I have no idea if anyone will enjoy this, or if this is appropriate, but I needed a place to vent, so here it is. Sometimes in life things just get to the point that you just have to laugh!

We are in the midst of fairly major kitchen remodel. New floors, cabinets, appliances, countertops, tile, paint, etc. This has actually been a fairly fun project, and (until this week) things have gone fairly smoothly. We are now probably 85% done, and sick of cooking microwave dinners and washing dishes in the laundry room. We're ready to get back to "normal" life.

My wife runs a day care business in our home, so our house is always very active! We are a family of 5 as well, so our "normal" state in life can be chaotic.

As many remodeling projects go, we are overbudget, and there seem to be daily "oh yeah" or "we didn't expect this" or "this won't work the way you have it planned" moments. I just try to laugh, and write the checks, and keep the project moving.

For some strange reason, we decided to do some redecorating projects at the same time, which has added some more projects for me to do myself. Installing light fixtures, painting, dealing with new furniture, getting rid of old stuff, etc.

My wife and I are stressed a bit, but getting by, until....

On Tuesday we noticed a water leak from our washing machine. It was pretty substancial, but I found several fittings and hoses that needed tightening. Hey, it's 20 years old, and gets used every day, so no big deal. I "think" I have the problem fixed.

Yesterday, as I'm dealing with contractor #14 on unexpected problem #21, I notice a smell that reminds me of a campfire. It's slight, but burning smells in the house always concern me. I don't see anything obvious, so I figure its the smell of tile-glue, pipe-dope, residual-natural-gas, or some other combination of construction smells. I leave the house, but my wife calls me back to say the smell is stronger. I go back home, and after about an hour of process of elimination, we determine that something is smoldering inside the 20 year old gas dryer.

Ok, I've known we would be replacing the washer/dryer sometime soon, but I was hoping it would wait until the kitchen was done, and give me a bit of a rest in between. Oh well. So I go to move the dryer out of the house, and I notice that there is more water from the washer. I see that it's leaking big time all over. So both washer and dryer are dead.

I pull the appliances out, and now I see that there is water damage in the laundry room, and the floor is swollen up like a balloon. We had just re-done the laundry room floor less than a year ago, too!

Day care kids are screaming, tile-guy needs some decisions, the super expensive designer fridge won't turn on, because we bought a show-room model that is set to "Demo Mode", and apparently nobody on the planet knows how to put it back into "Refrigerator" mode. There's a tiny leak in the new plumbing, and my cell phone is beeping cause the battery is low.

Then we get a call from my teenage daughter who is sick with apparently a sinus infection, so we have to go to the doctor.

Fortunately, yesterday ended without any meteior's hitting my house, or tornados, or something else, otherwise I would have probably needed to get locked up!

Today I'm calling disaster-clean-up places, searching for washer/dryers, and trying to finish up the kitchen remodel, getting prescriptions, and just dealing with normal life/work/kids/etc.

Life is funny...... ....keep on smiling, and writing checks!

Thanks for letting me vent!