Disaster (mostly) averted!

The sink and tub in the bathroom have been slow to drain. This means when I shower, that I have to make the decision: Do I want to have great water pressure and be ankle deep in water before I'm done, or will I be happier to have a trickle of water on my head, but have none lapping at my shins? And the sink.... you really don't want your spit floating arund for 5 minutes after you spit while brushing your teeth. Plus, cleaning out the soap ring leftover from washing my hands is no fun. I got tired of going through this on a daily basis. So I called my favorite handy man and aksed what would be best for clearing out the system. I mean, why call a plumber if Liquid Plumber will do, right?!

I was informed that there is a fabulous heavy duty item at Lowe's. It is SO heavy duty that it comes in a plastic bag. They recomend you wear eye protection, gloves and a face mask. I got gloves. Armed and ready I decided to tackle the job today. Dan took the older 3 to Mt Vernon, and I put Delaney down for a nap. It was me and the bathroom.

I decided to try to remove the U joint under the sink first. Why make the stuff work harder if I can pry a few feet of hair out first? Unfortunately, I couldn't get the durn thing off! It was stuck on tight, even after I unscrewed the big screws. I called and talked to my sister who suggester hammering a wedge to pry it off. I didn't think I wanted to chance that. So I screwed the screws back on, checked that they were tight, and got down to business.

I poured the serious chemical stuff down both drains and ran away. Okay, really, I opened the window and closed the door. The stench permeated the entire house in about 3 minutes anyway, Yikes! I opened all the windows and was grateful that its 55 degrees out today.

I waited the required 15 minutes and braved the foul smell and entered the bathroom. At this point, I was suppose to be able to run cold water through fresh-flushed pipes. Imagine my dismay when I saw that the sink was full. Not just full of brown chemical. Nope. Full of truly disgusting nasty black stuff. And it wasn't draining. Let me be clear here- it drained (just slowly) right up until I poured the evil, cancer causing chemicals into it!! AAck! On the plus side, the tub was clear. It still doesn't seem to drain well, but at least IT wasn't backed up!

So, I have a sink full of disgusting black ick, and it's putting off an aroma that simaltaneously makes you gag and pass out. I called my favorite handy man for more help. He said I was screwed. His best suggestioon- other than calling a professional plumber- was to use the hacksaw to saw through the PVC U-joint to get the stuff to drain. I don't have a problem with that, it was the whole hassle and procedure of having to go back to Home Depot and find someone helpful (few and far between here!), and replace tha U-Joint. Acutally, I think he called it a Pea- Trap. (P-trap? Pee trap? hee hee hee!)

Under just a bit of pressure, I decide tackle the romoval of the P-trap/U-joint in the usual manner; I unscrewed the screws. That got a trickle of icky stuff to come out and lowered the level in the sink. I thought it would work well enough to drain the sink so I could wait till Monday and call for a plumber. After 30 minutes though, it became clear that the thing was not draining fast enough. I thought about Deborah's advice and hunted down my flathead screwdriver. I used it and after much gnashing of teeth and great heroic effort, I actually got the joint off! It came in a splurt of gross liquid, but I was prepared and the towel was the only casualty! Yes! I drained the sink and cleaned the P-trap/U-joint. Whew! Mission Accomplished!

Well, sort of. The stinking thing still doesn't drain properly. So I'll have to get a real person to fix it anyway. Sigh.

My Day

I wanted to go running this morning. Dan offered to let me go at 7am, but I don't like getting up before 7:30. I am so spoiled! (And I like it!) So I figured I'd just go later with the girls. Unfortunately, about 7:30 it started to snow. No problem, I thought, its not much. I got Joshua and Marian off to school and got ready to run. I put the girls in my fabulous stroller and put up my lovely plastic rain rain guard, that I am very proud of. And off we went. I got to to end of the block before turning around. It was coming down too hard and it was sticking to the street, making it a little slick. Plus, gigantic snow flakes kept flying in my eyes and I couldn't see. So I consoled myself with the elliptical machine.


Here's Callie, before our ill-attempted run. she's catching snowflakes on her tongue!


And, to randomly jump to a totally different topic....

I believe I have mentioned that Delaney has learned to climb out of her crib. Now, we have a lovely white metal frame bunk bed that is currently un-bunked. Actually, one half of this bunk bed is dismantled in the basement. The top part to this bunk bed is currently in Delaney's room. (This matters because it has the bars to keep kids from falling off. It also keeps Delaney from rolling off the bed too.) I placed the bed right next to the crib so she can climb out of the crib and into the twin bed.

This is now how she sleeps:

This is Delaney today, at nap time. It does take longer to get her to sleep, but once she does, its so cute!

Check out the drool spot! She's so sacked out she didn't even twitch when the flash went off.

I think she may have permanently transitioned to the big-girl bed. In few days I'll move the bed away from the crib. I don't think she's slept in the crib in 3-4 days already.

