM.  And of course, it's on top of the thousands of dollars we just put into repairs after the inspection in order to get a clear CL-100 for closing.  Ha.  Hahaha.

Then, I bring our new/old car in for an oil change, and in very broken English, the service guy tries to get me to agree to some kind of repair that will cost between 3000-4000 Euro.  When I told Colby about it, he was highly skeptical, but neither one of us are exactly car experts either.  Between all of the costs we racked up doing repairs for the supposed closing of our house and now the a/c, I'm thinking we'll probably play chicken with the car repair for right now and hope for the best.  Then, in a couple of months, I'll take it somewhere else and see if they find anything.  Germans tend to have this concept that the Americans living over here are made of money, so I can't help but be a little suspicious of the fact that the garage may have been trying to take advantage.

Finally, and this is right now more "likely" rather than "definite", but we've discovered that there's a very good chance that Colby is going to have to be TDY for the month of October.  You may remember the little fact that I'm due on November 22.  With twins.  And statistically, 70% of twins are born before their due date and less than 40% make it past 37 weeks.  For me, 37 weeks is November 1st exactly.  I am trying really, really hard not to freak out about this.  Maybe he'll be able to get out of it.  Maybe I'll go past 37 weeks.  Maybe...

And to top it all off, at just 21 weeks, I've already started with Braxton-Hicks contractions.  It's happened three times over the past week, I'll just have this tightening feeling, and when I touch my stomach, it's rock hard.  It's painless, and they aren't consistent or frequent enough to be too concerning, but I'll definitely be bringing it up at my appointment next week.

So, basically, I'm thinking my best course of action for Friday the 13th is to bury myself under my blankets and attempt not to see the light of day.  Don't go near the phone, don't look at email, and when I emerge on Saturday, the world might be over, but as long as I don't step on my glasses I should be just fine for the rest of my life.

Comments

[Mandy]

I just had to replace the AC unit on my rental too. Just replaced the compressor ($500) last summer, but the lines were cut. So that was $5000, give or take, because I also had to replace the blower and all the refrigerant. Ugh. As for the car, depending on what the issue is, there's probably someone on base who would be willing to take a look at it and at least tell you what's wrong. The TDY timing sucks... but don't borrow worries. October is next fiscal year and you never know what will happen. Dates slide all the time. Hang in there. Life is overwhelming all at once, so just take it one day at a time!

[Brooke]

I'm so sorry that the bad luck streak is continuing - here's hoping it gets lots better, really soon! The only experience I have with any of that is the BH contractions: mine started around 19 weeks and totally freaked me out, but proved to be totally fine (just like the doctor said it was). Now that I'm actually on contraction watch, of course, BH haven't been seen in weeks. ;) Hope you can do something cheery and happy this Friday the 13th!

[Brittany]

Ugh... Angel, I'm so sorry. When it rains it POURS, eh? Love you.

[Kaela]

Ugh, I'm so sorry you are going through all this, especially while you are pregnant, and everything seems 10,000x worse. Hoping and praying that your streak of bad luck will turn into a streak of great luck very soon! Someday, I think, you will laugh about all of this that happened... I hope! Haha. :) Sending good luck vibes to you!

[Solange]

UGH! What a crazy amount of crap to be dealing with. I really hope that all works out quickly and not as expensive as you think.
I have no idea what TDY means but I'm assuming it has something to do with Colby being gone for a month. Bad timing sure, but maybe something will change?
It makes sense that you'd start BH contractions earlier since you're having twins. Definitely talk it over with your doc but they're really nothing to worry about. If they come close together, frequently and you get no relief from shifting positions/walking around then you may be having real contractions- I'm sure your doc will explain all of that :)
I completely forgot tomorrow was Friday the 13th! Some people believe that day brings GOOD luck.....

[erin - heart in ireland]

big hugs!

sorry to hear about everything!
is there somewhere on base you can take the car to get looked at?

[Jennifer]

I know when it rains, it pours. Hope it gets better for you!

[katelin]

oh goodness friend i'm sorry! keeping my fingers crossed that the 13th is an easy breezy day.

[Annie]

I'm so sorry things have been so icktastic. :( I am completely over home warranty companies and am convinced they are there just to rip people off. They won't replace anything unless it would cost more to repair than to replace. This resulted in us being out of a dryer (not as important as a/c) last summer for 5 weeks while the shoddy contractor they used continually ordered the wrong parts, lied to us about it, repeat, until they finally REWIRED our dryer. Uhh... But! Streaks can't go forever... That's why they are streaks! Thinking about you! And like Mandy said, I hope the new fiscal year throws off Colby's potential October TDY!

[Jessica]

UGH. I'm sorry to hear about the stuff back at home in the states and that the BH contractions have started. Take a break and day in bed. That photo you posted of the german ice cream with Scarlett O'Hara on the cover looked really good!

[Kate P]

I am all for lying low. . . and I'll say a prayer things get better!

[Molly]

Hope you survived the day! Things have got to turn around right?!?

[Elle Sees]

sweety my heart is just aching! some awful stuff for you! it'll all work out.
ps==bb creams are all you wear. no need for primer or to use as one.