Calm Within a Storm

I'm so happy to have my house back after the great plumbing debacle.

This weekend, it was 80 degrees and sunny. Today? Not so much. I got up for work today at 0-dark-thirty. I could hear it was raining outside but because it is still so dark with the time change, I had no idea how hard it was coming down. I found out pretty quick.

A bit ago, Jon and I removed our gutters from the back of the house. We noticed that the wood was rotting and we wanted to hire someone to replace all the wood and hang new gutters. That work is set to begin next week. With no gutters, the rain just pours off the roof and on to my head. Good morning, Goodnight Mom!


So, back to the home repairs.

The past 10 days reminds me of a song....
We called a man to fix the house, what oh what a house, why would you grouse? We pumped out the water so we could kill spiders, who wiggled and jiggled inside her, we killed the spiders to fix the pipes, I don't know why, she swallowed a fly....perhaps she'll die.....

It is never good when you are at your desk at work and your father sends a text message that reads: "How do you know that you will need a second mortgage to pay your plumbing bill? Answer: You have three trucks and five plumbers." Crap.

I called the guy and he said in all of his 20 years, he had never seen such rotted pipes. ALL PIPES IN THE HOUSE! Rotted out. Now, we have had plumbers over to the house MANY times. No one once said that our pipes were rotted out. We knew there was a problem, we kept smelling things. So, we would call American Home Shield, (the worst investment ever, by the way!) but they just kept telling us the smell was dead animals down there. The animal story made sense because we often see critters running about. But, when this plumber that we hired ourselves NOT from AHS showed me the photographs, you cannot imagine what I saw.

The problem with this whole thing, other than the money we had to shell out unexpectedly, is that this took away our kitchen sink and washing machine for 10 days. Oh, and I had 80 people attending Jack's birthday party with no sink! Oh, and my parents were coming to stay! Somehow I managed to make the cupcakes and my folks only had to go to the laundromat once, but still, my house was a wreck.

The bottom line is that we now have all new pipes under the house AND as an added bonus, my house does not stink! YIPPEE!

Our new favorite plumber did have some news for us. Our duct work has fallen apart and needs to be replaced. Oh, and we need a kitchen sink. Oh, and our dryer isn't installed to code. Oh, and don't forget those gutters!! Cha-Ching!!!

That's ok. I'm not burning down the house just yet (but thank you for the suggestion, dear reader!)

I'm just relaxing this week. Jack's party is over. I have my house back for a bit until phase 2 of the repairs begins next week. My sister heads to Dallas tomorrow afternoon for a restful babymoon (hers--baby #4 on the way!)

Tonight, I'll relax, go to bed and listen to the rain pour off the side of the house....ahhhhhh.