Post Holiday Crud, and other news

Jason and I came home from Stephanie's house with the crud. We used to call this sort of thing 'con crud' because normally you picked it up at whatever convention you'd been to that weekend. But since he and I aren't part of that world anymore, it's the 'post holiday crud' now, because typically, we get it from having gone somewhere other than our house. Mostly it's sinus issues, though he seems to have gotten it worse than me. Either that, or (as he suggested to one of the ladies he works with) I'm just not as much of a baby when I'm sick as he is.

A lot has happened since my last posting .. which really wasn't all that long ago. Two weeks ago exactly, at this time, I was dealing with the aftermath of a burglary in my home. Some 19-year-old nitwit broke into our home and stole Jason's and my wedding rings, the Wii and our games, Jason's laptop (but left mine sitting in plain sight), and a ring Jason had bought for me that was hidden well in Jason's office closet.

The whole story starts like this: I left that morning to pick Brandon up. We were planning to spend the night at Jason's parents' house since they were supposed to be out of town. Well, on the way back I had to stop to get gas .. I hadn't been planning on it but when the gauge says 'E' you kinda have to. Anyway, we got home about noon and I sorta half noticed that the laptop wasn't where I remembered it being. Then I saw my jewelry box and the drawer it was in were sitting on my desk. And I went upstairs .. looking for the laptop .. and saw the jewelry armoire honey got for me on our honeymoon was standing open too.

All of this didn't necessarily add up to being robbed though, and I continued to go about my routine, commenting to Brandon that "Jason must have come home and got the rings because he's gonna have them sized for Christmas .. how sweet is my honey?" I decided, however, to call him anyway, just in case. I started to go about my business and emptied the dishwasher, and Brandon commented 'Someone's been in the presents.. ' and I remember fussing at isis for it.

That's when I reached Jason, and he told me that no, he hadn't been home and that if the deadbolt was locked I needed to get the heck out of the house.  Which I did. We went and sat in the car while I called the police and waited for them to get there. I was starting to fall apart then, realizing that someone had been in my house .. in our bedroom .. and had taken our wedding rings. That was the worst part, really. I was terrified we'd never see them again.

The police responded pretty quickly .. first with a single officer who checked the house out for me, figured out the guy'd gotten in through the back office window, and assured me the house was empty, then with the K-9 units and finally the forensics units. Jason got home not long after and helped reassure me everything was alright. Brandon and I went over to momma and diddy's a few hours later, while the cops were searching the neighborhood .. one of the K-9 officers told me they were sure he hadn't managed to leave the neighborhood.

The story does have a happy ending. About 6pm Jason called me to tell me that they'd caught the guy and that all our stuff had been recovered. We stayed at the in-laws' house that night, though the window was 'secured' by use of a 2x4 jamming the window in place, and spent a lot of the time stalking the York County Sheriff's Current Inmate's website to get a look at the idiot who was caught.  His name is Gavyn Michael Lovett, and he just turned 19 on December 1st. Come to find out this is not his first time at the rodeo, and he's more than likely ruined his life with this most recent run of burglaries.

The next day I was on my way to bring Brandon back home to Kannapolis when the detective handling the case called me to have me come pick up my possessions. If I hadn't gone then, I'd have had to wait because everything would be in the evidence locker. Of course, i went and picked it up .. including the ring Jason bought me for a Christmas gift. So we have everything that was stolen .. except for our peace-of-mind. But that will come in time. We have to send our laptops in for repair .. mine got covered in magnetic fingerprint dust so I want to checked, and Jason's using the opportunity to have it fixed finally. In addition, we have to have the back window replaced, and are using the burglary to get the bedroom door replaced and probably replacing a couple of chairs as well. There's lots to get done still. But we're getting there.

Survived

Well, on Wednesday, our AC went out. It didn't go out until the evening, but by 7pm it was 78-degrees downstairs.. add ten degrees for the temp upstairs with no AC working.  By 7:30pm it was 81-degrees downstairs. We couldn't sleep in that, so we packed a few things and spent the night at Jason's mother's house. Thank the gods that she lives close by, we'd probably have had to stay in a hotel otherwise.

The following morning I came back to the house to check it .. still not working. So I filed a request for service with American Home Shield and proceeded to do some last-minute cleaning up. It didn't need much really, luckily - thanks to the RTH group on Ravelry, I'm inspired to keep my home neat enough for visitors all the time - but I had to vacuum downstairs, and put a few things away, and wanted to close blinds and curtains to try to keep most of the heat out. At 9am it was already 85-degrees downstairs; again, add ten degrees for upstairs, at least.  The man called, said he'd be here between 2 and 5pm and I went back to MILs house to spend the day there. I did some homework, I knitted a lot, and I waited.

Three-o-clock came and went. Four-o-clock. I went over to the house around 4:30pm to make sure I had a checkbook, but it was too hot to stay. Closer to 88 downstairs. Probably a hundred upstairs. Five-o-clock came and went, and no phone call, nothing. I finally called the main number around 5:45 to get an update. Then again around 6:15 when I still hadn't been called. The owner called me about 5 minutes later, then 5 minutes or so after that to let me know the man was in my driveway. He could have called, I'm thinking, to let me know he was on his way, but I'm being Southern, and holding my tongue.

Jason was closer even than I was, so he went to the house, waited while the guy replaced a capacitor that was apparently the culprit, and packed more clothes for himself for today. It wouldn't cool off in time for us to sleep there sadly, so we had to spend another night not in our own bed.  Isis had to spend another night not in her home, using not her own litterbox, but she survived it, bless her little heart.

Thankfully, it only cost us $60 .. well, plus the $500 for the AHS contract for the year. But that covers everything in the house through this summer and most of next. And by then, hopefully, we'll be in a better financial position. For one thing, I -should- have a job by then.

Rawgleflurgle!

So. I've been emailing back and forth with dell's tech support, and I thought I had the problem licked, but now it's giving me the same error it gave after Jason first touched the computer, something about windows failing to restart properly and options to run repair mode or start windows.. I swear, he is death for technology!

I've done about half a dozen things to it, including taking the hard drive out and wiping it off with a cloth. That seemed to work, but then it gave me some more issues. now it -seems- to be okay, except it's installing updates and has been sitting on the same one forever. Ooops! It just clicked to the next one. So. We'll see.

Now I've restarted it a few times, and it seems to be handling it okay. I just set it to hibernate, and am gonna test it again.

*time passes*

Seems like it's fixed. I think. I'll let it sit a while, then try again, but thus far, I'm hopeful. Go me!