Life has a way of throwing curve balls – when you least expect it. Here are mine:

1. Just when I've spent all of my spare $ on a motorcycle – my furnace dies. And we're talking dead, gone, never-to-heat again.
2. In addition – the hot water heater is leaking so it needs to be replaced.
3. My oldest son wants to keep a puppy from the recent litter, and I have to keep the runt – who is blind in one eye, but the cutest darn thing in the world – so now I have 4 pugs in my family!
4. Momma Pug (“Xena”) has an infection in her uterus so she's scheduled to be spayed next Monday.
5. My car insurance is being renewed BUT because Ryan now is an official driver – the rates went up pretty substantially ($2,864 per 6 months IF we pay in full by 9/30)
6. My homeowner's insurance company (AIG Direct) sent me a notice that they are selling that line of business to another carrier who is increasing my homeowner's insurance from $400/year to $582. Now from what I can tell, I'm underinsured anyway and the quotes I'm getting for homeowners insurance are running about double that. AND it doesn't appear that the coverage would even be good should my oldest son's camera or other movie-making equipment be involved in any kind of loss.

I won't bore anyone with more of this crap but the bottom line is I have LOTS on my plate right now. The good news is that I'm VERY good at functioning in chaos – thanks to my wonderfully dysfunctional family of origin so all of the above are being addressed as follows:

1 & 2. Found a very good used furnace for $300, and an installer who will do it for $500 on craigslist. That's getting done this Saturday. He's also going to install (for free) the water heater I found at Lowes that was a little dented so they gave me 10% off.
3. I love animals so this will be OK – just takes a little adjusting to feeding schedules, locations, etc.
4. We don't want any more puppies anyway so this is indeed a good thing.
5. Mark – my ex – has always been very helpful in this area and he's going to pay for Ryan's coverage – THANK YOU, MARK!
6. Found an insurance broker who's helping me find coverage that makes more sense for us. I'll also address making sure that Matt's film-making equipment is insured somehow.

Anyway………….. that's all for now! You all have a wonderful weekend and always remember………. ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING!