harrison's money pit

one day while chatting with a friend about the different woes we've experienced since moving into our home, she asked me if i thought we had bought a money pit. and then it hit me-

oh my gosh we bought a money pit!

as much as i love tom hanks, i never wanted to buy a money pit. another friend told me my house couldn't be a money pit because we plan on being here forever but i'm still terrified of it.
anywho here's the lowdown of what we've been doing since moving in in august.

woe #1- the septic system
during the inspection, they told us a septic review wouldn't be included. we took a gamble - and lost. before we moved in, the toilets started back up. so we plunged and snaked and couldn't get it to work. so we hired a company to come empty the tank (wrong move- the home warranty would have paid for it but we had no idea). cleaned it out and still didn't fix the system. so we had two different companies come over and turns out our 40 giant pine trees had destroyed our leech field (where the pee seeps out into the dirt) so we had to redo that. $$$

woe #2- water softener
we were having problems with the water system. we're on a well, have a softener and reverse osmosis. we had a guy come out and get it up to par. then on the day of porter's birthday party, i stepped into a puddle in my pantry. justin hopes he can fix it with some hardware that we're awaiting via snail mail. fingers crossed!

woe #3- air conditioner #1
we have two units. when we had our inspection, the guy mentioned that the attic was unusually cool (it was july) but couldn't see anything amiss. justin asked his ac friend to come take a look at it but we never found a time that worked out. when we had the tree crash into our roof (more on that later), we finally had him check out unit #1 and he found a collapsed duct. luckily we called our home warranty and they came and took care of that.

woe #4- trees trees trees
we have 40 tress on our property. that's a butt load of trees. and they're TALL and mostly scraggly because they weren't watered or cared for for years. and seriously, who needs that many trees?! we knew that would be our first priority upon moving in because a GRASS  YARD was my first priority. justin and his dad have been working tirelessly since august to tackle these beasts. do you know how hard it is to cut down a giant tree? we've already filled two giant industrial dumpsters and had several little fires to burn some debris. we've gotten more then half down and it looks so different already. i took a bunch of before pictures but still managed to miss so many angles.

woe #5 - speaking of trees...
on our anniversary, justin and his dad were rushing and trying to cut down a tree close to our house. they had the wrong angle and it crashed onto our roof and brand new ac unit #2 (we got new units from the seller). less then 6 months old! i hoped we could fix it without our homeowners insurance but nope! it's going to cost nearly $20k because our roof is so old and the tile is no longer being made. we didn't use the unit (on our bedroom side) for 2 weeks  but then i just couldn't stand the heat any longer. it's still working, amazingly. we had to wait for proposals and checks and endorsements but hopefully we can start work next week.

our lists of projects is never ending. that makes me happy and sad and scared- all at the same time. HOPEFULLY not much will require immediate attention and we can do some fun things. like paint my kitchen cabinets, lay down some sod, or wire my internet (a consequence of a concrete house - poor wifi).