The timing of things...

I was reading my sisters blog and she mentioned how if one thing breaks, everything does. So true. We have had several things break around here...
First, the pilot light on the hot water heater kept going out. We searched the internet for ideas, but nothing worked so we had to call a repair man. Luckily he just had to clean the line and only charged us for the service call.
Second, every once in a while the washing machine would not drain. I did some internet searching and after fiddling with a few things, figured out that is wasn't the drain that was causing the problem, but the button the lid presses when closed. If I jabbed it lots of times with something longer I could get it to work. So laying on top of the dryer were parts of a pen that I found in Spencer's laundry. The tip of the pen fit snugly over top of the lid depressor thing, making it fatter and longer, and now it works just fine. 
Third, our garage door opener broke. A repair man came and looked at it and said it would cost $350 to replace it. Shannon, being the handy man that he is, bought one for $190 and put it in himself, with a little help from me on the programming. 
Fourth, we received a phone call from the company handling our rental house...the roof was leaking. We had a similar problem early this year and ended up replacing half the roof in March, we thought we could get another couple of years out of the other half, but apparently not. 
Fifth, our vacuum broke. I couldn't fix it, so I just bought a new one, since it would probably cost more to have it repaired.
And now, the Trail Blazer needs repairs.
There is a blessing in all of this. When the garage was broke, we were parking out side for a week, just like in the olden days ; ) We fixed it two days before a heavy snow storm and temps in the single digits. And the roofers finished the job on our rental house the day before the snow storm.
Hopefully we have filled our quota of unexpected expenses for a while, because I'm trying to save up for Christmas!