The Normal Mormon Husband

For those of you unfamiliar with the Normal Mormon Husband, this does not refer to my own husband. It is a blog done by a man who calls himself that. An amusing blog. I love the Normal Mormon Husband blog. And his most recent post was so well done, I had to tell you to go there. Somewhere at the bottom my blog is a list of links to my favorite places. NMH is on it. Click and visit and enjoy. I know I did!


(This is my PS- I am referring to the post about being Un-American and Misinformed.)

Grumpy

I'm grumpy and tired. Delaney keeps climbing out of bed at obscene hours of the night, and it takes at least 90 minutes to get her back to sleep. The routine goes like this: from the depths of a lovely, sound sleep I hear "Mommy! Door!" and I drag myself out of bed. I note that it is 1:44am. I walk to Delaney's room and open the door. She is out of bed and out of the jammies I sent her to bed in. She is either naked, or wearing some haphazard outfit with her arms and legs in the wrong places. I fix her clothes and put her back to bed. I go back to bed. 20-30 minutes later we repeat the process. Eventually, I put her down and see that it is 3:15 and she stays down for the rest of the night. Except for this morning. She was up (loudly) at 6:30. I do not want to be up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning! Unfortunately, I was.

I consoled myself with the thought of a nap later. Unfortunately, Dan put her down at 11:30, while I was out at the library with Marian. Dan then took off with Joshua for DC and Delaney woke up 20 minutes after he left. So no nappy for me. Grrr. And on that happy note, here are some pictures:


Dan and Joshua stopped by the White House while in DC today. Joshua had to get his picture taken with the new prez!

They visited the Naval Memorial, and I had told Joshua I wanted pictures, so he took this one for me! What a great kid.

Now I have a little follow up.

**On the Red Dresses- My Mother in Law got them in Utah at a store there and she said she bought all the ones they had.

**On the snow.... The kids built some "snow forts" in the yards. We had a little one in front of our house, and across the street was another one. Eventually they got to hurling snowballs at each other. They had a wonderful time, and played till it was dark and dinnertime, and I made them come inside.

Here is a little snow throwing before the forts were finished. Did I mention that Joshua and Marian stayed outside in the snow all day Tuesday and Wednesday?! I sent a LOT of mittens through the dryer!

Marian wanted to build a snowman. The snow was hard to pack. So she thought of a good idea, (That's what she told me!) and she used the big empty ice cream tub to pack snow and stack it to make this snowman. This is it a day after she made it. It was a lot cuter before. She was very thorough- Peas for buttons, branch arms, carrot nose and a scarf. It had eyes, but I forgot what they were made of. I was impressed.

Delaney demanded to go outside. I put her jacket on. I put her boots on. And I put her mittens on. she went outside with Dan, who was shoveling the drive. 5 minutes later, the mittens came off and were tossed in the snow. Next, she shucked off the jacket. Then she got cold, and this was her face as she came to the door to come in. Silly pickle!

Snow at Last!

Joshua has been so sad that we haven't gotten any snow. That all changed this morning! I didn't recall snow being in the forcast, so it was a total surprise to me when I opened the blinds at 8:30 this morning and saw snow falling, and snow all over the ground! Joshua dashed to get dressed and he and Marian raced out the door.

They made snow angels as soon as they got outside.

Then they tried making snowballs.

Delaney wanted out and was howling to do so. Being the mom that I am, I put on a jacket and let her out- wearing her jammies, and Callie's shoes, no socks (which Delaney had put on all by herself so I would let her out!). I figured she wasn't going to be out long anyway. And she wasn't.

Joshua wanted to shovel the drive, so I helped him get out the shovel. Maybe I should mention that at this point, I am still in my jammies myself, and wearing my glasses, and feeling quite frumpy. I did get showered. Then I dressed the girls and did their hair. After all that, I let everyone out of the house, properly dressed. Well, as properly as we were going to get. I haven't justified the expense of snow pants for the small amount we'd use them.

Marian also wanted to do some shoveling. She spent over an hour out there doing just that. Joshua and his friends ran off to the park to sled. They were gone for about 2 hours, having a blast.

This one refused to keep a hat on. She also didn't stay out too long at a time.

Callis is Dancing in the snow for me!

Marian is catching snowflakes on her tongue.

Joshua has now spent nearly the entire day outside. Marian has too. Callie spent about an hour outside and is now content to stay where it is warm and dry. Delaney would like to go out again, but I do not. I agree with Callie. Warm and dry is nice.

Marian has been hauling around a giant slush ball. She keeps coming inside to change mittens. We have about 5 pairs of mittens, and I thought we had several gloves. Apparently not. Joshua has the purple gloves, and there should be some red ones somewhere, but I can't find them. So Marian will come in and swap out her saturated mittens for some dry ones. I have a second load of wet stuff in the dryer right now. I think Marian is also on her third jacket. Joshua is only on his second!