I don't recall praying for patience.

Tomorrow marks 38 weeks of this pregnancy.

This morning our hot water was only lukewarm for 30 minutes. Then it became just plain cold. John determined the pilot light on the hot water heater was not lit, and it refused to light. Fortunately we sent in a service request with the home warranty company before 7 a.m., so we a place on a service list for today rather than tomorrow or next week.

I have a love/hate relationship with the home warranty company. Great that it's only $60 when something breaks. Awful that they usually take their sweet time figuring out what the real problem is, sometimes returning several times over two or three weeks in failed attempts to fix whatever is wrong.

Fortunately, today's repairman figured out within 45 minutes what was wrong and exactly what the home warranty company would pay for. Even though the water heater is probably on its last legs, the warranty is only going to cover a repair - no replacements for us. But then we have to go through the ordeal of how long it might take to get the right part, what would happen if we get the home warranty to just pay us for the repair so we can instead replace the whole thing, and how long will we be living with no hot water.

There is a significant difference between my priority (get me some hot water ASAP) and John's (you guessed it: the balance between the cheapest and most efficient solution to this problem, with emphasis on cheapest, I mean, most cost-effective).

I was out of pocket all morning, so nothing could be done on the water heater until this afternoon. By now I have been awake since 4:30 this morning. Usually 4 or 4:30 is the magic hour that I awake and can no longer get comfortable and end up tossing and turning until I feel it appropriate to finally get up two hours before the sun.

Recently, I've solved the sleep problem by taking an afternoon nap. Because of the broken hot water heater situation, I did not get a nap today. If this post is completely incoherent, you now know why.

The combination of being awake for so long, being so pregnant, and wrapping my brain around home warranty options while considering how long I can really go without hot water is trying my patience.

I think the last time we had a hot water tank go out, my grandfather died the same week and I had a flat tire that led to purchasing four new tires (or something like that). Our daughter is still breech and I've really had no feelings like I'm nearing labor, but now I'm wondering if the hot water heater is the beginning of a series of unexpected events. Then again, I really don't have the patience or brain power to think about that right now.

In fact, I'm really starting to not even care that we have no hot water. I'd rather sleep right now than be clean or have clean dishes. I guess this works in John's favor. He now has plenty of time to scrutinize the financial aspects of our dilemma. I do, however, suspect that after some sleep I may begin to start caring a little bit more about the lack of hot water.