not good return

 Lots of things went wrong :(

Driving down there, even though I tried to stay back from it, I wound up behind a rock hauler, and it did what they do - threw a rock. Which hit my windshield. 

Yeah. I thought it was about the size of a fifty-cent piece, but I guess I was wrong - the SafeLite in Tyler (half an hour south of Mineola; I went there on the way back home) had assured me they could fix it, but then when they saw it, they said no, it was too large, they thought the windshield would need replacing. Which they couldn't do, because they'd have to get the windshield in from Dallas. (Where I live, everything is a "geographical oddity" like in O Brother Where Art Thou - it takes at LEAST a few days to get any kind of part.)

So oh well. I drove home with it like this. It's not in my direct line of sight but it's annoying enough.

I also have to hope there's someone local to do it - I am really not up for driving to McKinney (where the nearest SafeLite outlet is, and supposedly they will NOT do mobile service to here; it's too far.)

Then when I got home, I threw some sheets in the wash to make my bed. Went to start putting clothes away and thought "gee, that water sounds LOUD" and went to see if I'd forgotten to close the lid.

Nope. The drain hose had fractured, and water was leaking all over. I shut off the washer and caught as much of it as I could in a bucket. And at the same time, it looked like a leak was creeping from under my fridge. Granted, it's close enough SOME of that could be washer water, but I don't think it all was.

So in a panic, I called someone I know from church - a widow who used to help manage rental properties. Even though my house is horrifically messy right now and I am embarrassed by its state (really I need to throw out half the crap I own, and never ever buy any more). She came over with a shop vac and drew up what water she could, and suggested the refrigerator problem was an overflowing drip pan because the freezer had iced up (supposedly it's a frost free freezer, but it never has been totally frost free) We drained the drip pan and cleared the frost out of the freezer and as of my last check about 20 minutes ago there was no more leaking water so I hope I won't need a new fridge right away. (The milk I bought seemed to be cooling too slowly but we'll see, that might have been my imagination)

I'm told it's possible to replace the drain hose yourself if you can take the back panel off the washer but I don't know; I'm going to call a local place on Monday and see if they can recommend a repair person (That's a MAJOR problem here - very few repair people, and some are not reliable). I don't want to buy a whole new one - it's the stacked set which is harder to come by (I only have a tiny space for laundry room things). 

I did go down to church to wash the sheets - which were wet and kind of soapy and would have mildewed otherwise. I re-hooked up the dryer vent that got knocked loose when we were dealing with the water (hopefully I did a good enough job and the stuff gets dry) but what a giant pain. 

And yes, the damage MIGHT be partly mice; I'm still not rid of them. I can't find someone to do the repairs I need. I'm almost at the point of throwing the few things I can't live without in my car and just locking the door on this place and leaving it forever. There's way too much deferred maintenance on it and it's impossible to find someone here to do the kind of renovation I require. I was hoping to do it this summer but literally no one I know can suggest anyone they trust. So I don't even know, I feel like this is just forever now, a broken house with lots of things wrong.

The trip up was good but coming back home wasn't :(

ETA: well, the sheets did get dry so my cleaning out and hooking back up the vent hose was done right enough. And the fridge isn't leaking, so here's hoping it was just a plugged drain line/overflowing drip tray,

It's just.....there's so many tiny maintenance tasks I forget or get too busy for. Like cleaning the drip pan. What I probably need is someone to make me a chore calendar, someone who knows these things - I don't know what needs to be done regularly besides things like changing furnace filters or doing the laundry when it's dirty