My Single Mom Life

The washing machine has been acting up in a bad way lately, it's been making this grinding noise during all of the cycles, and one night when doing the laundry, I had to shut it off because the belt was burning.
I know it was burning because of the following:
1) the smell
2) the smoke that filled the room
If the washing machine continues to act up, if the belt starts burning again, it looks like I may have to purchase a new one with my income tax return.
I don't want to spend money on that, I'd much rather do something fun with the money, like take the teens to visit their family up north or some sort of other family vacation, but if the washer breaks, I absolutely have to have a new one.

When we first moved in here, I didn't have a washer or dryer, so we had to go to the laundromat every Saturday morning, it cost roughly $12-$15 dollars in quarters because the dryers never, ever seemed to dry on just one or sometimes even two pay cycles, and it would take about six-seven hours to wash and dry it all, and then come home and fold it all, and then put it all away.
I refuse to ever have to go back to a laundromat again, it just sucks!

So if the washer breaks, I am hoping that I can either find one locally and really cheap, or get one for a really good sale price, and Buy.com has some nice washers that are priced LOWER than two of my local appliance stores.
I did some price comparisons the other day with these washers, and yeah, Buy.com is definitely priced lower on these two models.

This LG Electronics Electronics 5.2 Cu. Ft. Top Load Washer is priced at $998.98 with free shipping at Buy.com.
At one of my local appliance places, it is priced at $1,079.99 with a $150 fee for delivery of the new one, and removal of the old washer.
The other local place has it listed at $1,059.99 with a $100 fee for delivery of the new one, and removal of the old washer.

This LG Electronics WM2050CW 4.0 Cu. Ft. Large Capacity Front Load Washer is priced at $879.00 including shipping at Buy.com.
At the first appliance place, they also have it priced at $879.00 but with the $150 fee for delivery of the new one, and removal of the old washer.
At the second place, they also have it priced at $879.00 and with the $100 fee for delivery of the new one, and removal of the old washer.

If I go with either model from Buy.com, it will be delivered for free, and as far as removal of my old washer goes, all I would need to do is get a dolly and roll it out to the end of the carport.
There's an appliance place in the plaza up the street from me, and they have two guys who go driving around town with a huge truck with a lift, and all they do is find and pick up broken washers and dryers that people leave at their curbs.
The store then repairs and sells them for outrageous prices as "used" appliances, they don't tell people that they go picking up broken ones from around town.

I really hope that I don't have to buy a new one, but if I do, I am definitely buying a new one, not a used one so that it comes with the warranty and everything.
Just keep your fingers crossed that the washer holds out for just a little longer.

Posted by Kat at 1:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Yesterday, Tuesday, Mark and I took a walk and went up to CVS to get his script and a Moneypak card so that I could pay my hosting bill and the water bill, and then we stopped and had lunch at the Chinese place near there.
I use the Moneypak cards because I can add cash to the Moneypak card and then transfer it to my PayPal account, and then use my PayPal card to pay my bills.
My web hosting company, ICDSoft.com, takes PayPal directly, so I used PayPal to pay the hosting renewal bill, and then the card to pay the water bill.

Mark and I had a really great lunch (or so we thought) and we talked about a lot of things.
Mark has spent a lot of time online researching his spine problems, the Spondylolysis and Spondylolisthesis, he wanted to know for himself exactly what he has, not just hear the doctors say those big words to him and not really explain what anything is or how it can be corrected, so we talked about all of the information he learned and a whole bunch of other really interesting subjects he looked up online as well.
We took a really slow walk home because after walking there, I was simply in too much pain to walk quickly back home.
To be honest, I should have spent the stinking $7 and taken a cab home, I'm still in pain from the walk.

But anyway, everything was going good, (or so I thought), until around 6:30pm or so.
When we came home from our errands, Mark went and laid down, he wanted to take a small nap and I had no objection to that because he had actually been up all night.
Sebastian was going to wake him at 7pm because I went to my friend Nikki's house because she was going to help me dye my hair.
While I was sitting there with dye in my hair, Sebastian calls and tells me that Mark is feeling really nauseous and is "sorta green looking".
I told him that I would be back home as fast as I possibly could, and to just tell Mark to stay laying down and take it easy.
While there for about another 45 minutes, I got two more calls from Sebastian telling me that Mark had now puked three times and for me to not rush home, he was just giving me updates.
When I got in the door, Mark was definitely green looking, he had now puked a total of five times, and he got up and ran into the bathroom again to go for round six.
Poor kid.
He had the curry chicken at the Chinese place, and something must have been really wrong with it because Mark definitely has food poisoning.
I do believe it's all over now, (I hope) he's been in bed sound asleep since about 11:30pm, he hasn't puked again, and the wicked bad stomach cramps that he said he was having, have totally stopped too
What was a nice lunch and really great talk with Mark, turned into him being sick for hours because of that "nice lunch":
Ugh.

