I feel like an old man. I know I'm really not, but jeez I've been feeling that way this week.
Ok, so here is the low down on what's been happening lately.
In late February I was working on finishing the bathroom in the upstairs of our house (the one on the right if you've seen the picture below). It should have been done before we moved in, but I won't even begin to tell that disaster now, I'd be here all night. Needless to say, the room was done, the floor and toilet was in. The sink and cabinet were ready to be finished. I just needed to hook in the sink to pipes and install the toilet. I'd been taking my time to be sure to do it right. Well, after 3 days and more trips than I can count back and forth to Home Depot, I finally got the shutoff safety valves installed securely and was ready to secure the sink into the wall. It was late Sunday afternoon, and I figured I'd get that next part done the following weekend. We were excited just to be able to have running water back in the house with the pipes secure. I installed 3 identical stop valves and everything was great.
Lindsay and I go to work the next morning. It was a Monday which was an omen I should have noticed to begin with. Our commute is an hour from our house. That Monday afternoon Lindsay's step mom gets a hold of Lindsay and tells her that our house is flooded. Lindsay calls me. We speed home (hour long drive done in 30 minutes.. Mom, you would have been proud. :) )
Turns out that one of the stop valves (cold water pipe) blew off sometime Monday morning after Lindsay and I left and proceeded to flood the house, spewing endless water in the direction of the driveway. A UPS guy stopped to deliver a packaged (ironically, a new bathing suit for Lindsay), and saw a water fall coming from the top of our front porch. He went to a neighbor, and through various channels, someone finally got a plumber out about 2 hours later to shut the water off at the street. We had 3 inches of standing water in our basement (the flood started on the top/3rd floor), half our kitchen ceiling was just gone. No words or pictures can truly do it justice. You had to walk through the disaster to truly grasp it. Walls, carpet, flooring, all toast. Thankfully, nothing of any real sentimental value was affected/destroyed. Thankfully we had signed up for water damage coverage in our home owners insurance last November and they agreed to cover all the damage costs and repairs. We moved into a Hilton Homewood Suites that week and have been here ever since waiting for the repairs to be completed.
Have you ever seen the movie Money Pit with Tom Hanks and Shelly Long from the early 80's? It's a lot like that. Remember how every time they asked when the repairs would be done; the contractors always said "Two weeks." Yeah, it's like that. We thought we might be back in finally this weekend, but that was just a cruel joke. The new target date is next weekend. We'll see. Of course, moving back in is only the beginning. I figure we'll be back to normal sometime around August, if we're lucky.
Oh, and while Lindsay and I were out of town for spring break and contractors were working on repairs for the house, we were robbed to. Yeah, that's right. Some guy is in our house repairing the extensive damage, can see how much a wreck our life is, and then he decideds to rob us. How messed up is that? Stole about $1500 in coins and change, and rare/classic 22 rifle that was my dad's worth about 5-600. Seriously, what's wrong with people?
Ok, so that's the house situation.
I'm actually coaching Softball again this year. Tryouts were this week and final cuts Wednesday. We've got about 3 weeks of practice, and a lot of work to do. We went undefeated last year and won the county championship last year. It's going to tough to repeat, but it'll be fun trying again.
That about does it for life in the OC for 2008. Keep in touch everyone and please leave comments if you can. It's great to know that people might actually be reading this.
The Godfather
