Wa to the hooz to the ie!

Today's been a busy day. I've spent more time on the phone today than I have in the last couple of weeks combined, and my throat was able to handle it for the most part. I feel almost human. This is best I've ever felt after any surgery I've had, and I couldn't be happier or more relieved about it. I was able to be productive in spite of my circumstances, and I'll take it!

Hubster took yesterday and today off, so he could help me out and watch the kids, since I'm restricted in what I do for a few days. He ended up taking both girls into their doctors. Turns out Scooter has strep throat. So now we're waiting for a call from my doctor to let me know, if I need to start on antibiotics, too. Considering I had an infection in my throat when he did the surgery, I'm thinking the chances are fairly good it was strep, since Scooter tested positive. We'll see what happens.

They're going to start digging up the yard tomorrow, as far as we know. The yard work is actually a little less than what we anticipated, which is good. If all goes as planned, they'll put in the clean outs and replace the sewer pipe all the way to the road. Once they're done, we should never have a problem with the sewer getting clogged again. 

On top of that, they'll also be putting in a back flow regulator thingy in the floor in the basement. There will be a flap inside the sewer drain that will keep the sewer from coming into our house, if the city has an issue and it starts backing up again. When we went to my nephew's wedding almost 2 years ago, the city sewer backed up into roughly a dozen homes at the end of the block. We were very concerned we'd be coming home to a mess again. Thankfully, we didn't come home to a mess that time, but it has felt like we've held our collective breath waiting for it to happen ever since we bought the house. It will be so nice to have it done and over with!

We will be getting a little more work done, since they'll be out here working on the yard. They'll be moving one heat vent from the floor in the bathroom to the wall. It's mere inches away from the tub, and if anyone slops any water over the edge of the tub, it goes down into the vent and drips down in the laundry room downstairs. With it being in the wall, we will no longer have to deal with the mess!

They'll also be putting in an exhaust fan in the bathroom downstairs. It has a window in it, but you can't really open the window to help with the humidity in the winter time. It's too cold. So we have a dehumidifier running in there all the time, or the walls are dripping with condensation. It's a mess. Plus the dehumidifiers work so well during the winter that poor Hubster feels like he's a shock absorber. He can't touch anything in the house without shocking himself with static electricity. It's sort of funny, but I can totally understand why he's getting sick of it!

And because we're getting so much work done with the same company, they're going to clean our air vents/ducts out for free!! We've been having to change the allergy filters, (the ones you're supposed to be able to leave in for as long as 3 months!!), on the furnace every 2 to 3 weeks, and they're absolutely gross by the time we change them out! It's no wonder our asthma flares up so badly when we have the furnace on! Almost as nice/important as kicking the asthma on its rear is that we won't be dealing with 'magic dust' anymore. You know...it's the dust that accumulates on furniture just as quickly as it is wiped away. 

The payments on the loan aren't going to be the funnest thing in the world, but it will be worth every penny we have to pay to get this stuff done!

Wahoozie! Things are looking up!

When toilet paper sticking to your shoe takes on a whole new meaning.

I'm feeling cooped up and I've got a bit of Spring Fever, even though we're nowhere close to Spring. 

I was supposed to have my tonsils removed a couple of weeks ago, but because of a medical condition I have they had to reschedule it. Apparently I will never be allowed to have surgery at a surgery center and instead this and any future surgeries need to be performed at the hospital. I go in next week to have the work done, and I'm just ready to get it over with.

I've been trying to stay away from the germs that are in public places as much as possible, because I didn't want to come down with anything that would stop me from going in.  For the most part it's been easy, but I have to admit the last couple of weeks have dragged on. The day before I was scheduled to go in, they broke the news to me that it needed to be done in the hospital. So just when I was just about to see the light of day I had 2 weeks added to my sentence. I'm ready to be paroled! I want to take the girls shopping and not be concerned that I'll catch something that will postpone the surgery once again, if I run to the store for a gallon of milk.

I have to admit that things haven't been exactly boring here at home while waiting though. Last week when I was getting ready for a doctor's appointment, things got a little exciting. Have  I mentioned that not all excitement is the same? If not, let me tell you now that excitement is not necessarily a good thing...

After giving Hopper her shower, I jumped in, so I'd be ready for my doctor's appointment. I'd been shaving my legs and was finishing up when I noticed the shower drain cover was starting to float. I was immediately filled with a sense of dread. The dread turned to horror, as I was scrambling to rinse off my legs and noticed black stuff coming back up through the drain. 

Crap.

Literally and figuratively both. 

I jumped out as fast as I could and stretched each foot up to the sink and washed them as best I could before drying off and getting dressed. I slathered my feet with hand sanitizer before putting on my socks and shoes. It was the best I could do under the circumstances, and it made me feel marginally better, but I was still grossed out.

Thankfully, we didn't have to leave for the appointment for a couple of hours, so Hubster got the snake out and snaked the drain. The water in the shower and on the floor of the laundry room subsided, and he did get a small clump of roots out, so we were hopeful all was well. It wasn't. As soon as I flushed the toilet upstairs, the toilet downstairs started backing up. In the split moment confusion of watching the toilet water rise, Hubster flushed it hoping it would go down. It did. All over the floor. 

