Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

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This past week has been absolutely crazy! Aside from the usual holiday chaos. The Thursday before Christmas, my van started working weird. It wasn't running right. I got home and my hubby thought he fixed the problem. He drove it back and forth to work that night with no issues. The next morning I went out to finish the errands I didn't get a chance to do the day before and it died on me! Thankfully I was at the light on my corner by my house. It was a matter of pushing in into the driveway. I called the mechanic (who was gone for the holidays)and left a message. He called me back (he had gone in to check his messages) and sent the tow truck to come get it. *sigh*. It had to wait until the Tuesday after Christmas to even be looked at! It cost $860.31 to get running again! For the holidays we were supposed to go to my sister in law's for dinner. Because of our van not running my brother in law and father in law had to come up in 2 different vehicles to pick us up. We all wouldn't have fit in the same car. That was a nice dinner. I'd been arguing with my mom about holiday gifts and whether they were appropriate for my kids. According to her, it didn't matter what they were, or if they ended up hurting the kids in any way, because it's what they did and that's that. I have a daughter with severe learning disorder and she is very self conscious about her abilities. My mom and step dad bought a present for her that would have made her feel very stupid and I told my mom that it was unacceptable. We wouldn't be visiting until New Year's Day so there was plenty of time to return it and get her something else. My mom told me that my daughter could open the present and then I could return it myself. It didn't matter to her that the damage would already be done and the hurt caused to my daughter. So my husband and I decided that we would not go see my mom, and my mom was very angry about that. The Thursday before New Year's I noticed that it was cold in our house, colder than usual. I turned the thermostat up a little and didn't think anything of it. A couple of hours later it was still cold. I looked at the inside temp and realized it was 10 degrees cooler than what the thermostat was set for. This meant the furnace wasn't working correctly. I got my husband up and he checked it out. The pilot light on the furnace was out. He tried lighting it himself and couldn't get it to work. I called a couple of places and they sent a guy over. The guy came and took a look. He found a crack in the side of our furnace so that every time the blower came on it blew the pilot light out! The whole furnace needs to be replaced, to the tune of $2500!! Of coarse I don't have that kind of money saved so now we are trying to figure out what to do. We've been able to keep the house warm with space heaters, and thankfully the weather has been mild compared to how it could be this time of year. We've been able to borrow space heaters from local people which means we haven't had to buy them all and that is very nice and $$ saving. New Year's Eve we had a small party and that was wonderful. Great food, wonderful conversation, booze. It was nice and relaxing. So now I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. They say that problems come in threes. I'm not sure if the issues with my mom can be counted as problems or if I should be waiting for something else entirely. I know my microwave is on it's last legs, I've had it for about 15 years. It's old. Replacing it won't be too costly, at least compared to replacing the furnace or getting the van running, but it's another thing that just wasn't planned for. This leads me all to my question. Have you ever been in a situation where you are just waiting for the next problem to happen? The next issue to go wrong? Were you able to prepare for it or did it all smack you at once? Do you think that problems come in threes, meaning three of them in a set time?