Old fashioned living

What an interesting day. I say that with a touch of sarcasm. Snowfall of at least 12 inches hit us last night. A week ago, the snowblower started having problems and has been in the shop. Yesterday, the shop told us there was nothing we could do to fix it, well, not unless we wanted to spend $250 on the repair. We decided we may as well get a new one.

No snow blower 2 days ago was fine. The snow was light and fluffy and not too deep. Aside from getting up at 6 am to help Mr. Wild shovel (which really wasn't too much shoveling, we just pushed the snow out of the way for the most part), it wasn't that bad.

I knew today would be worse. Mr. Wild was a bit impatient wanting to get out and get rid of the snow. It was about lunch time when he could borrow a neighbor's snow blower. This time it was 12" of heavier snow and it was a lot of work for him even with the snow blower. More snow on Sunday, and we have to now think about shelling out over 300 bucks for a new one.

However, to top it all off, the water heater is also on the fritz. Water from the hot tap was ice cold Wednesday night when I tried to give the kids a bath. We just skipped the baths. Mr. Wild flipped the breaker switch Wednesday night, and when I got up Thursday, thank God, there was hot water. I could shower for work and gave the kids a bath Thursday night. We were going to call the plumber on Thursday, before that worked, because we knew Friday would be a bad snow storm clean up and it would make it harder for people to get here. We thought we were in the clear, however, and that we'd be fine.

Friday morning, I tried to wash my hands with hot water. No hot water. Argh. No shower for me. No hot water for dishes. No hot water for washing hands. Grrrr... So, Mr. Wild called the plumber, who said he'd call back. He didn't call back until 7:00 pm! In the meantime, I heated water on the stove so I could do dishes, because I couldn't do anything else in the kitchen with the mess all over the counter. I was going to make cookies, but didn't really have the room with dirty dishes and so forth.

I talked to one of my friends during the day and she joked that we were just wanting to live in the past with the hot water on the stove and the shoveling things ourselves. Which, in normal circumstances, might be funny, because we're both history museum professionals. But today, really not very funny. Mr. Wild thought he would be handy and it was worth a try. He tried to remove and change the elements in the water heater (which is electric). There's so much sediment in the bottom, that he can't get an element out. He had the whole house water shut down, so we weren't flushing toilets while he ran to the hardware store. And I needed to finish dinner and couldn't even wash the vegetable I wanted to chop up. I was so desperate, that I grabbed some ice cubes and microwaved them to try to get even a little water. It worked, but we are both frustrated with the running around and no results.

So, I'm here, waiting for my hot water to boil on the stove, so I can at least take a maybe warm bath, Mr. Wild is worn out from shoveling and snow blowing. As he said at dinner, he likes his modern conveniences and doesn't like having to go without. I have to agree. I may like the historical past, it may be fun to visit, but bring me back to my modern convenient present anytime.

Grrr...I'm going to check and see if my water is starting to boil.