Adventures in Homeownership

So we're all moved into the house.. we had the floors sanded and refinished, the electrical system redone, fence installed, painted several rooms, to the point that the house doesn't really look like what we bought at all, and definitely feels more "ours". Truly, this house could have a million things wrong with it, and Boyfriend and I would be fine with that, because we can actually FIX things around this house. Our rental was a nice property but it was never really maintained, and there were so many things that, if fixed, would have made it much nicer. I guess we won't really have the shock of "but our landlord used to fix that!" because they didn't fix anything, so we did end up just living with a thousand little problems. Now of course we have the to-do list that's a mile long.. much of which costs money, naturally.

We had our first minor emergency - the central AC and the fan unit that's part of the furnace that runs the cold air through the house were both leaking water. Like lots of water. Considering that an air conditioner should not produce more than condensation, this was Bad. Luckily, we did get a home warranty on the place, and called in for that. Apparently we were very, very low on Freon. I am not certain that that alone would cause This Much Water, but if it doesn't fix it, we can call the contractor back within 30 days and not even have to pay the deductible again. So that's nice. The AC seems to be working fine now and isn't producing much, and we will watch it for the next few days. If it turns out to be a big problem, the warranty will cover replacement, at any rate.

In other news, I now have two sick animals - one of the perennially ill guinea pigs has a kidney stone causing a bladder infection, so she's on antibiotics for that while we wait for her to pass the stone. She was pretty cranky last week and seems OK this week, so I'm really hoping she already peed it out. She goes in next week to get an X-ray to see what's going on (another $90 for that alone.) I really, really, really hope that she has, both because with being still unemployed it would be painful to come up with the $700-800 for the surgery and inpatient stay, and I also really don't want her to have to live in a cat carrier for three weeks and get antibiotics and pain meds and be cranky. We've had quite enough of that thank you. The dog incurred her first vet bill (other than the first visit after we got her) since she helpfully let us know she wasn't feeling well by peeing on the couch. While sponging it up, I saw that it was pink, and off to the emergency vet room we went. Luckily we live very close to the Ohio State veterinary college, which has 24/7 care, and we weren't even the only ones there. I said when we came in that I thought she had a urinary tract infection, and $250 later, plus a pack of pills that we already had some of at home, they confirmed this. Sheesh. Hopefully that will be it for her and she will feel better soon. I also hope she didn't pick it up at daycare, since she went for two days while we were moving. The cat and dog have always been the cheap pets - luckily Kitty has never come down with anything more serious than hairballs.

In job news, the woman I interviewed with a few weeks ago is very interested in me and said that it would take about three weeks for them to create the position. It is hourly, which is nice, and I asked for $21-22 plus benefits, which I think is pretty reasonable considering that I will actually be performing three different tasks for them, all of which I am fully qualified to do. I called earlier today to check in but my contact person was gone.. hopefully she has good news tomorrow. It will be three weeks next Tuesday.

I also applied for unemployment - why the heck not - and do not seem to be excelling at the system. My social security number apparently didn't match my name (I don't have a middle name, which confused the computer) so I have to send in some documents to prove that I am who I am and they should give me $365 a week. Which, I have to say, seems like a lot of money to me because I am not paying my own rent or buying much of my own food, but if I were, dang, that's tiny. I mean, it's more than Boyfriend made while in school, but not much when you have a house, sick pets, dependent significant other, etc.

I have spent much of the past few days unpacking and contemplating the sheer volume of STUFF that we own. And also contemplating the fact that the cheese drawer in the fridge, by cubic feet, was one of the most valuable boxes we moved (minus laptops and flat-panel monitors.) I like my cheese.