Happy Friday to you, one & all! I feel like I have been in the midst of a hurricane this past week & a half. I've even got some pics from the midst of our storm of busyness that will give you an even better idea of what we've been up to. Just a hint, I've learned that plumbing is not my calling in life!
Mike's parents have a home that is built on a slab instead of a foundation or crawl space. Their house was built in 1948 & this was a popular construction method back then. However, all of the plumbing is buried under the concrete slab - & that sucker is 4" thick! They've been having some drain problems for a while & had consulted a plumber. He wasn't interested in the job so Mike decided he'd tackle it. He took a week of vacation & I ended up taking four days to help him out. We had to rent a jack hammer for several days & I got pretty good at wielding a sledge hammer & a shovel. We had some fabulous help from a friend of the family who came by every day after he got off work. I was so impressed by Rick's knowledge & his work ethic.
Mike had to rework the path of the drain & make new connections & the whole bit. I was confused almost the whole time until he had it all put together. Then it made sense! I do not have an engineering mind, for sure.
While I was busting up floor tile in one room (hence the face mask - that stuff was flying everywhere!) Mike was using the jack hammer in another room. I continue to have a phobia of power tools (the louder the tool, the greater the fear) so I stayed away from that bad boy!
As of now, all the plumbing is hooked up & working like a dream. We are so thankful to have it done! All that Mike needs to do now is finish covering the lines back up. Only one small part in the utility room will have concrete poured back over it; we got that done Monday after work. As for the lines in the rest of the rooms, Mike is building a floor over them. This way if there are any future problems, we won't have to bust up any more concrete. So we have one more project winding down! His parents were champs about the whole thing - no worries when we had their water off for hours at a time, they fed us like royalty, & not one little sniff about the absolute disaster of a mess that we made. It was a lot of work, but it was so good to be able to help & work together. It literally felt like the Lord led the way for us because there were several instances where we weren't sure what to do & someone was there to help & give advice.
In the midst of the plumbing drama, Mike's sister had to go with her family to an out of town funeral. While they were gone Mike's parents took care of Seuss, their puppy. He's not a puppy actually. He's over 100 pounds of sweet mutt hound dog. I adore him. I took him for a couple of long walks & for a little field trip to our house. He was such a good doggie while away from home - although you could tell he missed his people! I had to give him lots of extra hugs & ear rubs to comfort him. I miss him this week...
While we were working on the plumbing my in-laws fed us lunch & dinner every day. Since they couldn't really get in the kitchen & cook like normal, we had our choice of take out food at each meal. They fed us well - pizza, subs, salads, you name it. But when I woke up on Saturday morning & looked in our fridge I saw several things that were going to go bad if I didn't cook them up quick. So I hauled out my stock pot & got to work!
Yeah, I went a little vegetable soup crazy. I jarred it all up to share & carry to work & stick in the freezer. I've been eating some every day at lunch & it's been really good. I can't stand salad when it's cold & this has been a great alternative because I packed this soup out with lots of veggies!
Did you celebrate Valentine's Day? We did but in a very low key way. Mike got me some gorgeous roses. They are really so very lovely & smell so, so, so good! And I filled our M&M jar with peanut butter M&M's. Mike was very happy about that!
Instead of a card, I wrote out several notes about what I loved about Mike. Then I sent him a picture of the notes, one every hour throughout his workday. I was originally hoping to get a pretty picture frame & put a pretty piece of scrapbook paper in it to use as a dry erase board for my messages. That presentation would have been a lot less cheesy. However, with all the plumbing stuff & work & everything I never got to go to the store to get the supplies (hello, I haven't even grocery shopped in like 2 1/2 weeks!). So I ended up digging through some stationary that I've had for years & I used some of it. Super cheesy looking but that's not the important part, right?
I love goofing around with editing pics & I discovered that I have an app that lets you layer multiple exposures. So I layered a bunch of Mike's notes to create that weird thing up there. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you have a few minutes on your hands!
And in the bad news department, I had another migraine on Sunday. It was BAD. I sat through church with my sunglasses on praying that I didn't disgrace myself by throwing up everywhere. I went home & put myself in bed, STAT. I took about a three hour nap & woke up feeling some better. But as you can see, I still had a deep frown between my eyes. While my head is hurting I cannot relax those muscles. It's miserable. I used the last sample of medicine that my doctor gave me last August. It didn't help at all & I had a bit of a residual headache for several days after. I'm off to pick up some new samples after work today. Any other migraine suffers use Relpax? That's what they want me to try next...we'll see!
And finally, just some thoughts I've been ruminating on lately...anybody else feeling the itch for a change? I don't know if I can blame my restlessness on spring fever. We haven't hardly had a winter. That's a little snap of my winter coat up there. I love it's happy plaid. And I don't know that I feel ready to change in my plaid coat & dark jeans for tank tops & flip flops. I just feel itchy for something different...perhaps I'm just trying to justify some discontent. That's probably what it is. And I've been a little discouraged because I haven't been really enjoying major success when it comes to my goals. I have majorly slipped on working out. While I was sledging & digging I was really reminded that I need to keep my body strong so that I can be a help when jobs like that come along. I don't want to have to say
I can't lift that or
I'm not strong enough to move that or whatever the thing may be. So I've decided that the change I'm itching to see is one that needs to happen in my heart & in my attitude. I'm praying for the Lord to renew my energy, renew my discipline, & get me thinking right so I can start doing right!
If you made it all the way through this rambling, disjointed post you get a major high five from me! I hope you all have super fun weekends!
No comments:
Post a Comment