Wow, almost caught up. How scary is that? I borrowed these pipe wrenches from my dad, in hopes that That One would be able to replace the heating element on my water heater while he was here this weekend. That leads, of course, to a story. You need to know, if you haven’t realized it by now, that he never rushes. He’s not slow and he’s not lazy, but he is methodical and purpose oriented, and a *very quick thinker*. Now, by the time he got here, we had hot water. After he’d been here several hours, I finally had a chance to tell him about the way we ended up getting hot water again. I had pressed up against some insulation on the side of the tank, and the heater had made a noise that I recreated with my mouth and viola! hot water. Yay!

So, I suggested maybe we would be able to just pull off that duct tape and insulation and look at the thermostat and that would solve the problem. And so he said come on, and grabbed my huge new flashlight, and into the master closet we went. And he carefully pulled back that tape and some of the insulation and we both saw pretty colors coming through what was left next to the heater and I said “oh shit” and asked if he wanted me to flip the breaker. He said no, the wall switch would do, and so I hit that and he continued to pull off the burned *fireproof* insulation and reveal a melted thermostat. And then I flipped the breaker, went back to the closet and pretty much sagged to the floor as he explained that we had come very close to dying a fiery death. The thing had been sparking and shorting for quite a while. Like, not a day or so, but a while.

That little noise that I described as shhhhhhh, like water was actually a lot of little pops in rapid succession. So, now I have to have a new hot water heater. Yay me. Did I mention I also need to pay for a car repair, a second car repair, spay a dog, pay for boy scout camp and cover the baseball registrations that Pat said he would handle? Not to mention all the normal stuff? Yeah, fun times. And that would be why my stress level is mounting as I mentioned in this morning’s Self Portrait Sunday. I am so over dealing with all this crap.