Well, here I am. At home. Nothing to do, really, for the next hour.

See, when I got up yesterday morning, the auxiliary light was on the heater again. And it stayed on, the whole time I was feeding the cat and making our lunches, and it was still on after I'd had my shower.

And we just had the heater fixed about a month ago. The compressor was replaced, which was not cheap, even though the parts themselves were still under warranty.

And shortly after that, Matt and I saw bands of frost on the outdoor unit, and we thought, That can't be right, and we called the repair guys back. And they told us that frost wasn't anything to worry about, but to call them right away if we found ice.

(Frost is ice, you morons...) Anyway, that answer sounded suspicious to us, but what could we do?

This weekend, as I was leaving to go somewhere, I happened to look up as I was driving off and saw something that I was pretty sure was actually ice. I meant to say something about it as soon as I got home, but I forgot. But then yesterday the aux heat light was on.

I think the broken compressor was a symptom, not the core problem.

Matt called a different repair guy this time, someone recommended by his boss, actually. He called us back last night at nearly 7:00, and said he'd come out this morning at 8:30 to look at it.

Which is already an enormous improvement over the previous repair guys, who took a month to call us back (though to be fair, when I'd first called, we didn't realize there was an actual problem - I'd just wanted a general inspection done) and then took a week to come and see us and almost another month to get the compressor in and come back out to install the damn thing.

Yay for prompt action.

But 8:30 is too early for me to go to work and then come back home again for the appointment, so here I sit.

Waiting. Waiting and writing.

--Liz