Dumb Luck...

The vacuum.  The phone.  The microwave.  The fridge.  The van.  A series of unfortunate events.  I think I've gone through 6 vacuums since '02.  No joke.  I think I told friends 9 but truthfully it has been 6.  I kept using this last one but felt guilty every time i did so because I watched the dirt spit back out onto the carpet.  My resolution was to not watch.  Or have the boys vacuum.  It's sick, I know, but I wasn't in the market yet for a new one, especially since we had been having troubles with our phone.

At first it was the phone line.  We had it checked.  I was so convinced it wasn't us, I allowed Verizon to come out even after they nicely threatened we'd pay the million dollar service call if it was our phone's fault.  It was fixed for awhile but then we had problems again.  I plugged in our ghetto phone and we haven't had a problem since.  Except we no longer have caller id and and answering machine.  We're very old school so we've been okay with having a plug in phone.  Especially when out tv shows who's calling.  The problem comes when important info cannot be translated to us because we have no way to retrieve messages. {and, no, there's also no way to leave them but whatever.}  Keith called me from Sam's a few weeks ago to ask about purchasing a  new phone.  I told him to wait.

Keith had to run the microwave twice to cook a frozen meal.  I assumed  it was operator error.  Until I used it.  Then I knew there was something wrong. ☺  The timer and lights work, and it even makes the "cooking" sound but that's about it.  I turned on the oven to warm up leftover spaghetti and the other day Caleb ran out to the camper to make microwaveable mac and cheese.  I keep using ghetto and old school interchangeably when I talk about this...funny.  Kristin has given us her old mountable microwave because she updated her kitchen.  It's been sitting in our garage and will do so until football season is over.  It's a good thing the rest of our appliances, though old, are in good working order.

Saturday afternoon we rented a handful of moveies to watch.  Sitting downstairs, I was bothered by the constant ticking sound our fridge was making.  I heard it the day before and  checked that the plug was all the way in the outlet and that the doors were firmly closed.  Hearing it again the next day, over and over again, I decided to check into it further.  I opened the freezer and I found only a puddle of water.  Not good.  I opened the fridge door and all looked good.  Until I felt one of the cans.  More of the not good stuff.  I turned the thermostat all the way up and checked in again later.  No luck.  I pulled everything out, including two barely opened daquiri mixes, brought what I could upstairs{what was still salvageable} and {gulp} poured the rest down the drain.  Another one bites the dust.  At least we still have our health, each other and our vehicles.

After church yesterday we stopped for our weekly after-church Wesco buy.  I had two less to buy for {K was at a football meeting and Kyle was at the Buchbergers} so I agreed to snacks along with drinks.  Happy, happy.  Joy, joy.  I put my key in the ignition.  That's it.  That's all I did.  That's all that happened.  Dead.  Dead, dead, dead.  Oh, except my needles all did a jig every time I tried to start the van.  It kind of freaked me out.  I had to call K and drag him out of his meeting, thinking I just needed a jump and then he could go back to the school.  In the meantime, I called my BIL and he totally freaked me out.  I called the tow guy and luckily he was the one working so he picked up my van and took it to his shop.  Gotta love a guy who not only works on Sunday, but also doesn't charge for the service call,  gets me a new battery and has my van waiting for me on the same day.

My super duper life luck in a nutshell.  Super fun!  I thought this stuff happens in threes...must be I'm doubly lucky and one more thing is going to break down on me.  Wonder what it'll be...???