Boxes

After I posted this, I realized I need to say that this was LAST week, the week ending with Saturday the 29th of May... ok, here is the post...

Boxes and Boxes. That's what we've had around here. The sad thing is that we actually need more of them, to pack our stuff and move. However, I thought I'd report on what happened during the last week, at least part of it for now, to give you a clue of whats been going on around here.

This is Michael in his first big box to play in. He sat in front of it for a while, a little hesitant. I told him it was ok, and he finally went in slowly.

There he is, in the box and happy.

I thought this was cute..to see him crawl out of it, and go back in a few times.

Then, I mentioned the possibilities of what a box could "be" and "do." After that we had to make it into a house and cut a door, which he went in and out of many times. It became a game for him to get in and out of the house, before I could get a picture of him coming out. He thought it was pretty funny. I did get this good one, though.

So, you may ask a couple questions about this big box:

1-Where was Eric? At school. He did get a very short turn to play with the box before it was taken away by the men who didn't know we would continue to play with it for days and days.

2-Where did it come from? Well, thats another (the big) part of the week's story. Tuesday AM I woke up and couldn't figure out why the carpet outside the bathroom was wet, but assumed one of the boys didn't make it in time. When I asked them who peed their pants, and they both denied it. I didn't believe them--I even smelled their pants to check for sure! Strange. I went back, and the carpet was SOAKING. I mean it puddled at my feet as I stepped into it. The walls were dry. The bathroom floor was dry. Very odd.

Well, it turns out the water heater broke somewhere around 2 AM or so. I only know that because I woke up around then, heard water running, and couldn't figure out why Grandma would be showering at this hour. But, I went back to sleep cause, well why not? You know me. The water heater is on the other side of the wall that is in my room, right next to the bathroom door. Brian had discovered the lack of warm water and turned the water heater off when he woke up, but it continued to drip from the top of the water heater somehow (maybe from the pipe above? I still don't know).

So, the plumbers came to put in a new water heater. The only "problem" with that was this: we have all of our storage in the furnace room/storage room that is all under the stairs with the water heater and air conditioner/heater unit. So, since the old water heater needed to come out, we had to make a clear, wide path for it to get out and the new and bigger one in...which meant that the boys' room had to be adjusted, as well as many of the items on the heater side of the storage. The other side of storage had to be mostly emptied so they could get into the area where the drain is, and drain the 50 gallons of water out of the broken heater before they could move it.

So, here are pictures of what my house looked like. Are we moving? Yes, but not really for a few months...this is our storage and everything "re-arranged" to accomodate what needed to be done.

My room, looking from the boys' room. The wall on the left is the wall to the furnace room. The dresser you see at the end next to my bed actuallybelongs there. The rest does not. The extremely wet carpet was to the left of the dresser in the little "hallway" to the bathroom.

The boys' room. Yes, those are the valentine's hearts you have seen before, still up. The furnace room door is just out of the picture on the left. What you can't see here is the fact that the boys' beds are piled up with even more things that came out of storage.

This is my living room, as seen from the kitchen. What you can't see is the little "alcove" area that we have on the left, which was also piled up with storage items. Notice how we left ourselves a "hallway" to be able to walk from the kitchen to the bathroom? The storage door is just to the right of the blue couch. And, yes, you are looking at my dirty laundry in its sorter which had to come off the carpet and find a new home for a few days.

So, to continue the story: New water heater installed, finally we had hot water again around 7PM. They were here from 1-6 or so, installing the new and taking out the old. Ok, not really taking out the old. It stayed until Friday so they could take it out without dragging all the dirt and grime out across the house and up the stairs when they took it out. So, naturally, it stayed in the furnace room where our storage is usually stacked on that side. We were able to get our stuff back into the living room side of storage...until they pulled it out again because they had forgotten to put a pan under the new water heater, which they had to drain (all 75 gallons of it) to put the pan under it, which meant that it all came back again. Luckily, we had gone to town for a few things so the plumbers did it themselves. After all, we'd done it already and it was their fault that they didn't do it right the first time, right? I still feel sorry for them, and me cause now I don't know where my boxes are except "in there somewhere". I've had to hunt to find what I needed. Luckily, our TP supply was easy to find after it was put back in.

