I am Invincible

Yes, yes I am invincible! I am unconquered! I took myself back to Lowe's this morning and got a new toilet handle and lever. And I made sure it was the right kind! I thought I was going to have to pay $18 for the super fancy universal one, but then I saw the $6 bendable one and I went with that. Whoo-hoo!

I came home and read for a while before I tackled the job. The stupid water shut off valve so does not shut it off! I filled 2 buckets and used 3 towels to get all the water. Still, I persevered. I turned off the water, unscrewed the hose, set my bucket under the gushing stream and wrestled out the nasty old pump valve. And it was icky. Then I installed my new plastic one without the big balloon thing on it. Pretty nifty!

I don't know how I managed to trun this sideways, but here is my shiny new pump valve! It matches my new flapper valve so nicely!

Check out this corroded balck thing. That's what billows oily black nastyness when you touch it, and I am not even going to mess with that. It can wait. Well, I hope it can wait. It may be why the water leaks, but I am so not touching it! I did MY duty!

And here is my lovely new toilet innards. See my new bendable toilet handle?! I may need to adjust it some more. It lets the flapper valve close too quickly. So far, nothing is leaking water anywhere, but I'll keep an eye on it. I'm quite impressed with myself! $15 and I fixed my toilet. I think I am so cool!

And in other news:

I let the kids go on a little treasure hunt. Sometimes I give a series of clues to find it, but I was lazy today. I hid something in the house and said go find it, and off they went.
These funny glasses were their "treasure"! Aren't they a hoot?! Yes, Callie has no pants. That's what happens when I go to Lowe's and leave Daddy in charge. He's not yet back into the Daddy-groove yet.

Toilet: 2: Rebecca: 1

Soooo, the toilet has had a very minor drip thing going on. It would run a little at odd times. No problem till we got our first water bill. Oh yes, now it matters! I thought perhaps it was a do-it-yourself project and inlisted my Dad's help. I went out and bought a new flapper valve and felt impressed with myself.


2 weeks later, my new flapper valve is still in the wrapper. Callie tries to flush the toilet and the handle broke. Actually, the plastic part directly on the other side of the handle sheared right off. Thus, flushing by handle became an impossibility.


Joshua and I headed to Lowe's for a Mommy/Son date. I felt quite important as I picked out a shiny new handle. Actually, I let Joshua pick it out. I thought perhaps I should replace pump thing as well, since it was pretty old. So I selected a new one, and we brought our prizes home.

Here is the back of my toilet. I know, you are thoroughly impressed. This was taken BEFORE that plastic bar broke. I needed this to help choose my flapper valve 2 weeks ago. This is just so you know what I started with. I am now prepared and motivated and I get to work.


That means I called my Dad to walk me through it. He says to turn off the water at the base. I turn and turn and turn till it won't go any more. There is still water trickling out of the thing; this is not good. No worries, I'll deal with it later! I wow myself by removing the old flapper valve and replacing it with my beautiful new one.

Check it out. (I had to get orange/red because they didn't offer blue.) Motivated by my success in this endevour, I move on to the broken handle issue. Oops. To my dismay the handle is so not going to work. It is for a SIDE mounted toilet and this one clearly is not side mounted. It is a funky not-quite-side-not-quite-front mounted kind. Ug. I am disgusted. I will have to go back tomorrow and see if I can get the correct part. In the mean time I gear myself to tackle this:

Yes, this ugly, rusty thing must go, and I am ready to do it. I prepare my bucket and with herculean effort I unscrew the nut at the bottom of the toilet. Since the wall valve would not shut off all the way, there is a continuous stream of water flowing into my bucket. I feel the pressure; I'm on a time line to get this done before the bucket fills.

No problem, I am a Marine wife; I can do it! I pull and strain and do my best to work the original hunk of ugliness out and I cannot do it. I fear that I might truly break the toilet, so didn't give it my absolute best, but that darn thing was not coming out. I reach down to the base ans as soon as my fingers touch it, black nastyness erupts. What is that?! It was icky and all over my fingers, and clouding the toilet. That was the breaking point. The toilet had won. Unfortunately, it was not done. I had to rescrew the leaking hose back to the toilet and I could not get it on. My trusty Marine had to take over and do that for me.

So, I got the flapper valve on. I did not get the handle fixed and I did not get the pump thingy fixed, and the dadgummed thing leaks and inked me! I admit defeat for the time being. However, tomorrow is another day!

Sabatouge

It must be sabatouge!! First the lawn mower thingy falls off. Now, tonight, the toilet handle has broken off. Who wants to lift the back lid every time you need to flush?! Aargh. I have called my Dad, the wise one who knows all. He will tell me if it is something I can fix, and then I will tell you!

