Monday, March 17, 2008

My Week in Review

Sunday: Hubster got home at 8:30 pm. Ate zucchini bread with him and Peter. Big fat huge thank you to Peter for driving back down with him. You are completely awesome. Went to bed.
Monday: Wondered what in the world to do with myself now that I had my vehicle back. Stayed at home all day.
Tuesday: Valentine's Presents arrived and were installed. My life as a wannabe chef has returned. This is most exciting news. Dropped kids off at sitters and shopped like a crazy woman. Fabulous!
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Wednesday: Traded kids with girlfriend. She took Ryder to an indoor playplace with her son. I kept her one year old daughter. Me and another girlfriend and her baby boy and my two girls went to the mall and did more shopping.
Thursday: Watched girlfriends kids. Had girls night out with my person (you must watch Grey's to appreciate the meaning of my person). Shopped some more then capped the evening off at Friday's. Got home at midnight. I love you Karly!!
Friday: Play Group Easter egg hunt at church. Went far better than I had expected. Love it when that happens. Camera batteries died after first shot, so when I receive pics from others I will elaborate, and yes, Ryder has a pink Easter basket. I screwed up. I thought I had an Easter basket for him already so I bought Linley a new one. Turns out I already had one for Linley. Now I have two girly baskets. He didn't mind. Perhaps I should be disturbed by this fact.

Saturday: My favorite adventure in our home reno thus far occurred. Recall Allen replaced the toilet in the master bath, but it did not work. Now I will do my best plumbers speak. Realize I do not know what I am saying, just using words that I heard Allen speak and trying to form a complete sentence. The original valve had been sweated on to the copper pipe, thus there were no threads to replace the new valve. Instead he had to take a hacksaw to the pipe and then attach a compression fitting(after turning all the water off in the house). He did all of this very well. He turned the water back on and then admired his work. There was a small leak, but we were told this is common when using a compression fitting. I was satisfied. Perfectionist handyman not so much. So, he cranks on the puppy to give it a good tightening, at which point the entire fitting pops off and we now have a fire hose in our bathroom. This is no exaggeration. Gallons upon gallons of water spewing out with the strength of a power washer, all over the bathroom and into my bedroom. Allen spends the next 3-5 seconds saying, "Crap, crap, crap" while dancing around in the bathroom. I spend those same 3-5 seconds yelling, "what do I do, what do I do," while jumping around in the bedroom (two people cannot comfortably fit in this bathroom). Ryder spends these seconds sitting on the bed yelling, "Dad, look what you did, you're crazy. You're crazy dad." Linley sits on the bed, completely dumbfounded by the chaos unfolding around her. Allen then darts down the two flights of stairs to the laundry room to shut off the water. I grab the nearest towel and shove it over the pipe, in hopes that the fire hose will not slice my bed in half while my children are calmly sitting on it. Let me also mention that the caulking in the bathroom is so old it has nearly deteriorated, and thus there is no seal on the tile. So simultaneously while the bathroom is flooding, there is a torrential downpour occurring in the laundry room. Finally, with the water shut off, and a few slight mishaps later (resulting in a larger hole in the wall and the lack of the little silver round cover thingie), the valve is working and not leaking a bit. How sweet it is to be able to whiz in my own toilet. I am most impressed with us during our adventure. Not one dirty word was uttered, and we could not stop laughing through the duration. It was a defining moment for our home. However, I now sleep with the bathroom door closed in fear that the fitting will once again pop and I will be faced with he equivalent of a chemical peel gone wrong in the middle of the night. And for the record, we are planning on having a plumber come out and permanently fix the problem. We are just waiting until we have new vanities for him to install as well.

That was my week. You, my two loyal readers, are no longer left in the dark.

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11 comments:

jessica said...

I am glad you got to do a lot of shopping! I would like to see more pictures of the house. Before and After shots will be great.

eric and girls said...

It looks like you had a fun week. I don't think Ryder should have issues about his pink basket. The Easter Bunny will have to make up for it. Oh I would have been so frustrated with the toilet. I don't like when things like that go wrong. At least you were laughing about it

Tricia said...

I'm glad that you are alive and survived all your experiences and even able to get in a little retail therapy.

Tricia said...

There's another boy who has a purple basket. So Ryder shouldn't feel to girlie. Just tell him it was the style and that he picked it out.

Stacy Christian said...

Erica, I have a very similar plumbing story. This is while I was living in my apt at West Ga. Anyways, our tub had water dripping from the faucet, so I go to turn it off, but instead of turning off, more water starting coming out. I turned the opposite way, and again, MORE and MORE water coming out. Finally, the entire faucet busted out of the wall, and water spraying like I've never seen before. This was at about 2:30 am mind you. I freak out, wake up my roommates, and end up having to call firemen to come help (we didn't know where to turn the water off). It was crazy, and I ended up staying up until 5 am ripping up carpet, trying to save it. All a waste of time. Anyways, just thought I'd share.

Jess said...

Very pretty V-day presents! And I'm proud of your renovation projects. Mishaps or no, the most we ever do is a coat of paint.

Audrey said...

Wow! I was impressed with your plumber speak. You should hear me trying to describe technical stuff like that. It's bad, bad news. Words like, The round thingy (when I'm talking about various part of a pipe) etc. I hate to pay for professionals, but I think that may be my future.

Tricia said...

Jeff's wife Bonnie is doing there family blog, it is jabwallace.blogspot.com

Erica said...

That story was fabulous Stacy! Thanks for making me laugh!

Jonathan said...

Hey Allen, this is great. I'm glad you guys are having fun. This story reminds me of when we attempted to install a hot tub in the bathroom at Deseret Towers. Good times.

Amy said...

Erica, you are hilarious. I was laughing so hard through the bathroom descriptions of what everyone was doing during the 3-5 seconds that I started crying. Good luck with the rest of your house! (btw, how does Allen know how to install all this stuff but you guys don't have a caulk gun? I thought that was like the first thing people bought when they buy a fixer-upper? am I delusional?)