Xmas at my in laws. Spent the whole time trying to keep my hyperactive 5 year old son away from my crabby, controlling, migrane-having mother -in -law, and vice versa. They both just set each other off.
I was so happy to be leaving on Sunday afternoon, the day after Xmas...when not 20 minutes from in in-laws' house, my husband's car DIED! We barely managed to coast over to the shoulder of highway 29 and park.

We used our cellphone for the purpose it was intended, to call for help. my husband called his dad. His dad drove over with his van, put us and all our stuff in it, and drove us the 5 hours home! He stayed over night with us.

He drove home the next day and called a repair shop for our car. Last night my husband called his parents, our motor is shot and it would cost appx $1000 to repair. For a 1994 Saturn sedan with a bunch of other problems with it. I say we cut our losses. I'm sorry that means we'll temporarily be sharing my car which is also just as old, has known problems, and is not reliable, until we're in a better position to start financing a new (used) car, but my husband still wants to pay the $1000 repair to buy a few more months of life from this old car.

Yesterday morning the furnace guys finally came back and put a nice, insulated, pipe from that hole in our utility room wall to our furnace, and put a screen over the hole to the outside to prevent any animals from coming in, so at least that's done right now!

2005 can't start fast enough for me.

On a not-lighter note, none of us can figure out how our company's health insurance plan works, as of Jan 1, when we get bought.

I just looked at their list of plan-elligible doctors, My husbands usual doctor, who he really likes, is not on it, nor is my OBGYN that I've had for 12 years, nor is the endocrinologist I've had my 11 year old daughter on the waiting list for! I will have to make a new endocrinology appointment for my daughter with someone else, once we 've been enrolled in the new insurance plan. My kids' usual pediatrician is enrolled in the new insurance plan, so far that's the only doctor we're used to that is on the new insurance plan.

On lighter note, my friend Debi got a phone call from the human resources dept of the company where I work, to offer her a job in my department! It would be great to have her here, I'm looking forward to it!

I just sent this private message to my friend Laura on OnlyLoversLeftAlive.com:

"Ok our furnace DIED..in Minnesota...in winter. Also, less than 2 weeks before Chri$tma$.

We called a differnet company than we did 2 months ago when our furnance also stopped working and the new guy had the same fit the old guy did, about how this furnace is a bargain basement furnace, clearly installed by the previous do-it-yourself owner, not up to code, not pulling fresh air from the outside, just circulating the same old stale air around the house, exposing everyone to potential carbon monoxide, and also full of mold that we could see. And we wondered why our 5 year olds eyes always look sunken in, he always has the sniffles, and keeps getting a bloody nose all the time for no reason.

So we took the dead last of the money out of our special re-financed home loan account appx $2,500. And let the guy send a different guy out the next day and install a whole new furnace. My husband asked this second guy, towards the end of the day, so you guys said you'd vent it to the outside. This second guy hadn't heard anything about that, so he had to call a third guy to come out on day 3, said he 'd come at 8, then put it back to 10, arrived at 3 which ruined my husband's whole day , he wanted to go shopping.

And unlike the diagram we were given of a furnace with a tube going outside, this third guy acually drilled a hole from our downstairs utility room, near its ceiling, through to our external back yard wall of our house, put a little roof-thing over the outside hole..and left it that way. No hose or pipe. Just a gaping hole the size of a grapefruit to the outside , from our downstairs utility room, which just happens to be in the same room as our furnace. Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of a furnace, to have a hole in your house just going out side to the (today 0 degrees F) open air?"

The good news, my husband went to a job interview today at a legal employment job placement company, and it went great!
The bad news, that job, if he were to get it, is located in St Cloud, Minnesota, where we weren't too happy living in 1990 and 1991!

Nothing but bad news. I 'm sorry but its true.

1) My husband got laid off from his job.
2) My kids school is scheduled to be shut down this summer due to school district budget probems.
3) My car broke down, I don't want to take it to Saturn because I don't know if I can afford the repair when it gets there. Meantime my husband drives me to work and the kids to school and both again in reverse in the afternoon.
4)I had to re-schedule my daughter's pediatric endocrinology appointment. Last mid-september I put her on the waiting list to get in , on January 4th. Now that my company is going to be bought as of January 3, no one know what our insurance will be, or if it will be in effect officially on January 4, if the doctors billing office were to call to confirm. The next available appointment was March First. I took it , but my god she could be grown as tall as an Amazon by then!! She's only 11.
5) My little sister in law just married a blatant con artist.
6) We still don't have a computer at home. About 6 months ago a power surge fried our motherboard, and Gateway said our tower was obsolete & they don't make that kind of motherboard any more so we can't just get it replaced. Must buy a new tower. Don't have $300 extra dollars laying around.
7) 3 coworkers in my 8 person department just quit, and our admin won't commit to replacing them. They have neither approved nor rejected my managers 3 new-hire requisitions. Silver Lining: If we do get approved to hire, one of my best friends want to apply! Too bad its not my husband's line of work.
8) Oh just everything.