Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Murphy's Law?

I was SO ready to throw in the towel during the last few days. On Sunday, I had dinner cooking in the kitchen and had just thrown a load of laundry in the washing machine. The girls were playing a game in the dining area, being kind to one another for once, and I was sitting here at my computer working away. I suddenly realized the sound of water running into the machine was much louder than it should have been. As there is a wall between my desk and the area of the house where the washing machine is, I asked the girls if they could hear water running somewhere. They both sort of laughed and said, "DUH! It's the washing machine!" I told them that I realized that, but it sounded like the water was pouring into the machine funny. They just kept laughing until I told them it wasn't funny, because I needed to know if we were getting flooded. Suddenly the laughter stopped and they started shrieking, "The whole kitchen's flooded!!" I raced into the kitchen to discover that the washing machine had not stopped filling, so it was overflowing all over the floor. Ordinarily, this kind of thing would just be a nuisance and a mess to clean up, but we live in a mobile home. Mobile homes have pressed wood underneath the carpeting or linoleum...NOT a concrete foundation! After switching off the washing machine, we quickly grabbed the closest thing available to sop up all the water - the girls' blankets, which they had been sitting on while playing their game. When I called my dad for advice, he asked if I had a ShopVac. YES!! I DO!! We used that to suck up most of the water, but the carpet in the hallway was still extremely wet, so I set a fan to blow down the hallway on high. It took three days to dry it out and I am praying that the wood underneath isn't damaged so badly that one of these days we will end up falling through.

The next day, my dad came over to look at the washing machine and try to figure out what was wrong with it. While testing it out, he noticed that water was also leaking out of the bottom of the machine. NOT a good sign! Apparently, the water level regulator has gone bad, but also the seal at the bottom of the washtub is leaking. SO, it would not be cost effective to try to repair this washing machine. Two kids and no washing machine?!?! YIKES!! Fortunately, I was able to go to my parents' house the next day and wash the clothes that had been in the washer as well as washing the girls' blankets. I still had to figure out how I was going to afford a new washing machine, though.

Also on Monday, I noticed that my cell phone wasn't working properly. I rely on my cell phone for most of my telephone communications, as I only have very basic phone service on my landline. Being without my cell phone is not a good thing. It appeared that something was not right with the settings on the phone, because all of the functions were working properly EXCEPT text messaging and making phone calls. Text messages simply would not go through and when I attempted to make a phone call, I would either get a message that said "Emergency calls only" or the phone would appear to be dialing the number, but would disconnect the call before it started ringing. When I went back to my parents' house to collect our clean laundry on Monday evening, I put my SIM card into my dad's phone and it worked perfectly. Oh great. That meant the problem was with my phone and I would probably have to get a new one. I can't afford a new one! Thankfully, I do have an older phone that I can use, but I would still need to figure out how to purchase a new charger for it...not an easy thing to do when you have less than $1.00 in your pocket.

Things have a way of working out for the best when you least expect it, though. I was talking with a friend on Tuesday about my washing machine breaking and the fact that I couldn't afford a new one. She mentioned that she and her fiancee have a washing machine they are not using and that I could have it! Also on Tuesday, I went to the AT&T store to find out if there was anything that could be done to salvage my phone and discovered that they were having intermittent network outages in my area. WHAT??? I had spent 45 minutes on the phone with Customer Care, during which time they told me there were NOT any outages in my area! The salesperson at the AT&T store told me that she had been hearing that from customers that lived in my area all day long and had reported it to upper management at Customer Care. All's well that ends well, and the service seems to be working fine now.

So, as I breathe a huge sigh of relief at my two problems getting resolved and go make myself a cup of coffee, I wish you all a happy and healthy day.

God bless,

~Keri

1 comment:

Lissaloo said...

Wow, It's amazing how sometimes even when things seem to be sliding down hill there is a higher power who knows what we need. I'm glad to hear everything worked out alright in the end :)