Broken Week

This week saw a flurry of things break. First to go was Deb's crown which fell out two weeks ago. She had to get the ol' root canal treatment and then an interim crown. But it fell out a few days later. She saw the dentist again (note that two different dentist do the work in this process) and they stuck it back on, took the mould for the new crown and she's been fine for the time being. Mind you, the Visa took a nice $5000 hit. 

Next to break was the trash (garbage) disposal unit in the sink. It just stopped. Ok, no hurry but then I noticed it leaking everywhere underneath so it then became a hurry to get fixed. I managed to get a plumber 'on the day' I called (miracle there). Have to say he was a funny dude, he was Asian and when he checked my name as he arrived, he quickly said, 'no no, you a QUEEN' (if you know my name you'll get his joke). The Chinese shop at home says this everytime I pick up takeaway.  After discussing a few repair options and costs I opted for the less expensive repair to save the landlord some money. But we discovered the disposal unit had a long crack in it so it was not repairable. So a new disposal was fitted. Thankfully we don't pay for that $500. 

And then the car. Bit crapped off that the front brake pads need replacement. It certainly sounded pretty rough but the car is not even 2 years old. Deb reckons I drive like this picture. The forest area near home is very windy and narrow and I guess I think I'm Peter Brock on my good days and James Bond on my better days. Maybe my driving is a bit brake heavy? So ching ching $620 later and the brakes are good and my driving has not improved.

I thought they could have washed the car for me after that much money. Last time I just had a service for $44 and they washed and vac'd the car for free. I might mention this in the feedback survey.


And next was my phone. I only got it in Feb!!  The battery has been losing charge way too quick so a visit to the Apple store saw them replacing the phone completely. Apparently the battery was swelling so they don't replace the battery - too dangerous - so a whole new phone for free under warranty. Thankfully I backed everything up the night before and could easily download my info on the new phone in a jiffy. All good.  I wish they could do the same for my waistline as it's been swelling since Feb too :o 

Ah lets see, what was next. The house at home. Apparently...the bathroom and ensuite sinks are both leaking underneath again or maybe still. This first started when we left (I've never had problems in 12 years) and despite a plumber replacing all washers before we left, the leaks started. So a plumber came and fixed them (again). But it started leaking again in both bathrooms. Hmm, sounds a bit strange. So after an email rocket to the real estate advising their plumber may not have done a good job, I told them to use my plumber and talk to the tenants about hand-pressure on taps.

We enjoyed a relaxing weekend and caught up on washing, ironing, sleeping and paperwork. I had a pile of paperwork to file and sort out and I managed to find some new recipes to try out. Deb has decided she wants to do meat-free Mondays. This is her putting her little toe in the vegetarian ring. I certainly won't go vego but I guess a little less meat won't hurt. The cold weather is coming so I'm going to get the crock pot (slow cooker) out and cook some meals during the day. 

Work is keeping me busy. I have organised a monster Xmas raffle to be run. I did one at home few years ago. It's basically a no-profit raffle where all ticket sales go into prizes so the more tickets sold means more prizes are bought. The social club started with $2000 prize pool and I'm sure we'll get that easily. After that is raised, we buy more prizes. We started selling tickets on Friday and it was a smashing success. Nobody gets away without getting a ticket or 5 from me !!

The weekend has been cool but today was a shocker - really windy and cold. The dogs were restless so we had to walk them. I pulled out my wooly beanie that my sister gave me for Xmas. It was freakin' warm as toast. A guy at her work knits so he made us two beanies and my sister gave them to us for xmas last year. So here's a few pics to finish with showing us walking through the forest with all the leaves falling.