(It may not look like a lot of snow, but it was a lot more when I got out there and was working at it one shovel-width at a time! I'm fortunate -- it's fairly light powder.)2pm: I return home from taking the younger two to the library and to the community center to play at the indoor playground. Except that the playground was closed for repair, so I took them to Chick-fil-a for lunch because they also have an indoor playground. The snow started around 12:30pm, so the drive home was a teeny bit slick, but not bad.
2:30pm: I get them to bed for naps and make a bunch of calls about our heat pump. I only succeed in finding out that the company we had called to do the warranty work (company #2) never submitted a request for replacement and they didn't need authorization to do a repair. Despite this, they have not called us yet -- it's been 3 days -- to schedule said repair.
I leave two very peaved messages, which, as of this moment, have not been returned. I'm sure the weather has nothing to do with it.
I decide to fire company #2. I call company #1. I find out they have paperwork from the warranty company and are poised and ready to help us out. Their heating guy will call me as he knows the ins and outs of the warranty stuff.
3:30pm: I sit down to get some work done for Children's, confident that I'll get a call any minute and we'll finally have a resolution on the heat pump.
3:55pm: I suddenly realized that there is quite a bit of snow out there. Elli will be home soon. I have not attempted to push her wheelchair through 5 inches of snow. I decide I don't want to be stuck at the foot of our longish driveway in the pelting snow. I throw on a hat, gloves, scarf, heavy coat, and sneakers, grab the phone and the snow shovel, and begin digging a wheelchair-width path from the garage to the street.
No calls.
4:15pm: Elli's bus pulls up to the foot of the driveway. Despite the early dismissal (25 minutes early), she still arrived home at the usual time. I have a path dug, plus some of the top and bottom of the driveway on Scott's car's side of the driveway.
I bring Elli in, find Anna awake, set them up with The Tigger Movie, and decide to go out and finish Scott's half of the driveway.
4:45pm: I finish the driveway.
No calls.
5:30pm: Scott calls to say he's about to head home. We're hoping that him waiting til a more normal time to go home, he won't be stuck in the horrible traffic that has plagued the city since 1pm when everyone decided to go home at the same time.
I tell him the whole heat pump fiasco. We fire them all. We're going with a friend of a friend who does HVAC commercially during the day and does residential on the side. I'll try to get some sort of cash settlement out of the warranty company, but we're pretty much done with them.
I contemplate putting a stop-payment on the check I used to pay a $75 deductible for company #2's guy to spend 2 minutes here verifying that indeed our heat pump is dead.
Added at 7pm: I did put a stop-payment on the check. If they submitted it today, it will still go through. If they don't send it in until tomorrow, it will be rejected. $33 is less than $75!
5:42pm: I click "Publish" and send this blog into the wide wide world. I go take ibuprofen prophylcatically, hoping to ward off the worst of the snow-shovel-induced backache already beginning to make its presence known.