I've been awake all night (nothing new there) and just sitting here thinking about a lot of things, mindlessly watching crap on the tv, and trying really hard to get myself out of this horrible depression that I've been in for several months now because of all of the new medical issues that I'm dealing with.
I so just want it all to stop, after all of these years, I just want the medical crap to stop.
It's just not going to, not anytime soon anyway.
So I was sitting here and then decided to go lay on the couch and surf the channels looking for anything even halfway decent to watch, and it was cold in here even with the blanket I was wrapped up in, and I was thinking how much I used to love my electric blanket when I was a teenager and how nice it would be to have one now for the winters here because we don't have heat in this house, it usually doesn't ever get cold enough for the use of heat.
That's when the cats realized that I was on the couch with the blanket, they love the blanket, and they love it when someone is on the couch with it, they all come cuddling up on you.
After about 15 - 20 minutes with Kali, Nova, Shahiro, and Simba all curled up on top of me, I was definitely not cold anymore, as a matter of fact, I had to get back up off of the couch because I was sweating.
The cats are like little fur-covered breathing electric blankets. hahaha!
They cuddle all up, start purring, and within minutes, you're definitely not cold anymore.

I got up off of the couch over two hours ago and I've now just been sitting here mindlessly surfing the channels again, thinking, and trying to find the positive in all of this stuff and wondering why, why I go in for one painful medical issue in my left hip, and come back out with two medical issues, one in each hip!
I keep telling myself to laugh, you know, gotta laugh because if you don't, you'll cry, and I do end up laughing because of the insanity of it all.
I just wonder how many more things can possibly go wrong with my body, how many more titanium implants I can get inside of me, and wondering when it's all going to stop, when I'm finally going to catch that break that everyone keeps telling me that I should be getting really soon.

Posted by Kat at 4:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mark just left with his friend Jeff, he won't be back home until sometime tomorrow, probably after dinner time.
Sebastian left yesterday with my sister, he won't be home until tomorrow, probably sometime after dinner time.
My sister is taking him and my adorable nieces to do some fun things this weekend.
They are finally going somewhere that Sebastian wanted to go when he was little so so bad, and they are finally going today.
Even at age 17, Sebastian was very excited!
Where are they going?!
You might all think it's totally hokey, but it's not really, it's kind of like Jurassic Park but the dinosaurs are not going to eat you.
They are going to Dinosaur World, they have over 150 life-sized and life-like dinosaurs that are all man made, and I think, think, that some of them move, not really sure about that, but I could have sworn that some of them have some robotic movement.
I am sure that Sebastian is going to have a really good time, he always wanted to go when he was little, so he was very excited when he came home yesterday and I told him to pack his clothes for the weekend.
I can't remember why we didn't take the boys when they were little, but we just didn't.
We took them to every other theme park in Florida, but not that one.
Is it really a theme park?
I don't think so, I am sure there are no rides, I think it's just all dinosaurs, but it should be a good time anyway.
My nieces love dinosaurs just like the boys did, so sis is taking them there today.
Mark didn't want to go, he's just not as interested in them as he was way back when he was little, I guess.
Mark prefers video games, food, and sleeping these days.

In my clumsy news, I often lose feeling in my feet, worse if I cross my legs, and I was sitting here in my chair last night talking to a friend on the phone for about an hour with my legs crossed.
When I finished and got up to hang up the phone, I didn't even realize that I had put my right leg and foot to sleep, and when I stood up, I came right back down between the couch and the coffee table with a bone breaking and very loud "cruuuuuuuunch".
I have obviously done something really bad to it, I am pretty sure that at least one toe, the big one, is broken, along with maybe a fracture in the top of my foot, and a really bad sprain of the ankle.
My entire right foot is swollen and black and blue, that means broken right?

So I'm just taking it as easy as I possibly can today, just hanging out watching movies and crap shows from the couch.
I'm watching and actually enjoying, Julie & Julia right now on Mark's LCD HDTV that he brought out here for me so I could enjoy a good picture.
My sis got him the tv for graduating high school, and he just thought I'd like to see movies look good today.
Heck, everything looks good on it, not just movies.
It's not too bad of a movie, or maybe that's the pain killers and the muscle relaxers talking, don't know, but it's really not that bad at all.

Later days.

Posted by Kat at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know that I haven't blogged much at all, it's been since before Christmas here at this blog, eeek!

I have been sort of updating at KatScan, and I have just posted an update about what I've been dealing with for the last few months, and my doctor's plans to try and help me.

Posted by Kat at 9:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)