Independence

Does anyone know what this is? I do not. I know where it came from though. On Monday I mowed the lawn. Yes, yes I did. I raked the back yard and I picked prickly gum balls out of the lawn. Then I mowed the front. It was sorely in need of it. I was nearly done when this item fell off. Yep, just fell off into the lovely, fresh-mowed grass. I thought "Huh!" and I continued to mow, because I was not going to have a half done lawn if I could help it! Aparently it is not a vitally important part, because I finished mowing the lawn. I'm thinking it may have been a muffler, because that mower was darn loud! I did not press my luck however and I did not mow the back yard. I'll save that bit of fun for Dan!

My point was that I feel quite impressed with myself. I hate it when Dan is gone. Sure, I like watching chick-flicks unmocked, and eating all the ice cream before Dan can, but I prefer to have him around. I hate taking out the trash. I absolutely detest it. I do not mind mowing the lawn, its the child-care that's an issue. I hate being the only one to drag kids back to their own beds in the middle of the night and I hate cooking for 4 unappreciative children. Plus, it is nice to relax and have grown up conversation in the evenings when the little tykes are in bed.

It is gratifing to know I can do it alone though. Lanie's husband was impressed that I beat them to church on Sunday, and they only have 2 children. Yes, there is much satisfaction in that! I am happy that my children are all content and well behaved, most of the time. Dan gone last week and this week has not been as bad as I feared. Sure, Joshua is still complaining about Spanish class, but I notice that his work is getting better. Marian is happy at school and is eager to go. Callie is enjoying preschool and is making friends. Delaney is just her cute self.

And I look at this and think, yes, I am happy; this is the life I would have picked if I could have. I love that I do not have to work. I am delighted that I get to stay home with my children and see them learn and grow. I have 4 fantastic children who I adore, and a wonderful husband who is totally underappreciated. I am incredibly blessed and grateful for the way my life is turning out.

And that's so not what I planned to write when I sat down. But now I have to go get dinner out of the oven. We made tin foil dinners! Its the first time and I'm hoping they will eat it because they made it!

I love my girls

The girls are feeling neglected. I will make it clear that I love my girls. I do. They are cute and adorable and incredible different in every way!

I love that this one marches to the beat of her own drum. I love that she nearly always operates on an even keel. She's very mellow and self entertaining. She has an incredible, vivid imagination, and when she's pleased with herself it makes my heart sing. When she gets motivated and helps out, cleaning her room, she is amazing! Did you know she will arrange her blankets and stuffed animals to look nice?! She even arranges the slippers under the bed. Very detail oreinted, is my Marian!


I love this kid. She is in a class of her own, with her sparkly eyes and happy grin.

She is so mischevious and silly. When she smiles it makes the world brighter. She makes the funniest jokes because they are so not jokes at all and make no sense what so ever. that's why I laugh at them. I love how when her face lights up, it really makes everything around her light up. She has such a happy disposition and wants to be involved. She loves to help and to be loved.

I love this one too. She has been my most enjoyable baby. But now she's not such a baby anymore!

This one is an interesting contrast of caution and fearlessness. She wants to do whatever the big kids are doing. See this picture? That's my girl- way up high on this pretty tall slide, just a-swinging away, no care for the possibility of death or dismemberment. However, bring out a puppy and she cowers behind me. She is a tender hearted girl. When Callie was having a meltdown, Delaney brought over her blanket to comfor her. When Callie sat down and refused to follow me, Delaney walked over and held out her hand so Callie would hold it and walk with her. It so melts my heart to see these sweet acts of kindness and I hope she always has that impulse and follows it.

And now let me mention what we're enduring right now. I have lost control of bedtime. Marian use to put herself to sleep. Callie use to play quietly and then would fall asleep. Ever since we got here, One or both of them ends up on my floor at night, and Marian has still not spent an entire night in her bed. Last week both of them wanted me to pat-pat their backs for a bit. Stupid me, I did. Now they cry that I won't. Tonight I went with the tough love approach: They were in bed, I didn't want to see or hear them again.

Marian kept talking to me and I kept ignoring her and then I happened to catch the phrase, "Callie's foot is bleeding. I saw it." Well, doggone it, that I couldn't ignore. So upstairs I went and hauled Callie into the bathroom. Sure enough, her foot was bleeding.

This kid had scraped skin off 4 toes. Not a lot of bleeding, and no crying, but yikes! She said she jumped off the bed and landed on the laundry basket. I put bandaids on 3 toes, and I expect that by now they are already off, but I did my duty. And by golly, they better be asleep soon! I put them to bed at 7:30 so that they will be asleep by 8:30!