“What is ‘it’?” you say.  Some kind of a big expense that hits right before Christmas.  This is the fourth year in a row in recent memory.  The past three years it’s been Loki needing surgery for an abscess.  So far, I haven’t had to deal with any vet expenses. *knock on wood*

This year it’s something new–replacement of a hot water heater that’s leaking all over my garage floor!  Went to Sears this morning.  Not something I wanted to do on ‘Black Friday’ but felt I had no choice unless I wanted to do without hot water all weekend.  Plus, I just can’t take off work anytime soon over the next few weeks–too much work to do.  The deal at Sears would have cost about $675 with no guarantee on how soon they could have installed nor no guarantee on price if the installers ran into any problems–which you can be certain they would!

I called a plumber I had used in the past.  They wanted $900 for the water heater, parts and labor or $450 if I bought (and transported) the water heater from Sears.  Not a good deal.  I called a friend who gave me the name of her plumber.  After a phone call at 12:30 pm today, they showed up at 2:00 pm and are installing the new hot water right now (3:30 pm)!  They will also haul off the old one.  Cost is $670.

Not happy to be spending the $$$, but think I got a decent deal and only had to do without hot water for about a day.

Had hoped to work this afternoon cleaning out the mess in the garage from the leakage, but really can’t do it until the plumber is finished.  Oh well.  Can’t imagine it will be all that much worse tomorrow.  Am doing some more inside cleaning instead with the hope that I’ll be able to do a bit of Christmas decorating on Sunday.  Getting inspired by watching a marathon of Christmas decorating shows on HGTV.