The Good, the Bad and the Good Again

First the Good:

This smiling baby who turned 6 weeks old today. 

She has been smiling since about 4 weeks.  I was holding her today and getting ready to take Owen to school.  Each time I looked down at her I found her smiling at me.  There is something so sweet about a baby smiling. 

She still loves to be held a lot and has permanently made her way into the bed to sleep with me (although, that didn’t take much work or convincing on her part).  Owen says he is glad she is a girl cause girls are cuter than boys.  Ivy still doesn’t understand personal space and thinks kisses on the baby’s head with her binky in are still super special.  We switched to Tide Free and Clear and her bumpy rash on her body has started to go away.  Life with her is good.   

Happy 6 weeks teeny one.

Now the Bad: (which has nothing to do with the good, I just wanted to remember the good when thinking about the stress of the bad)

I was working the other day and kept smelling a gas smell at my desk coming through the vent.  Greg couldn’t smell it (not that I was surprised).  I have been waiting for the furnace to have a problem and was concerned that the smell was coming through the vent from the garage.  Time for a service call.  We knew the furnace was on its last legs.  It was the one thing that was not new or replaced with the house when the previous owners remodeled the entire place.  It was only a matter of time. 

Well, the guy came out today while I was at work and apparently it was time.  Through a series of text messages with Kristi I was informed the heater was NO longer.  Shut off.  In fact, the diagnostic notes include a statement that says: Furnace is Dangerous.  Lovely.  We have been living in the house with a DANGEROUS furnace.  Tonight we have no heat. (I would gladly have no heat than a dangerous furnace.)  I am waiting for an email tomorrow containing a bid as to the replacement cost of the new furnace.  So tonight, we are dressed in sweatshirts, heaters are going and we have a fire (thank heavens the fire didn’t mean the end of all of us with gas in the house).  Hopefully the new furnace will be up and functional by tomorrow.

Which leads me to the good again: (which is actually the good and the bad again)

We have wanted air conditioning for some time now.  I hate to be hot and not be able to do anything about it.  Not a lot of people have air conditioning around here, but who cares what other people do, I hate to be hot.  We have talked about that time when we replace the furnace, to add a heat pump, which saves on gas costs during the winter and then functions as an air conditioner during the summer.  Well, that time has come, and we have to decide.  A furnace alone is around $2000 while the heat pump makes it about $5,000.  Merry Christmas to me? So the good – I may have the air conditioning I have always dreamed about.  The bad – I really didn’t want to spend $5,000 right now (but then again, is there a price tag on comfort when you HATE to be hot – probably not).   So tomorrow we decide, but I think I already know the answer and I am so excited.

So, tonight I will forget the price, forget about the freezing night we may have because how can you care about any of that when you have this:

and I will throw in these guys for extra help in not caring.