Meet our newest family member...

Hey, when you pay the amount that it cost to deliver a child

for something,it IS a part of the family!!

(Seriously... did you really think I caved and allowed another animal into the mix??!)

... So right after my post last night, my amazing hubby somehow managed to squeak out one more night of heat from our aging furnace...

... Through a series of calls, a visit from a handy-man friend, and more calls, he was able to click some teensy tinsy switches to "bypass the normal safety shutoff valves"

..."bypass the safety valves??"

... "yea... the ones that keep it from getting too hot or starting a fire and stuff like that..."

..."so basically you're telling me that this thing now is at risk for starting a fire while we are all sleeping??!"

..."ummm, yea, probably... they said we might want to schedule an appointment to have someone come out within the next week..."

..."So this think is now running at high risk, and will continue to do so until we call to schedule them to actually come out here??!"

..."yea... it should be okay for now, though..."

I called and scheduled the appointment at 8:01 in the morning (saying extra thank you prayers that we had actually made it through the night alive!~)

When the serviceman actually came out to see it, he called me in for a little 'chat' (never a good sign when a service man is in the middle of the service and not just wrapping things up...)

... then he proceeded to show me some of the things that were wrong (I love how they explain things as if you do a nightly study of the ins and outs of the mechanical workings of your home furnace system... and I love even more how many of us nod and talk back as if we actually understand what this greekish sounding language is actually talking about), and then shows me a crack in part of the system and proceeds to tell me, "by law I can't turn this heater back on with that crack... it allows carbon monoxide to get into the circulating air..."

... so all night while I was stressing that our heater would start a fire any minute, and trying to determine how to best care for my children: provide heat for them at the risk of a fire or turn it off and have everyone freeze... I was actually allowing carbon monoxide fumes to circulate all over our house. Great. Mother of the Year award right here, folks!!

Needless to say, I was a quick sell for this guy on the benefits of replacing our now 20 year old furnace.

8 hours (and way more money than I planned to spend in one day!) later... we now welcome with OPEN ARMS our newest family furnace friend.

Ahhh... the beautiful feeling of WARMTH!!