Back in Texas

We flew all night and were terribly spoiled in the First Class cabin. We finally made it back to DFW around 5:30 this morning. Even at that early hour, Summer took us into her sweltering embrace, and it was quite a shock since yesterday Winter had us firmly in his grasp. Since some of our people stayed up all night watching movies on the plane instead of sleeping, they were completely wiped out when we got back to the house and crashed immediately. Those who remained awake were in a flurry of activity, checking the mail, cooking, buying groceries, unpacking, and taking care of the neglected business of the last two months.

So spoiled in First Class

Five minutes prior: "I'm not sleepy. I just want to play."

Our first order of business was to shower and store up some water to use throughout the day because we had a notice attached to our front door stating that the city would have our water off from 9:00 until 4:00 today. Ironically, our list of things we were especially looking forward to contained both "hot water" and "flushing toilets" since our last place in Santiago was a little inconsistent on both of those points.

Later in the morning, Jeff took Ruth to the DMV to try to set up an appointment to do her driving test so she can officially become a licensed driver. The first available appointment was a month from now, which was obviously disappointing. But, when they got home, Ruth searched around for other appointments at other offices throughout the state of Texas and finally found one for Monday...in Wichita Falls.

In the afternoon, when everyone was rested up, we celebrated Max's half-birthday by seeing Incredibles 2 in the theater, picking up donuts and ice cream, and watching a couple of other movies at home. 

The trip home from Orlando

We left Orlando on the 6th and headed up to the Pensacola area for a couple of nights. Along the way we met Winter head-on, and we almost froze to death when we got to Lambert's Cafe in our short-sleeved shirts. If you aren't familiar, Lambert's is the home of "throwed rolls," meaning the softball-sized rolls are actually tossed to you, sometimes from across the dining room. This was absolutely thrilling for our group, and Weston kept trying to get the thrower to hurl the rolls from farther and farther away, which the thrower seemed delighted to do. They have their own unique way of serving good old Southern comfort food, and everything was so delicious.

We survived the freezing temperatures at our KOA and were able to enjoy a yummy breakfast at a cafe that could easily have been mistaken for a bait shop, before heading over to the National Naval Aviation Museum. It was so interesting to see all the planes and learn about the history and technology of many of them. I can tell you for certain I was not meant to be a Blue Angel! We ended the day with dinner at The Cobalt Restaurant, overlooking the Gulf.

When we woke up on the 8th, we left Pensacola knowing only that we weren't really ready to end our vacation and that we didn't want to go home. We also knew we were hungry. A quick internet search introduced us to The Biscuit King's Fun Barn: Home of the Ugly Biscuit, and there was no way we were going to pass that up! I don't think I can capture in words the experience, but everything about it was so fantastic. One reason we travel is to discover little gems like this.

After we had eaten our scrumptious ugly biscuits and collected all manner of free stuff from the Biscuit King himself, we knew we would be heading in a westerly direction, but other than that had no end point in mind. So, while Jeff drove, taking us to interesting places like LSU and the Horseshoe Casino, I searched around online until I found a little cabin outside of Jefferson, TX, on Lake O' the Pines, where we could just chill. Literally, as it turned out, because the pipes had frozen and one was busted and making a river outside the house (thankfully not inside!) when we showed up around 10:00 pm, leaving us with no hot water. (The owner came first thing in the morning and got everything patched up, so it really wasn't a big deal.) We spent our time there reading and watching football and consuming warm beverages. It was truly restful, and we were glad we decided to extend our vacation. We did eventually make it home but were only here for less than 24 hours before embracing our next adventure, which is a tale I will save for another post.

Lambert's Cafe: Home of Throwed Rolls

Breakfast at Reileigh's Cafe

National Naval Aviation Museum

The Cobalt Restaurant

The Biscuit King's Fun Barn

LSU Stadium
Geaux Tigers!

The Horseshoe Casino

The view from our little cabin in east Texas

A crappy way to start the day

I went to bed early last night, but around midnight I woke up and thought it certainly did seem hot in the bedroom and I needed to make an adjustment to the temperature. Because of where our thermostat is located, our room gets extra warm when we run the heater and extra cold when we run the air conditioner. But then, that feeling of heat I was experiencing changed to a wave of nausea, and instead of worrying any longer about adjusting the temperature,  I did a quick about-face and headed for the restroom, where I became the second household victim of a mild, but no less unpleasant, tummy bug.

Around 3:00, Clay appeared, announcing that he needed to go potty. I took him to our bathroom, and after he took care of his business, the potty made an odd "glub, glub" sound, but it seemed to flush okay, so I took Clay back to his room and sleepily stumbled back to my bedroom, where I experienced the need to use the facilities myself. The toilet seemed to flush just fine, but, after a moment, I realized that the water level was rising. And then, it was overflowing. I trotted off to the utility room to fetch a plunger.