The hard thing--ok, there were lots of hard things--but, to mention one or two (besides the fact we didn't shower for a day, which I can't stand)

1. This was Tuesday. Storage out, as you saw. Then, we find out Wednesday that some appraisers are coming and we should have it all put away by when they come on Thurs. Great. Just great. As if we didn't have enough to do without this happening--get Jim an apartment in Pueblo, get him packed, get him some new work clothes, get some groceries (before the sale ends!) for us and for Pueblo, etc...

2. Tuesday night I spent hours trying to get the water out of the carpet. I got some, but not nearly all. Water remained. We finally put towels down and walked on top of them for a while to help soak up the water. Still, water remained. We put the little space heater we have on it to help. Still, water remained. This is Wednesday night now. We starts to have a slightly new scent in my room. I can barely enter my room and opt to sleep on the couch, cause that's just gross. Friday, as we are walking out the door, Grandma says the carpet needs to be pulled up. Fine. We'll deal with it when we get back.

At this point I start to ask myself: I wonder who my home teachers are? I'm going to call them, cause we're in it WAY over our heads. I think this is the first time in my married life (almost 8 years!!!) that it has really crossed my mind to call the HTs, and I was actually going to do it if I could find out who they are!

Grandma and Grandpa, thankfully, took care of it while we were gone. Where did we go? To buy Jim new work clothes at JC Penny's cause they're having a good sale. We discovered on the other side of town that I've lost my wallet between Penny's and Albertsons. After driving back to Penny's and discovering my wallet is not in the parking lot where I had, as we drove away I thought to myself "That's an odd lump in the parking lot. I don't remember running over a rock as we pulled in."

So, we scrap the idea of going back to the grocery store and rush home to cancel everything in my wallet. The problem we have is that Jim is moving stuff to Pueblo Saturday (tomorrow at this point), and he needs access to at least a bank account to pay his deposit, etc. After 2 banks, 2 credit cards, and a big pain later, everything is cancelled without any action on the cards in the last hour. I kept saying "There are good people in the world!" to Jim--we are under serious life stress, and I'm now in the dog house because of my little mishap. This is the first time in my life I've EVER lost my wallett. My keys occasionally get lost at home, but nothing like this has happened to me. I drove down to the DMV to report it lost and get a new license, because I'm hoping to still be able to go see Jen and my roommies in Seattle in a few weeks, and I need my license to fly (and drive, but you know). Then, the phone call came: Jim calling to say someone found my wallet and we could go get it. YEAH! Not that it saves me any of the pain, but now I don't have to get a new picture taken at the DMV. My license is good until 2012, which is 10 years between pictures, and I didn't want to have to get another one quite yet.

It turns out that Jim's debit card for 1 bank is still good, and both banks are good for checks still. So, I wrote a check at the grocery store for food when I finally got there on Saturday, and another for some cash (cause not everywhere will take checks anymore, and what if we need to go to McD's drivethrough while Jim is gone?) Now we know: make a file titled "For when I lose my wallet" and make a copy of all of your cards, license, etc. It would make life TONS easier in that unfortunate event of wallet loss.

The good news: Jim got as much as he could packed and piled in Grandpa's truck Friday night, and they moved him into his apartment in Pueblo on Saturday. The boys and I made it to soccer ON TIME -and-with the snack (which I got at the store right before, because of the mishap Friday).

It was very stressful and eventful...but, I guess that's life. I should be used to the very unpredictable nature of life, especially after the last year of our lives. Maybe its that we don't ever get used to it, but maybe as times goes on we'll be better able to handle the unexpected? So, here's to surviving another week and being able to look back on it with less stressful emotions than when we were going through it!

Have a good day today, everyone--and kudos to you for actually reading this long! -Lisa