Garage Doors: A Brief Complaint

So for 12 years of married life, I lived garage-free.

I know. Unthinkable. HOW HAVE I SURVIVED?  And with an infant for a few of those years, no less.  How un-American, how un-patriotic, how Socialist of me.

But now, not only do we own a garage, we own not one but TWO garage doors.

And do you know what that means?  That means double the expenditure to fix the damn things.

Sears was out a week ago to fix T’s side,…for $200.  My side went out a couple weeks ago when the spring broke.  And then T’s side started acting funky again a few days ago. So let’s get BOTH springs replaced.

So we called another garage door place and they were running a replacement special for $145 for one or $210 for two and then when I called them back to schedule an appt, well it was $145 per spring, so for two doors it would be $290. Ok, $300 bucks, that’s ok.

So the guy gets out here, well, it’s $145 per spring for the spring that lasts 2 or 3 years but it’s only $215 per spring for a spring that lasts 7 – 8 years. Oh and he recommends TWO springs PER DOOR so:

$215 per spring x 4 springs = $860, which is a far cry from the original $300.

So, I say, do one door with ONE longer-lasting spring.

Ok.  But then in a phone huddle with T, we decide we’ll just do the ONE cheaper spring on ONE door and then see where we are down the road

OK.

THEN, the guy comes and knocks on the door. Well, I don’t have any cables on that door so it will be $51 for the cables.  Well, my dad fiddled with the cables a couple weeks ago when he was trying get the door to open and threw them out so yeah, I need new cables. Oh, but wait, the bearings on the door are very squeaky and they could rub through the pipe and the pipe could actually break and the door could fall BUT they are running a special to get all that replaced PLUS new rollers for $499.

Ok, so.

I say no, thanks, we can’t swing that right now.

And in a phone huddle with T he says, no, we should probably do it.

So back to the give the guy the ok.

And THEN T calls back and says he saw the exact same scenario online from another customer and that that sounded kind of suspicious to him and so I rush right back out and CANCEL the $499 package, which Guy wasn’t too happy about…and it COULD have been ligit, who knows, but still,

And MEANWHILE Miles is upset because I’m talking to Guy and decides he needs milk and cereal IMMEDIATELY and isn’t afraid to voice his complaints. And I”M irritated because just tell me up front what things are going to cost so I can make a decision PRIOR to your guy coming and telling me that my garage doors could fall down and kill me and I need to spend AT LEAST $500 to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Seriously, $500 for ONE GARAGE DOOR? 

For that price, I can just keep parking outside.

Just like I’ve been doing for the past dozen years.

Just call me unAmerican but I’ll be the one with the money in the bank.  (until next week, when we finish paying the midwife :S)

Random

I’ve been trying to compose a coherent post for about an hour now and I feel like, bleh, not really worth it.

So here’s a brief run-down of the thots in my head right now:

1.I’m considering ingesting my placenta. Not MY placenta, actually, but my baby’s

 T didn’t want to start trying to have a baby until later in the summer because he said things would be too busy at work this time of year for him to get time off.  well. i didn’t want to wait since it took 6 months to get Miles started.  Turns out it took exactly 1/6 of that amount of time for me to get knocked up this time.  Also turns out that T wasn’t kidding about not getting time off.  Head-in-the-sand me thot SURELY he’d be able to get a week off or so but actually, no.  So unless Baby comes about 10 days post-due date, T’s not going to have a chance to be around.  So therefore I messed up big time.  And be it on my own head.  Actually, after a breather in March, he’ll be back to the grind until about May, so in fact there really wasn’t a perfect time for this birth. Unless it was before the beginning of this year. Which its too late to change now.

Along with that, I just remember being terribly depressed with Miles. And the thot of feeling that way again terrifies me, actually.  The PPD lasted the better part of a year and I really do NOT want to go there again, esp with T so busy with work.

So.

Enter the placenta.  APPARENTLY, the hormonal and whatever-else content of the placenta is something that helps both boost energy and alleviate PPD. Even if it doesn’t, what can it hurt to try?  It’s gotta be cheaper than therapy and much less tedious that someone calling Child Protective Services on you.  Every other live-birthing animal eats the placenta so it’s really just biological.

That said, yep, it sounds icky.  Enter encapsulation.  The placenta is steamed, dehydrated, powdered and put into capsule form. Then you take a couple a day as needed along with a healthy helping of chocolate.  Just kidding about the chocolate part. No, wait. I’m not.  BUT, its expensive to have done so it looks like I might actually have an excuse to buy a dehydrator and try to get to it myself, which I didn’t want to do, but money’s been flying out the window right and left lately, so if I want to actually try this, I’ll have to do it myself, I think.

Anyway, there you go. I might eat my placenta.

2. T’s been diagnosed with Celiac disease. If you don’t know what that means, its just basically that his body can’t tolerate gluten, which is found in wheat, rye and barley (and beer).  The gluten actually damages the GI tract and essentially the person with this ends up not being able to absorb nutrients. Kind of like a starvation of a kind.  Lots of celiac people have really severe reactions to gluten but T does not so it wasn’t on our radar. It’s not a terribly big deal but has involved changing over the flours I use in baking.  And, of course, the beer issue.  very, very sad.

3.  I buy good-quality, expensive eggs and it has galled me to have to use them in baking things like cookies or other unhealthy treats when they cost so much.  So I found out that a good egg replacer formula is this:

1 tbsp ground flax seed + 3 tbsp water = 1 egg

So there you go. Save your $4/doz free-range eggs for eating straight up and put flax in your brownies.  It’s a win-win situation.

4. That’s all really.  I know. Very random.  However, 7-layer brownies are calling my name and I must obey.

ttfn~~