What I'm Loving - September 2013

I'm loving that August marked three years at my company. Last year was my first time hitting the two year mark at any job, and while I switched positions during my third year, this is still my first time hitting the three year mark somewhere. Only two more years until I get an extra week of vacation days! ;)

I'm loving that it's the senior year for my class of highschool students! They're pretty hyped up about it and I'm excited to see what God does in their lives both this year and in the future.

I'm loving the thunderstorms and overcast weather that we got to enjoy for a few days here in Phoenix. On Sunday I got to sleep in a tiny bit and then did my devotions sitting in front of a big window while the rain slowly drizzled down outside. Perfection.

I'm loving where my church (Scottsdale Bible) is going with their vision for their young adults ministry. There are lots of cool things ahead, and I'm excited to see how things unfold.

I'm loving Adioso. Hipmunk and SkyScanner have been my go-to flight search engines when I'm not flying Southwest, but I recently discovered Adioso and I love it. It's probably more useful for flexible dates and exploring options, but I also like the features it has for price monitor alerts.
It's a lot of fun to just type stuff in and see what it comes up with. I type in "Phoenix to anywhere on November 20th for 5 days" and it gives me a list of different places I can go to with the prices. It's fun to play with.

I'm still loving the 99 cent medium iced coffees at Dunkin Donuts. It's become a part of my daily routine and I'm not looking forward to that deal ending this month.

The Number One Thing That I Didn't Want To Deal With As a Homeowner

When I was looking at houses four years ago I told my realtor that I had a fear of buying a house with an air conditioner that was on it's last leg. I told him that I didn't want to end up being that person who had to replace their AC unit in August in Phoenix.

When I had the home inspection done on my house I was told that the AC unit was only about 6-7 years old and that it was in fairly decent shape. I sighed in relief.

Well, this is the 4th August in my house and my AC unit decided that it's done. If only it could have held off for one more week we could have at least made it into September. Oh well.

The last few days have consisted of me having different AC repair guys come look at my unit and eventually getting three different quotes for a new AC. All three quotes came in right around the $5K mark. Ouch. Talk about busting my budget for the year.

Today I worked from home so that they could install the new unit. Luckily this morning has been overcast and the temps dropped with the rain last night, so it's only been slightly miserable in the house. I thought I was a pretty tough cookie when it came to dealing with heat but I totally overestimated myself. And good gosh do houses seem to absorb heat like nobody's business.
I had the bright idea that maybe I could air my house out after work yesterday since the temps had dropped. Bad idea. Thankfully my wonderful friends Josh and Vangie have been letting me crash at their place the last few nights. Thanks again guys!

The morals of this story? Sometimes the biggest fears you have when going into something, say like when buying a house, end up not being the end of the world. We'll just call them life experiences.

But the biggest moral of the story? Having an emergency fund is key. If you don't already have one, start working on it now. As much as writing that $5K check is going to make me cringe, having an emergency fund makes the whole ordeal so much less painful. And I'm immensely thankful for the blessings of not only having an emergency fund, but also of being a homeowner, even if it can be a crazy ride sometimes.