Brrrrrr...

You know how well I deal with stress, right?  As in, I don't deal with it at all unless you count "shutting down" as a way of dealing.  Well, not five minutes after getting home from work tonight did I get a heapin' helpin' of stress on my plate.  Ken got home maybe two minutes before I did.  He was feeding the cats when I walked in.  Once they were fed, he proceeded into the living room to turn the heat up a little, as he does every night.  Only the thermostat was blinking.  Blinking.  On and off.  On and off.  It's never done that before.  That's when we realized we don't have any heat.  So we had to call the plumber guy to come over.  On overtime.  He checked out our system and thinks he found the issue.  He thinks we have a faulty control board or some such nonsense.  He's not sure if he has a replacement one at the shop or if he'll have to special order it.  What really, really, really sucks is he told us that the unit we have has been discontinued.  They make similar ones, but not this one anymore.  What we have rather than the conventional hot water heater/furnace set up is a compact unit that hangs on the wall.  Our hot water is on demand and it's energy efficient. 

Ken's going to be out of town at the end of the week for business, so I volunteered taking the day off tomorrow to deal with this.  Ken is the take charge guy who knows all the right things to ask and do.  I'm not.  I'm sure there will be things I'm supposed to ask or do that I won't, but that's too bad.  I'm just freaked out by it all right now.  The thought of this unplanned expense has really got me flipping out.

Tomorrow will hopefully bring positive news.