We were back to square one, but it was time to head out the door for the appointments at this point, so Hubster and Scooter had to skip their showers. We called the plumbers on the way to the car and asked, if they could meet us back at the house once we were done across town. Thankfully, it all worked out, and the drain was snaked once again with a gigantic snake that is much more powerful than our industrial one. The roots he got out of the drain looked like a small volleyball in the plastic bag. 

Gross.

But at least we don't have to worry about black stuff floating up through the shower drain when we're showering again. The bad thing is that we do have things to worry about.

A few years ago, we were told we needed to replace the drain outside from the outside of the house all the way to the street. We put it off, because it was going to cost anywhere from $7,000 to $10,000. We're now wishing we had done it. The price has gone up to almost 25 grand! Apparently one of the permits that is needed is almost $6,000, and there is more than one permit needed in order to complete the work.

Crap.

If we couldn't afford $10,000 a few years ago, I can absolutely promise we can't afford $25,000 today. 

Crap. 

So we're looking into a different solution. It involves putting in a 'clean out'. They can replace about 10 feet of the outside drain and put two pipes shaped like a U. If they use the side of the U that is closest to the street, the can snake things out into the house, and if they use the part of the U that is closest to the house, they can clean everything out toward the street, and they never have to bring the filthy snake down our stairs again.  So it's definitely an option. It's a $7,000 to $10,000 option, but at least it isn't $25,000. And at this point, we need to get it done, so we don't keep having these horrible sewer problems. 

Crap.

On a good note, I got the router replaced the other day, so I'll be able to finally get online and write a blog post without being bumped. 

I'll take it. 

Yay! Not so Yay. Yay again! So far from yay I can't think straight!

So very thankful. My husband cleared the drain behind the washing machine, so I can do laundry without having to stand in the laundry room over the washing machine all day. And he spared my neck and shoulders. :)

It's been a very gloomy day around here. Trying hard to shake it off. I don't do well with overcast skies. I need the sunshine!

Got the CD of pictures from the restoration company in the mail today. That's good. I'll be able to get all the claims finished soon. I was hoping I'd get the claims finished by Monday. Realistically, that's not going to happen. I can't concentrate worth a darn with the kids around. Something about, "Mom. Mom. Mom. Um. Dad. Daddy. Dad. Mom. Mommy?" with us saying "What? or What, honey?" between each utterance does something to the concentration. So I'll work on it when they're in school.

Just heard about how Seth MacFarlane used Trig Palin's Down Syndrome to get under the skin of his mom, Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska. I think it's beyond disgusting to use a special needs child to get at someone whose political views differ from your own. I don't care WHAT your political views are. It's WRONG! It's DISGUSTING!

I've never really cared for Family Guy much in the first place. It's just not my style. But my husband finds it humorous and used to watch it fairly often. He's no longer a fan, either. Before, MacFarlane at least went after those who could somehow defend themselves against his attacks. Does he really need a laugh so badly that he attacks the defenseless?

How incredibly sad that he's such a small person.

Oh for crying out loud. Again? Seriously?

I'm trying really hard not to complain, because I know that I have it so good in so incredibly many ways, but...I'm going to complain.

I just have to say that I really struggle when it comes to our plumbing. Really.

We are going to have to have the front yard dug up and a new sewer line installed, because ours has tree roots in it that cause it to back up into our laundry room every so many months. We used to be able to snake out the main drain once every 6 to 9 months, and it would just start to back up when we'd need to do it again. However, the professional snake we got is no longer doing enough. We have tree roots coming through our line, and this year, we've had problems with sewage backing up every couple of months. Long gone are the days of a 6 to 9 month reprieve.

Digging up the front yard and replacing the sewer line is going to cost several thousand dollars. Like $6,000 to $12,000. We don't have the money to do it right now, so we're going to take our chances and snake every 6 to 8 weeks with our own snake and try to keep it at bay for a year or so when we're likely able to afford the repairs. That's not the problem right now, though.

Right now, we're having problems with the washing machine backing up out of the drain pipe located behind the washer. It's just enough to make the floor wet under the washer and dryer and several feet over to the one side. And of course, if there's anything on the floor (when isn't there??), it always gets wet, and I've got to try to get things washed and sterilized or thrown out before mildew sets in.

I have two options. One is time intensive. The other is labor intensive.

First, I could sit down in the laundry room and try to stay busy while keeping an eye on the washing machine. I'd need to shut the washer off shortly after it started draining. After leaving the machine off for 30 seconds to a minute, I could then start it again, and hope it didn't back up yet again. I'd have to stay right by the machine, though, so I didn't forget to shut it off when it started draining after the rinse cycle. I'd get very little done, if anything while waiting to shut the machine off, yet I wouldn't be able to leave the laundry room. I have done this in the past, but I absolutely abhor doing so. I hate feeling tethered, and I hate feeling unproductive when I'm in a productive mood.

Option #2 involves more physically. I always ache by the time I'm done. It involves using a hand snake (auger) and feeding 6" to 8" of line at a time down the pipe. Twisting the handle several times to get the line to go down the pipe and then pulling more out. It feels like it takes forever, but it probably only takes about 30 to 45 minutes to get through the entire line. The thing is that it's non-stop movement. By the time I'm done, I can hardly move, because my neck and shoulders hurt so much.

So I stopped with laundry for the night. I'll have my hubby help me tomorrow with cleaning out the line. We'll probably clean the sewer line, too, since it's been awhile.

Maybe then I can get caught up on laundry.

I can dream a dream, right? ;)