When Life Throws Curveballs, Duck and Resolve

When life throws curveballs, there is no way to be prepared. Because you can’t always predict what can go wrong in your world as opportunities for failure are abundant. Which is why I start a list of problems to solve when I get more than three curveballs to deal with at one time. Toss into the mix the fact I multi-task and always try to pay immediate attention to priorities that pop up. Well, that’s a recipe for stress if things get out of hand.

Who could predict so many situations could require direct attention? It’s not bad enough that my AC is not working at our house in Hawaii. Oh, yes, I can hear you now. Like my sister who scoffs because she lives in Minnesota and turned off her AC months ago. I get no empathy from her. This will mark the third motor in 2 years. ECM motors by Carrier are so energy efficient that they cannot operate for very long before giving out. Too much technology.

Today is Day 6 without AC because Mike at Kona AC could not get over to the house. When he did show up, he threw $740 cash on the table as a refund. Claimed bad ductwork and faulty electrical wiring, too many surges and power shut downs. Three motors over 18 months is kinda nuts. I wonder why he doesn’t think it is the blower motor itself?

My new gardener says we have slugs and to buy slug bait. The bath remodel guys came back to plug the quartz and move the badly installed waterfall faucet over to the side. Fortunately they didn’t install the faucets wrong on both quartz countertops. They also had to fix the receptacles that were not relocated high enough.. You don’t want to hear the particulars of everything else that went wrong but is now fixed.

Suffice to say it was a lot. The new GFCI doesn’t work, so I went to Lowes to exchange it. The drivers sent to me by Lamps Plus to stop the LED flickering in our new light fixtures don’t fit the housing.

That’s because when life throws curveballs, I try to duck. Just put it on the list and take care of it myself, is my MO. I have 6 days left to renew my car registration. Since the Maui dealer registered the car in Maui County, I have a problem in Kona. However, if you think the California DMV is bad, try Hawaii. Their procedures conflict with each other.

At a listing in Sacramento yesterday an agent set off the security alarm. Agents and security alarms are a bad combination. Didn’t read MLS and get the alarm code. I could place a note in the lockbox itself but I know what happens to those. The notes end up crumpled in agent’s pockets. Fortunately for that guy, I answer my phone, so I gave him the alarm code.

Further, the number of new leads jumped into high gear yesterday. It’s been very quiet for the past 3 weeks but Monday, all hell broke loose. On top of that, as I tried to grill my dinner, I couldn’t stop the text messages from coming. Did you know if you get a text message on your iPhone, you can no longer access the timer on your iPhone?

My fish and vegetables were placed on the grill, and just when I opened the app to press “start” on the timer, I got a text message from one person. Followed by 3 more. My husband started sending text messages, too. And someone else texted me. One after another. The clock kept ticking and I had no idea how long I had been grilling because I could not access my timer.

When life throws curveballs, sometimes you’ve gotta laugh out loud. What are the odds I would get 3 people sending multiple text messages all at the same time? California time would have been 9:30 PM. Perhaps all of this activity is indicative of the Sacramento real estate market picking up a bit.

Further, after I received my new credit card last month due to Uber fraud, what else happened yesterday do you think? I lost the card. Sometime between Thursday and Monday. I used it at one store on Thursday, and that store could not find it when I went there. Oh, well, another day in the future will be spent notifying automatic payment creditors.

It is also true that when multiple problems happen at one time, it’s usually isolated incidences. Some people blame it on the full moon. Although, our next full moon is October 24. But gosh darn it, I got back to every new lead, spoke with every agent who called and worked on 3 new Sacramento listings. Still a very productive day in paradise.