Why Don't Houses Come With Instruction Manuals?

Living on a military post is easy. If anything goes wrong in your home, you simply call the repairman and it is magically fixed. For free.

There was no on-post housing when Andy arrived in Alaska and we were anxious to get moved up here, so we ended up buying a house instead.

There are perks to being a homeowner. Tax breaks. The ability to paint your walls and make changes to the home. Not having a landlord. We have a huge yard and much more privacy than we would in a townhouse on post.

But there are definite disadvantages also. Like dealing with every tiny problem that goes wrong in the house. Having to either fix it yourself or having to find the right person to do it for you. And then there is paying to have it fixed (that's definitely a big one).

I just wish that I had a clear, concise book (it would probably be several volumes long) that included step-by-step instructions to MY PARTICULAR HOME along with labeled pictures of where everything is and how to troubleshoot. A list of phone numbers of reputable repairmen would be helpful also.

When I asked Andy why houses don't come with manuals, he insisted that they do. They are called husbands!!

Duh! So my current problem is that my manual is in Iraq!! The only way I can open my manual is to send an email and hope it responds before a complete and utter crisis occurs. This is not very efficient. And ultimately I still have to deal with it. Which I hate.

I don't think that it's necessarily that more things go wrong while he is deployed. I just think that it seems like there are more things because I am the one that actually has to deal with them.

He's not even halfway through the deployment yet. In the 5 months that he's been gone, plus the month-long NTC rotation he was on right before he left, the water softener died, the boiler had to be fixed, the pipes froze twice, the pipes under the bathroom sink came apart, and I have had to do minor carpentry work a few times. What else could I possibly have to deal with over the next 7 months until he gets back??? I shudder to think about the possibilities.

The plumber was here on Sunday thawing out our pipes. This is only Wednesday, but I have yet another home-related thing to deal with!

We have absolutely no heat to the bedrooms (which are on their own thermostat). I am normally a let-one-leg-hang-out-of-the-blankets kind of a girl. Last night I went to bed with socks and a sweatshirt and an extra blanket on. And I was still cold. I guess when it's -20 outside, your room can get pretty igloo-like with no heat coming in.

I think I may have found the problem, but it involves wires. I DO NOT touch wires of any sort. I refuse. So, I am again going to be paying someone over $100 an hour to come and fix something in my house. Oh, the joys of home ownership....

Well, I suppose I should go upstairs and check to make sure that my children haven't turned into little kidsicles during the night. On the bright side, we have heat to the rest of the house, so maybe we'll sleep in the living room tonight :)