A Sense of Humor

It's an invaluable trait and a great thing that I have one. Why? Well, because sometime during the night the furnace here in the main house decided to stop working!



I got up and thought it was a bit too chilly. So I went about messing with the thermostat...no heat regardless of how high I turned it up. Then I went down to the furnace. It was running but no heat. I unplugged it, waited a while, plugged it back in and still nothing. Then I thought it must be the igniter. Not having one I called the furnace guys (they've been dealing with the furnaces in both houses here for 30 years from initial installation to constant monitoring). They laughed when I told them that now it was the main house furnace and sent they Pat out to fix it. Sure enough the igniter had a crack in it. Got that replaced and it's all good now.

So, that's enough furnace nuttiness for me. Our home in Illinois still has no heat since a whole new furnace needs to be put in there. Tom has to find the time to take a day off to be there for that to get done and it's not easy for a lawyer to take a day off. Oh well, as long as it's replaced before I drive back there sometime in October!

The furnace in the guest house will be replaced this summer after we do some architectural work and also replace the roof.

So, anyway, a sense of humor is essential. Not only to living so far away from everything but in just dealing with everyday situations regardless. It's better to laugh and shake your head than run around screaming with your hair on fire...although sometimes that's also good for your mental health!



So , I'm NOT doing any moving today and have decided to just spend the day outside with the dogs enjoying the peace.

I Hate Moving!

Yes, I do. I swear it's more difficult moving 300 yards than 300 miles! Simply because there's no rush to get it done in 1 day. We're still moving things from the cabin to the main house.

Crazy things that aggravate have been going on but I think they may be over. At least up here. It took ATT 5 days to straighten out the long distance mess they created. Finally a woman from repair called me and I asked her to stay on the line with me to witness how I've been tossed around like a shuttlecock. She did and she was floored but very helpful. We both knew it wasn't a repair issue it was a personnel mistake that seemingly no one could fix. Regardless, SHE got it fixed, was going to file a complaint and now I have all my local and long distance on both phone lines. I also told ATT I was NOT paying for any of this switch nor the days without service. So my $85 bill became $15!

Next the furnace in the cabin stopped working...before I moved out, on a Saturday after 5P.M. no less. We had to wait until Sunday for the repair folks to come out and it was below zero that night! Fortunately we have an auxiliary heater separate from the furnace so we had some heat. Anyway, they replaced the main control board and it worked...for 2 weeks! LOL Back come the guys, we got it working again but I decided that I was moving to the main house. So since the furnace is 18 years old it will be replaced after we put a new roof on the cabin. My husband called me from Chicago and I told him and he laughed and said it was a conspiracy of furnaces since the furnace in our home in Chicago died! OMG, how crazy. So we'll be buying a new furnace for that house too.

Then came Dish Network and getting my HD dish and Wild Blue Satellite broadband dish moved. First Dish said it had to be done on 2 different days because they can't have 2 work orders at the same residence open at the same time. How ridiculous! A stupid policy that wastes time and man hours since it takes the techs 45 minutes just to get to my house here. So the techs called and said they'd ignore Dish and come out and do both at once. Again I had no service for over a week called Dish and told them I wanted credit since I wasn't paying for those days...they gave it. The techs came out, were here 7 hours working because this is a huge house and I finally got back on line and have tv service. Whew!

Hopefully I get at least a small break from craziness before something else goes wrong! Good thing I have a sense of humor or I'd have no hair left on my head. Living so far away from everything can have it's disadvantages but I'd not give it up for anything. The privacy and peacefulness make it all worth it.

So here's some photos from views from the main house:


View from my bedroom


View towards the cabin from the porch outside my bedroom


The last of the snow. It used to be 15 ft. tall but as of yesterday it's now all gone!


My every morning sunrise view. Just beautiful!

I bought a new gadget: A Kodak Play sport HD 1080p video camera. It's so small and very cool. Plus it's waterproof and can film underwater. That will be great when we go back to the Caribbean. It's just like the Kodak Z8, which was $30 more expensive for simply having a macro mode that I don't need, but the waterproof ability of the Play sport and the fact that it's more durable made the Play sport a better buy for me. That way if I drop it, which I'm sure I will, it won't be immediately dead!. So I wandered around a bit of the property taking video, talking to my dogs and husband. I was so out of breath after chasing those dogs I sounded like I was dying! LOL They won't embed here correctly so I'll have to fix that later. They show up but when you try and play them they say error, blah, blah. Oh well, it's a learning thing I suppose for me!

So that's what's been happening in the woods. Now, back to more moving and putting stuff away!