I originally posted:
Since I retired in June, it seems like everything has suddenly been breaking around the house.
I think I accidentally gave the impression that everything breaking was expensive. In truth, many of the things that have broken have cost little or nothing to fix myself, have been near the end of their expected life, or with a little patience have fixed themselves. Some examples include a garage spring broke, I ended up replacing springs, pulleys, and cables myself for about $50. Two old CRT based TVs have failed, but we decided they don't even need to be replaced. A grocery bag broke, smashing a glass jar of olive oil. Cleaning up the oil got water on the garage door opener sensors which stopped working. However, after a few days of drying out, the sensors worked fine. The washer leak I mentioned in my original post seems to have been caused by the low pressure incident, perhaps the associated high silt. However, it seems to have solved itself. A month ago I damaged a kayak I had built myself, and it was in the garage being repaired instead of my car when the ceiling started leaking. Repairing the kayak and repairing the ceiling will both take some time, but should not cost a significant amount of money since I expect to do the work myself.
Resolving our water supply issues may still cost real money, but even the worst case total replacement estimate is only about 1% of our investment portfolio. In the mean time, the system is back to functioning normally since we eliminated all irrigation, and have become very conservative with indoor water usage. So we have both the time and the money needed to carefully consider our options before deciding which approach is the most desirable.
Well, it's a good thing you have all that free time. Now you'll have an answer for all those people who ask "What do you do all day?"
"I fix things that broke because I retired."
Yes, I definitely don't have as much free time as I expected!
I have a similar saying "If money can fix it, it's not a problem when you have money."
+1
b) Come on, you flushing the toilet is the root cause of all issues?
She was teasing, but like most good jokes there was a kernel of truth. The root cause is that our well seems to be refreshing at about 0.1 gallons/minute at the moment, instead of the already borderline 0.75 gallons/minute it was producing when we bought the house 9 years ago.
The EPA says
http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/pubs/indoor.html
The average family of four can use 400 gallons of water every day
While 144 gallons/day (0.1 gallon/minute * 60 minutes * 24 hours) may be enough for one person, 4 cats, and a dog leading an American lifestyle, it is a bit tight when you increase that to two people, and definitely does not leave much water for irrigation. So had I not retired, we might not have noticed any water issues this year.
Maybe she is not quite comfortable with your new life as a retiree... I don't know, maybe you should give her some space, or take her out every now & then, or do something else to make her happier...
I think it is true we need to make more time for interesting activities together, but I've been so busy fixing everything!