As you may remember, 2016 did not start out as a kind year to us in a stuff-not-breaking sense. And when you are six people on one income, stuff breaking gets stressful pretty quick, so we decided we needed a jump-start to turn around both our perspective and our budget in this new year. Our jump-start of choice came in the form of a Financial Peace University class taught by friends here in town and I’m so happy to say that it totally worked. [Note: please pardon my unexplained Dave Ramsey references throughout the post; if you have a question about one of them please ask!]

In the first two weeks of the nine-week course, we found small changes we could make that would lead to bigger changes in the long-term. Our energy and perspective shifted, too, and the universe must have felt that a bit because suddenly I was being offered extra work, both in the immediate  “now” and for later this year, all of which was totally awesome and meant that our “debt snowball” would go crashing down the mountain much, much faster than anticipated.

Cool, right?!

Of course, just because you start to get everything in order does not mean it is going to stay there. And why not? Because, adulting. I don’t know about you, but in my experience adulting is almost always total crap.

Adulting of that variety hit us hard right before Easter when our washer died. Thankfully, because of the extra work (both literally and with our budget spreadsheet), we were able to navigate that situation fairly well and with only a partial, not total, blow to our emergency fund.

Cool, right?!

Then, less than a week later, the coffee maker broke.

OK, so that one was not the end of the world (yes it was) because a coffee maker is nothing compared to a washing machine in terms of budget buster, and fortunately I already had a back up one-cup brewer on hand, so all was well and this mama was still fully caffeinated.

I mention the coffee maker, though, because our house seems to have been sucked into some bizarre Bermuda Triangle henceforth known as Appliance Gate (which I am back-logging to include the broken fuel pump on the van, the busted toilet, and shower leaking) when this weekend the coffee maker started working again (small wonders) AND THE REFRIGERATOR DIED (big problem). 

And wouldn’t you know we didn’t realize it was really actually struggling and death rattling at us and not just suffering from a case of someone-didn’t-shut-the-freezer-door properly until 9:45 last night? I believe that an -ahem- AYFKM is in order here, no? And the AYFKM should probably be followed by at least three interobangs, don’t you think?!?!?! Yeah – me, too.

So, yeah. Fridge stopped working some time yesterday, Sunday, and last night when I wanted nothing more than to be in bed trying to catch a nap (because let’s face it, any of the “sleep” I am getting right now is just glorified napping) before the baby woke up to nurse, we were instead scrambling to get food in our deep freeze, taken over to a friend’s spare fridge (bless them!), and the rest of what we would need for today put into a cooler on ice.

And then came today with its fun waiting game – you know, the one where you call the repair shop and they give you a window of time in which they will come save you (good God in heaven, you hope) and your coolers of food from melting/wasting/illness but then they don’t come during that time and you instead spend the whole morning answering questions from your 2yo about why the milk isn’t in the fridge and when the man is coming to fix it and why he isn’t here yet. You know – that fun and hilarity.

And when the dude finally does come and tells you the compressor on your 10-15 year old appliance (we inherited it four years ago with the house) is dead and your heart crashes into your toes because this is another huge step backward when you thought you were finally moving forward (even though you had to buy another major appliance just a week and a half ago) and now you also have to say goodbye to your summer wish of going to a yoga festival (oh, wait – that’s probably not a universal feeling, is it?) and you STILL don’t have a working device to keep fresh food in your house for your family and won’t for the next day or more because the bad news came so late in the day that there was no time to even think about replacement? That my friends, is a big fat kick in the adulting pants.

So. Here’s what I’ve decided. In the tenth year of marriage, everything falls apart. Thankfully I don’t mean anything with the marriage itself. But apparently 10 years in is when the worldly possessions start to crap out, which I guess really could test and stretch even the happiest of unions. And here is my other declaration – 2016 is on notice. And it has only until our actual 10th anniversary in August to get its act together and KNOCK THIS SHIT OFF.

I am done dealing, Appliance Gate. We will gladly replace the rest of you as needed once we have the money to do so, but until then, for the love of all things holy, HANG ON!