Summer Time

My summer has been flying by in a hurry, and I've certainly been keeping busy. The month of July has been very eventful, and has greatly reminded me of the downside of being a homeowner.

In the beginning of the month, I had to replace my AC unit. It was 15 years old, and in Austin Texas you cannot survive without a good, heavy duty AC unit. It runs 9 months out of the year down here. So I bit the bullet and made the very $$$ investment. It was definitely a huge hit to the bank book, but I no longer worry about my unit catching fire. Or dying in August. Or having to keep it at 82 degrees all the time.

I also no longer come home to the felines lying belly up under the ceiling fan. We're all much happier in general despite the monetary loss.

The same day of my AC unit replacement, I discovered termites in my fencing. Yup. Luckily, there were no signs of damage inside my home. Still, I figured it was only a matter of time before they migrated from the fencing into my house. Another very big expense was made to put down those wonderful termite traps in the ground around my house. I did learn that if you go with Terminex, should at some point those nasty termites get into your house and do the serious damage they do, Terminex will pay 100% of the home repair costs. That eases my mind a bit, as I can't afford house termite damage. In the meantime my fencing will remain falling to pieces.

A few days after that, my downstairs toilet sprung a leak. I spent the following Saturday learning how to replace all the parts in the tank. It took 3 hours, and was quite a dirty job, but I managed to pull it apart and put it back together in working order on my own. Yay! Something finally that was an affordable fix. And now I'm no longer intimidated by the toilet breaking - well, to an extent.

A week after that, I came home to a leaking toilet upstairs. I called a plumber, and luckily it was a very minor issue with the tank. Patched and fixed with a warranty. Good thing I had the warranty, because a few days later I woke up in the middle of the night to this same toilet flooding my bathroom. So glad I was home! Turns out the tube connecting the water from the shut off valve to the tank sprung a leak. Again, an easy fix, and luckily no major house damage. My bathroom floor was very clean after all that mopping.

Needless to say, July has not been the best month for me and home owning. I've been doing a lot of fun things to compensate for everything falling apart at the same time (the fun stuff to come later) and am still in the process of attempting to train for my upcoming marathon in the fall. Texas heat makes running pretty horrid. But it'll be worth it. The destination for this race is overseas. Where? Details to come . . . . .