So Much for That!

The last few days I've been ravenous. I blame the boy I'm growing. Seriously, yesterday and the day before I couldn't get enough to eat. I also didn't do my best to make sure I was eating my best. Finally I decided that TODAY would be the day I would eat really really healthy things to make up for my two irresponsible days.

I woke up and ate some oatmeal and fruit. Later on I felt hungry so I made myself a protein shake with a banana. At lunch I ate an organic whole-wheat burrito (thank you Amy's . . . it's a great organic brand of Mexican food) and some grapes. Then I went about my day.

Not long after lunch, I went to put a load of clothes in the washer. When I flipped the switch no water filled the machine. "Huh?" I thought. "There must be something wrong with my washer." I thought maybe I'd give it a minute, and try again. No water again. I called the repair guy, and went about my home-maker duties. I thought I might run a load of dishes in the dishwasher. When I flipped the switch. . . Nothing! I then thought to try our faucets. No water. My next step? Call Jim.

He said that our not-so-upstanding neighbor probably didn't pay the water pump bill. GREAT! Why is this great? We share a well with our neighbor, and up to this point we've been paying him our half of the bill, innocently thinking he was actually paying the other half. Boy were we dumb! Not only hasn't he been paying his half, he hasn't been paying ANYTHING! I called the electric company and they gave me the GREAT news that it would cost several hundred dollars to turn the pump back on, because there hasn't been a payment on the account for SEVERAL months! WONDERFUL!!

Our neighbor wasn't home when I got this amazing news, so I waited until I saw his truck pull in his driveway. Usually I would have Jim deal with all of this, but he's out of town, and I kind of needed water for dishes, laundry, and sanitation purposes. It was up to me to deal with this mess. As soon as I saw our neighbor, I walked on over to have a little chat with him. If you don't know me well, you probably don't know that I HATE (hate hate hate hate hate) confrontation. I especially hate it when I know the person I'm dealing with is currently in an anger management program (yup, that's our neighbor!) So, as I was walking over I said a little prayer that I would be able to handle this well.

I explained the situation to our neighbor. I also explained that from now on Jim and myself need to be on the bill so we can avoid situations like this in the future. I had my cell phone handy and told our neighbor that we needed to call the electric company THIS MINUTE to get this situation taken care of and get our water back on ASAP. Luckily, he agreed.

When all was said and done the electric company terminated our neighbor's name on the billing, and transferred the water pump into our name. They also noticed that Jim and I are in good standing (we actually pay our bills) so they would get our water turned back on today. Our neighbor would still be responsible for the outstanding balance (which I found out was over $900), and we would only be billed from today on. They also said they would send out a technician and make sure everything is being distributed evenly. When I explained this to our neighbor I found out that he had been running TWO fifth-wheels on the pump and we were paying for half of their electricity. He said from now on the ONLY thing that would be running from the pump house was the water pump. I told him we would hold him to it, and check on it ourselves, to be sure.

Now, for those of you who are worrying about us collecting our neighbor's half of the pump fee. Don't worry. We're currently on a lease-to-own with him for our house, so we told him we would just deduct his half of the pump fee from our mortgage payment. It will all work out. PHEW!

So, as far as eating healthy goes. As soon as I was done dealing with all of this I sat myself down and ate a nice bowl of Breyers Vanilla Bean ice cream. And you know what? I felt no guilt doing it whatsoever! In fact, I think I kind of deserved it after the mess I had to straighten up. I'll have to start my healthy eating thing tomorrow.