Promises, promises

Yes, I promised more frequent posts. Sorry. But I did have the very best of intentions though. ;) You won't believe the craziness that is my life. First, the every-other-day dr visits have finally tapered off (I'm actually scared to type that out loud for fear that they'll start again).

Rose has FINALLY gotten some allergy meds that have dried up her constant, year-long drippy nose. At last she's not one of *those* kids who always looks sick and is always on antibiotics. Not one sinus infection since she started her new meds. For those who are wondering, it's a nose spray combined with Allegra-D (recently approved for kids). Though, with the disappearance of her runny, stuffy nose we've seen the appearance of the "4 going on 16" attitude. Wow. Eye rolls, back talking - Grammy was shocked the last time she babysat. Lord, help me make it through this year!

Nothing too extra exciting going on with Matthew these days. He and Hubby have gotten to the final levels in Crash Bandicoot though...does that count? :)

Jade is expanding her vocabulary but I think she might need some help from my ex-speech therapy friend. I'll give Jade 6 more months before I call on her though. She is baby-obsessed and is constantly trying to sit with me while I'm nursing the baby...and kiss the baby...and hug the baby...and put blankets on the baby... She's a good mini-me. If only she could nurse her a couple times a day. ;)

Linnae is gaining weight very slowly but Rose did that too. Linnae's reflux meds seem to have helped her quite a bit...in fact, she had her checkup today and she has gained 9oz in the last 9 days so that's GREAT. She has a rash on her face but we think it's the normal 6wk hormone rash that babies pretty typically get...she just got hers at 4wks.

And that brings us to me. My MS symptoms have returned. Just sensory issues...you know that tingling feeling your leg has just before it goes to sleep? I have that moving around my torso and upper thighs, as well as a burning sensation that moves around. But nothing serious at this point.

All sounds pretty normal, eh? But I bet you won't guess what we've been up to behind the scenes. First, our subdivision is having a garage sale next weekend and I am trying, in between all the other goings-on, to get some stuff together for it. Last week on Thursday morning, I went downstairs to start sorting through our storage boxes to find junk good used items to unload sell to unsuspecting pack rats bargain hunters. ;) I decided to start in the back of the basement, which is unusual for me, only to find water. Lots of water drips coming down from the ceiling and pooling on top of boxes, furniture, and my wrapping paper container (yep, all my wrapping paper is ruined). After about 90 minutes on the phone with Hubby, trying to track the source of the water, I finally gave up, deciding it was a burst pipe in the walls. I had checked and double checked everything in that area - washing machine, bathroom - I even went up to the 2nd floor bathroom to see if it was dripping from up there. I couldn't find one spot of water anywhere. The water in the basement ceiling was a 5 ft long row of drips and I couldn't pinpoint where it started and where it was just run-off. We decided to call a plumber.

The plumber showed up Thursday afternoon. He went straight to the basement, looked at the water for all of 30 seconds and said those fateful words, "Do you have an ice maker?" Dread crept over my face as I slowly nodded.

He moved the fridge and found a strong leak coming from the *Saddle Valve* and plastic tubing. It apparently had found just the right crack in my hard wood floors so that it went straight down onto the subfloors instead of making a huge puddle on top as it did before. He started walking all around and found a large area that was wet. He moved my trashcan and found wood planks that were already warping. So who knows how long this leak had gone on? We shucked out $500 for him to replace the now very famous *Saddle Valve* and plastic tubing with a nice copper pipe, guaranteed to fix the problem once and for all. As I mused with Hubby on the phone as to what to do about the floors, the plumber said he's done lots of work for insurance companies and we should make a homeowners claim about the floor.

Hubby made lots of calls and at 10am on Friday, there were workmen out at the house looking at the water damage. After a couple hours (and my own muffled guffaws when the guy muttered something about 'they might have to replace the entire floor'), my kitchen now looked like this:


And viewing from the kitchen into the laundry room/pantry:


They also set up two huge commercial fans (read: EXTREMELY LOUD) to dry the sub floor up here and two more downstairs pointed at the ceiling. They also sprayed mold killer since the water damage has been going a while.

