Smash the Mole

There are things that have issues in my life right now. This includes (but is not limited to):

-My oven. I know I posted about how the bottom element stopped working and almost ruined Christmas dinner. Well, Bruce replaced it and for a while that seemed to have helped it. Now we are having the problem again...only part time. Sometimes it takes forever to preheat the oven. If I can ever get it to the right temp then it does fine.
I am not thrilled about expensive repairs, OR buying a new stove, so I am just taking advantage of the fact that summer is not a time to do a whole lot of baking. Cold watermelon is every bit as good as cookies when its hot. Right?

-My car. The check engine (or service engine soon) light came on over a week ago. Bruce changed the air filter and the pvc (or is it pcv???) valve that needs to be replaced periodically. The light went out for days. Today it popped back on again.
What a pain. The car drives fine. It doesn't skip or cut off or run badly in any way. But that light mocks me, and I wish it would go off. I have no idea what the next step is to get the thing fixed. Bruce has a code reader that plugs in to the car's computer system so maybe that will reveal what needs to be done.

-Our AC in our bedroom. Our bedroom is the hottest room in the whole house. Bruce went around partially closing vents off in rooms we rarely use (Erica's room, bathroom and guest room mainly) to try and force more cold air into our room. But the air flow is so slight you can barely feel it coming out of our vents. Even with the rest of them almost closed. Something is blocking the air from getting into our room and now we need to figure out whats going on with the air ducts upstairs in the attic. It has to be a problem with the ducts because its blowing out plenty of cold air in every other room. We have temporarily helped the issue by placing a fan right in our doorway. It seems to be moving the cooler air into our room, but still....there has got to be something done about it.

Oh well, just a few things on the never ending list of stuff that really needs to be done. We make a little bit of progress here and there and then something else just comes up all over again. Life is kind of like that carnival game "Smash the Mole".
You hit him back down into the hole and another pops up again. I think it could drive you crazy if you let it.

Also, speaking of moles, our cat Bitty was out in the cat enclosure yard this evening and when I went out to get her I saw she had something in her mouth. I thought it was a frog or a lizard, so I hurried down the steps to try and rescue whatever poor animal was suffering her wrath. I got a few steps away from her, and I could see that it wasn't a lizard. It was this dark little thing and it was making a horrible squeaking/hissing sound. It sounded like pure unadulterated EVIL. I had no idea what it was but I went inside and told Bruce to go figure it out. It turned out to be a baby mole. I thought Bruce would kill it because these darned moles have torn up whole sections of our yard. But he put the hissing nasty little thing in a plastic container and carried it off to be released somewhere across the road in a field. Yuck. Bitty hadn't harmed it, but she had certainly pissed that mole off. No wonder these things stay underground though....they are UGLY!!