Furnace doctor, piano tuner, and other random noise

I had to miss my weekly pastors small group today because the church furnace needed some work. Last Sunday someone told me it was making a lot of noise and might be a bearing. I couldn't find anywhere on the furnace about who sold it to us, or serviced it, so I called the 'Doc.' One of their retired employees used to be a part of our church (until he got mad at me and left), and I read where a friend of mine just got a new furnace from them. Anyway, the noise was just a bad fan wheel (not the motor). Some of the tines were loose and were making a racket. It also needed a new some-kind-of capacitor (which he didn't charge us for). It will be around $400 for the service call, parts, and diagnostics.

Yesterday was the annual piano tuning. I LOVE when the piano tuner comes. I've blogged about this before (I think it's early March every year). It is always so calming to sit in my office and listen to him hitting note-note-note... pause... then note-note-note again. Over and over for an hour or two. It always gives me that "tingly" feeling, and makes me feel good all over. Then he will just sit and play for awhile, and he's pretty good. But... this year... he came on the same day that the cleaning lady was here. She was running the vacuum cleaner for much of the time he was tuning, so it was kind of a distraction. I also seemed to have an inordinate number of phone calls yesterday too. Argh. I was really bummed about this.

I also spent part of yesterday trying to fill out a stupid government form. There are different forms for our tax exempt status, and the electric company needed one particular to utilities. Of course, in order to get that form, I first had to file another form and get approval for that. And I needed a copy of the electric bill, and needed to know how many kilowatt hours we used, and all sorts of other useless-seeming stuff. I had papers all over the place, and a zillion web pages open, and I finally had to call the IN government... but I think I got the first form done. So now I wait so I can file for the other one. Egads. And some people think all pastors do is preach on Sunday. I told the lady on the phone, "Look, I'm an idiot and I don't know anything about any of this, so what do I need to do here?" She laughed and was pretty nice.

After I left the office I cleaned up another huge area of the straw that was covering the yard. I just made a big pile in the grass and I'm just gonna burn the sucker some day when the wind isn't blowing. There's one more area by the recycling shed that needs raked up, and along the west side of the pavilion. I will be glad when that is done, because it messes with my allergies something awful and makes me feel like crap.

Last night Jane and I had our date night, because she is going to be gone this weekend, and she has class on Thursdays from right after work until 10 pm. We have been pretty good about taking a night out every week for probably 10-12 years now. Last night we went to the neon Bandito's, and my clothes still smell like Mexican food. It's making me hungry.