The fridge, as you can see, is directly in front of my oven and microwave and the cabinet I keep all my stove top cooking pots and pans in. And with it's new pretty copper piping, the fridge can't really be moved much. So we've eaten out...lots...this weekend. A great Mother's Day weekend, all in all. Monstrous headaches from the deafening roar of the fans, sniffly noses at the dust and wind tunnel and mold spores flying around, crabby kids who are "tired of eating out", etc. Though I do admit, I had far fewer dishes to wash this weekend. ;)

So on Saturday, in an attempt to get away from the roar of the fans, I went to the basement. Everyone followed. I started sorting through our storage stuff, still determined to get things ready for the garage sale this coming weekend. Hubby came down, bless his soul to the very fiber of his being, and took loads and loads of trash (and sorted out recyclables) to the garage for disbursement to the city. The kids had fun puttering around after us and doing bubbles in the yard and pulling each other around in their wagon. Hubby even cut one of his heavy weight shelves in half so we now have somewhere to place plants (and the herb garden I started) on the front porch. So it ended up being a very productive day.

On Mother's Day, we had dinner out and because it took so long for it to arrive, we got free desserts with it. I put mine in a doggy bag because I was meeting my mother for ice cream afterwards to celebrate Mother's Day together. Rose made me a couple of beautiful scrapbook pages (she put sticker borders on them) and Matthew made me a cute little note pad on top of a ceramic tile that is easy to move and not easy to lose. :) I also got some gift certificates to Michaels and since I love crafts, it was a great gift! FIL brought by some items they want to sell in my garage sale so the garage is crowding quickly.

Monday morning, the insurance adjuster and a guy from a local flooring place came by. The short of it is this...I have an open floor plan. So there aren't any doorway openings, flooring wise. No good place to seam the floor. And it's apparently almost impossible to match the color of hard wood floors. So they have to replace the whole floor...the ENTIRE FIRST FLOOR, minus the linoleum in the bathroom. And it's going to take about 4 days. Four days of no kitchen. The floors go under my kitchen cabinets. They go under my pantry and washer/dryer. My computer, huge heavy dining table, living room couches...fun. Four days. Four days of no way to cook and limiting kids to our bedrooms? Uhhh...I don't think so. Plus the guys who pulled up that small section that you see says it's nailed down very very well. They're gonna have a heck of a time getting the floor up. I assume the 4 day quote will be at least 5...and you know contractors...they're never really in a hurry.

Yesterday, the guy who dropped off the fans came by - he was supposed to take them out. Nope, the floors were still damp. So he turned the ones up here to low and the ones downstairs to high, with promises to retrieve them today. He also took out a big chunk of insulation that wasn't drying out. Last night, I gave Linnae a bath before bed. By the time it was over, there was an awful smell coming through the air conditioner vents. It smelled like burnt plastic. Hubby took his carbon monoxide detector and flashlight to the basement and looked all around. After *much* inspecting, we still couldn't find anything and the smell went away. Today, our water is luke-warm at best, I found out during a *very* quick shower. After more inspecting, I found that the pilot light is not lit in the hot water heater anymore. My best guess was that maybe a piece of the insulation got caught under the hot water heater from all the fans blowing around and burned out the pilot light.

So...the fans are supposed to leave today, thank GOODNESS! My head is about to burst open at the seams, despite all the staying out of the house that I've managed. It'll take "about 2 weeks" for the flooring to come in. And when it does, I'm planning on going to visit my SIL, four hours away. Her kids are dying to see Linnae anyway, we always have fun together and the gas & food money is cheaper than a hotel (bless your soul, SIL!!). Hopefully the timing works out to the week her kids end school for the year and before a couple of them go off to camp.

But don't worry - this is my MO: something big happens then something else happens and just as we're recovering from that, something else happens. And it's usually while I'm in the middle of a huge project like painting or a garage sale or having a baby...or all three. We'll recover. Until then, enjoy the tale and I'll keep you up-to-date. :)