Very crappy two weeks!

Hello loyal readers. There hasn’t been a blog update in some time because to tell you the truth I’ve had a really crappy last couple of weeks and I haven’t really been up to writing much. But in the interest of my most excellent readership (*grin*), here’s a recap.

Erin and I got broken into. The robbers beat the crap out of Jack. The bastards took him out of his kennel so that they could beat him with a crow bar. What losers! Jack suffered cuts to his face and was bleeding from the nose very badly. After three days he bounced back well and he’s his old self again now two weeks later. The good thing is they caught one guy. Turns out he confessed to doing four B&E’s in the last month. The police have been wonderful and have done their best to investigate this case. They will be pressing charge of animal cruelty on the arrested person as well. That’s one good thing. Special thanks to all our friends and family who have been supportive in the last couple of weeks. Including Julie who rushed right over immediately to lend me her camera so I could take pictures of the big mess left behind. All my cameras were stolen of course. We’re now going through the hassles of insurance claims…bleck!

So, the next thing was to put in a security system. We got three quotes and chose Falcon Security Company. Their product best met our needs. I don’t want to have that awful feeling of coming home to a ransacked house and a half-dead dog again! It cost about $1600 to put in (first year of monitoring included) and it did decrease my house insurance premium more than I expected: 20% reduction. That’s a bit of a bright side there.

During one of the two days that I was home while the security system was being installed, Utilities Kingston came to swap out my gas meter. They also came to give me some bad news. The venting on the outside of my house for the furnace is now not up to code. It’s called B-vent and its Bad News! Risk of carbon monoxide leakage is high on these crappy set ups. I had my furnace inspected by a Heating Contractor and it turns out the furnace was on its last legs. Heck it’s a Coleman! They make tents not furnaces! So the old furnace has to go. In with a new high-efficiency Bryant 90i…. it’s a beauty…. But it hurts to pocket book. Ugh. So I am definitely bleeding money this month. Holy smokes! I need to win the lottery to pay my debts ;-(

So there’s my crappy update on my crappy last two weeks. I hope the next two weeks are as good as the last two were crappy. I wish!