Out With The Old

I’m finally back!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s.

Ours, well, ours was exhausting and stressful.

We spent the last half of November helping our son move from his trailer into our house so he could save money for his move to Alaska. We moved most of his things into the garage, but some items that were too good for the garage went into our unheated pantry/storage room, and a few items that were too good for the pantry/storage room went into the house. I spent many hours trying to organize and reorganize things so the house didn’t look cluttered. I hate clutter. It depresses me.

Meanwhile, EJ was busy driving JJ on errands and getting his pickup unstuck from the driveway. It is only 2-wheel drive he (JJ) had trouble making it up the driveway.

EJ and I love visiting our favorite thrift shop. In mid-November we got to talking to another couple at the shop and they mentioned that they have multiple stray cats hanging around their property. We’ve been hoping to find a friend for Theo, our outside cat, so we said we’d take one. They urged us to take more than one, but although we have a weakness for cats, this time we firmly said we wanted only one. A couple weeks later the couple brought us a cat, which we released into the garage. It’s mostly feral so we haven’t seen much of it–just a glimpse now and then. This morning when I went out to feed it, it didn’t immediately vanish as it usually does (if I see it at all) so I consider that progress.

Because we don’t see the cat often, we thought about naming it Spirit or Phantom. But those names just didn’t seem to fit right. I said to EJ, “Too bad there isn’t an imaginary friend in a movie or book that we could name it after.” He replied, “We could name it ‘Harvey’ after the six-foot invisible rabbit in the old Jimmy Stewart movie.” I protested, “But that’s a male name and we don’t know if the cat is a male or female.” EJ answered, “The cat won’t know the difference” so we named the cat Harvey.

In late November EJ tried to call our propane company to have propane delivered. After a five minute wait, he gave up and I tried to order propane on their website. It was not a simple process and we thought we had ordered it when we actually hadn”t. When the propane wasn’t delivered, we tried calling again on December 3. That time the voicemail message said that 100 callers were ahead of us with an estimated 90 minute wait time. That’s crazy! I finally found contact information on the website and emailed the company. They emailed back that they had put in an order for us. A week or so later, the propane was still not delivered so I emailed the company again and they said they couldn’t make it up our steep driveway. Duh. When we first tried to contact the company, we didn’t have any snow. By the time the deliveryman attempted to deliver the propane, we had had some freezing rain and a lot of snow. We were resigned to them not being able to make it up our driveway until the snow melted in the spring, and having to cook meals with a camp stove or something. But we prayed about it and the day before Christmas Eve the truck made it up the driveway. Thank you, Lord!

In December, our old refrigerator temperature wasn’t as cool as it should be. EJ started troubleshooting possible problems. EJ looked for new refrigerators on-line in case we had to replace it, but we’d have the same problem getting a refrigerator delivered as we’d have getting propane delivered–the delivery truck probably wouldn’t make it up our driveway. We thought about picking it up from the store ourselves, but we’d have to take the topper off our truck and wrestle the refrigerator into the house, and EJ has back problems so we didn’t want to do that. We supposed that if the refrigerator died, we could put our food in coolers on the front porch. It is winter, after all. But then I asked EJ why we couldn’t get a compact fridge that would easily fit in our pickup. It could last us until the snow melted and we bought a new full-sized refrigerator (if necessary). We then we could use the little one as our egg fridge, which we’ve been wanting for quite some time. EJ thought that was a good idea. He searched online and found a 7.4 cubit foot one at Menards. It’s 56 1/2 inches high and 21 inches deep and wide. It’s good-sized for a small fridge and best of all, it fit in our truck. We set it up in our pantry next to our chest freezer. Meanwhile, EJ got the big refrigerator working ok so it might last a while longer. Thank you, Lord.

Then there’s the problem with our furnace. It’s a heat pump, which pumps up heat/cool air from the ground to heat/cool our house. When the outside temperature is above 27-28 degrees, the heat pump saves us tons of money. When the temperature falls below that, it switches to auxiliary heat, which uses propane. Only, for several years the auxiliary heat doesn’t work right. We’ve called our furnace repair company, which is the one who installed the unit 20 years ago. They would temporarily fix the problem but then the auxiliary heat would quit working again. Every time they came out, it was a major problem and cost us a lot of money. We finally fired them and got a new repair company that is much better. This summer they fixed our AC for very little money and they explained the problem so we can maintain it ourselves. We found out from them that the repairmen from the previous company work on commission–meaning that unless they sell us something expensive, they don’t get paid. No wonder all their repairs were expensive. Grrr. Anyway, the repairman from the new company came to look at our furnace a couple weeks ago. He thinks it’s the igniter, which isn’t terribly expensive. It could also be that our furnace, which is old, needs replacing. He said he could install the igniter and if that isn’t the problem, he will deduct the cost from the price of the furnace. EJ and I have discussed it and we will probably first try to replace the igniter and hope it lasts a couple years so we can save up for a furnace. Now that the holidays are over, EJ will contact the repairman. Hopefully he can make it up our driveway. Last time he came here, he only made it halfway and then had to walk up.

Meanwhile, we have been heating our house with a portable propane heater. The heat pump was working when the outside temperature was high enough so we’d turn off the little heater, but the heat pump doesn’t seem to be working very well since a winter storm knocked out our power for a few hours a week or so ago. Probably something was tripped? Well, we are staying warm with our little heater. We actually have two set up so if one runs out of propane we can quickly switch to the other.

JJ left for Alaska on Christmas Eve. To be honest, although we love JJ, it was nice to get our house–our peace and quiet–back. JJ is a terrible messy and he had not kept his promise to keep the guest room tidy. It was a mess. Neither did he keep his promise to sort through his belongings and keep only the things he planned to take back to Alaska with him in the (hopefully) near future so we didn’t have a garage full of unwanted things. He also didn’t keep his promise to not leave us with a bunch of items that are hard to get rid of–like his mattress and microwave. He wasn’t careful to put stuff out of Hannah’s reach–she eats EVERYTHING–and among other things we caught her eating a package of his razor blades and his cigars, both of which could have killed her. Sigh. Truth to tell, JJ brings a lot of drama and is not the easiest guest to have. We dropped JJ at the airport on Christmas even and then rested on Christmas Day. We spent most of the next day cleaning the guest room and moving as many things into the garage that we could. The electronic stuff that had to be protected, we stored in the guest room closet where it would be out of sight.

That evening, our friend texted EJ that he would be at our house on New Year’s Eve and stay until January 2nd. This friend often spends a night with us when he has medical appointments in our area, but he usually asks if it’s ok rather than assume. Last May he and his dog spent an additional two weeks with us while he recovered from surgery. His dog was a peach, but his master disregarded our instructions about our property and animals, which caused a lot of stress. He also is a messy and has dropped dangerous pills on the floor that could have harmed Hannah. We are utterly exhausted and frazzled so EJ texted his friend back and told him that we are burned out on guests right now and he can’t come this time. When he does come, we are determined that we will have firmer boundaries in place so our animals aren’t stressed out–and neither are we.

We want to be welcoming, supportive, generous, and kind, and we don’t mind making some sacrifices. However, we can no longer do it to the detriment of our peace. We firmly resolve that in 2026 we will set firmer boundaries.