Category: whining and complaining (Page 12 of 12)

I’ve got something brewing around in my head, and I think if I just post about it here and do my grumblings, I can let it go and get over it. I hope. So, if you aren’t interested in my petty griping, just click away.

We have some relatively new neighbors. I loved the previous neighbors and we’re having a hard time getting to know the new neighbors. I thought it would a great thing to have them there, because they have a couple of girls at just the right ages. They could be best friends with our girls and we would all be happy. But so far, the girls aren’t really friends. Not because they aren’t nice. They don’t throw things at us when we try to talk to them or go over offering muffins or cookies or anything like that; they are just extremely busy. And they don’t seem all that interested in being our friends. Which shouldn’t bother me, should it? I mean, I’m an adult. Not everyone has to like me, do they?

YES! They do, in fact. I’m a good person. We’re a nice family. Why wouldn’t they like us? I think I still have that middle school complex going on somewhere in my head where I just want people to like me.

Well, they’ve recently been doing a LOT of work on their house and yard. And I mean a LOT! They are relandscaping the entire yard, putting in a fabulous new playset, moving the inground trampoline from one side of the yard to the other, building a monster deck, pouring concrete pads, putting in a fence…..yada yada yada. Which means that there are trucks out there. All day every day. Lots and lots of trucks, with large equipment, lots of dirt and lots of noise. Trucks that for some reason don’t confine themselves to parking in front of their house, but they have to park in front of my house, too. In front of my driveway, in front of my mailbox. Which I can kind of understand. I guess they have to park somewhere. Over there would be nice, but I do not own the street, so I can deal with a little blockage of my driveway every once in a while. But when they started driving their large bobcat-like things with huge drills attached to them across my grass, I started to lose my patience. Why are they parking that big honkin thing on my grass? Can’t they drive across their own dirt to drill those large poles for their fence? Their fence that will in essence exclude us from enjoying the beauty that is their new yard? Must they gouge up my lawn?

I have been tempted to adjust my sprinklers so they just happen to go off on them while they are working, and leave them on for a very long time. Maybe turn them on while I drive off. Waving goodbye.

But I don’t like feeling bitter towards my neighbors. I don’t want to be that irritated next door neighbor who only finds fault. I really do want to be their friends (and not just so they’ll like me). So I’m admitting my petty irritations here in blogland, so that you can all understand how shallow and irritable I am, and tell me to get over it and move on.

Take a deep breath and let it go.

Then maybe I should go make some brownies and take them over there and share them with all their workmen.

All right, I’m not quite there yet, but I’ll try.

Thanks for listening.

It was not a good day for the Erickson family yesterday. Don’t panic. Nobody got in a car accident or anything like that and our house is still here, but we did have a few other things pile up on us.

First, I had taken the van in on Monday to see if they could fix it. It’s been running really rough the past few weeks (and that darn check engine light has been bugging me) and I worried that it was going to stop running altogether. They told me they would “start with a tune-up” and see if that takes care of the problem. Well, even though a tune up sounds like a simple adjustment of a few car gadgets, it’s really at least two hours of labor to practically get the entire engine out to check wires, spark plugs,etc. The tune up (which it honestly needed at 136,000+ miles) itself was about $300. But that didn’t solve the problem. They tested a couple more things and I think it was the fuel injector that was causing all the trouble. Anyway, the total came to just over $500. Gulp.

Next, my dishwasher hasn’t been working very well, and this week I finally figured out a day I could be home for a few hours, so I called the repair man. He came yesterday and took apart my dishwasher enough to tell me that there was a problem with the main valve, and it wasn’t filling with water properly. He could order a new part, and for a mere $226 he’ll come back and install that part (on Monday). Gulp. Unfortunately, since he disconnected things, the dishwasher that was limping along but still worked, now doesn’t really work much, so that means we’ll be hand washing our dishes. Yes, I should have waited until I didn’t have 10 people living in my house before making this decision, but who knew?

Later, Ryan went to pay for the van’s mini-makeover and take it back to his work. As he was pulling out, he realized that the tire was flat. He pulled back over to fill it, and the repair guy came out and said, “I filled that tire earlier. It shouldn’t be flat already.” Shouldn’t be, but yet it is. Luckily, there is a tire place just around the corner, so Ryan went over there to see if he could get the flat repaired. It could not be repaired. Of course not. And the wear indicators were showing on the other tires to let us know that, “Dude, you’re driving on bald tires,” (my quote, not his). Gulp. Let’s plop down another $400 something on tires, shall we? (The good part of the story is that Ryan was actually the one who dealt with the tire problem, as I’ve already mentioned my claustrophobia and panic that comes from hanging out in repair places, let alone my total lack of knowledge when it comes to all things automotive. Or I could have been driving home late at night and had to deal with a flat tire. Hello? Triple A?)

Now I understand that repairs happen. But must they all happen in the same day?

After I got home from rehearsal last night, I sat down and opened the mail. Hmmm. What’s this letter from the IRS? . What the….? We’ve received a notice that informs us that we owe the IRS aprox. $3900 for a mistake in our taxes in 2005. Gulp. I handed it all over to my tax man (Ryan) and managed to not scream or swear or hit anyone. I think I handled it pretty well.

Meanwhile, I’ll be canceling all of our fun plans for the rest of the summer. And maybe selling all of my children’s belongings on ebay.