As I stood there plunging, Jeff, who had taken himself to the hall bathroom, since ours was occupied, appeared in the bathroom doorway and proclaimed that the hall toilet was also stopped up and the water level was rising there as well. He took over the plunging duties and was going back and forth between the two bathrooms. I was wide awake by this point, so I was following him around, offering moral support. I was standing in the hall while he worked on the powder bath potty, when I noticed that a small river was flowing out of the utility room. I hollered at Jeff to stop plunging, while I went to inspect. We have a floor drain in the utility room, which is suppose to carry water out of the house should the need arise, but, in this case, it was bubbling like a spring and a steady stream of nasty water was flowing into the house.

Meanwhile, Jeff had stepped into the kitchen, to find that the two floor drains in there were delivering similar rivulets, so that a large portion of the floor in the middle of the house was being soaked in sewer water. I quickly gathered up a handful of towels and old blankets to soak up some of the mess and quietly thanked the Lord that we do not have carpet, but the water continued to flow and the towels and blankets were not making any difference. Jeff shut off all the water to the house and called a plumber around 3:30. The plumber said he could be here around 6:30. We both felt disgusting and disgusted, but we tried to get a few winks before the plumber showed up. He arrived at about a quarter to 7:00 and went right to work.

The problem seems to have been taken care of, and my plans for the day now include mopping the floor, disinfecting various surfaces and washing loads and loads of soiled towels and blankets. It really wasn't a great way to start the day. Still, there is much to be thankful for: my emesis went down and didn't come back up, the tummy bug was very short lived,  we don't have carpet in any part of the house, the water flowing into the house was not stinky or discolored, the plumber was able to get here so quickly.

Happy Monday!

Icepocalypse 2014

As you know, it's been a brutal winter. We've had literally millimeters of ice and frost. And, even with Max's and my combined efforts in wrapping the pipes yesterday, they still froze over. So, another day without water. Yay! But in addition to the frozen pipes, we also had one break. So, when the water finally came back on because of my superior plumbing skills (I whacked the main pipe coming out of the well twice in frustration, after seeing that the piles of ice on the roof were melting off, and inadvertently dislodged a chunk of ice, which freed up the water supply!), we had to turn it right back off due to the geyser shooting out of the back of our house. I'm not going to lie, I was a bit of a bear today. It's just that I'm really, really bad at winter. (And, I seriously NEED my morning shower!) But thanks to my hubby and a Shark Bite coupling, we now have water flowing only in the appropriate places. And, fortunately, it will be full-blown spring on Sunday!

If you look closely, you can see what serious danger we're in.
I mean, people are killed by icicles all the time.

Texas Winter

I never cease to be thankful I live in the South. But I am all the more thankful during the winter months. In Texas, we don't think about things like snowplowing our driveways, or putting snow chains on our vehicles, or bundling up in 15 layers to leave the house for 20 minutes. Or, wrapping our pipes. Even when the weatherman declares the arrival of below-freezing temps, we kind of shrug and figure it's not that big a deal, as it will only be below freezing for a couple of hours, at the most. And, then in two days it'll be 70 again. Oh, we'll usually bring our plants and pets inside. And, then we'll think about how we'll have to wear our heavy coats for two days. And, then we'll probably make sure all the extra blankets are clean and accessible and that the coffee pot doesn't run out of water. Which, brings me back to that point about wrapping the pipes. It always seems like such a gigantic headache to wrap pipes for the possibility of a couple of hours of freezing temps. But, this morning, when I rolled out of bed to the sound of my alarm for the first time in weeks, and stumbled into the bathroom and blindly spun the shower faucet, only to be met with complete silence and an over abundance of dryness, I realized that it might have been a good idea for us to wrap our pipes. And, then I looked at my phone and saw that the temperature was 21 degrees with a "feels like" temperature of 12. For a moment, I thought there was a problem with the app. Like when Facebook reports that you are posting from Fargo, ND, when you've never even been there. But, no, the temperature reading was correct and we were absolutely, positively without water. Knowing what a bear I am if I don't get my morning shower, my sweet hubby hopped out of the toasty bed, donned his heavy coat and went outside to address the problem. He built a fire near the pressure tank, stole water from the hot tub to drench the pipes and poured boiling water snatched from wherever we could find it on the pipes. He did this for hours. And, the water in the pipes was literally freezing as fast as we could thaw it. So, we called a plumber. He got the pipes all thawed out, wrote me a receipt, gave me his card and then stopped by to check on his handiwork, only to find (at the exact same moment that we discovered we still didn't have water in the house), that the pipes were frozen up again. He thawed them out again (for no extra charge) and instructed me to get everything wrapped up as tightly and as quickly as I could possible manage. Which brings me back to the need to have a steady stream of water in the coffee pot, as I will likely never be warm again. Until Friday, when the temperature is expected to creep back up to near 70. My hat's off to all my friends who live, say, north of Dallas and have actual winter to deal with. I have absolutely no idea how you do it!

"Where undies doe?" And other mysteries

Did you all hear my head explode this morning when I momentarily turned into Rumpelstiltskin, when he found out the queen had tricked him? No? Good; but it's only because you weren't listening. So, here's the story:

Various kids were set in motion on various school subjects. I was helping those who needed help, as they needed it, and things were running fairly smoothly. Then, around 10:00, Clay pooped in his pants. How it's possible for him to go nearly all day dry and clean, when he's wearing a pull-up, but to poop in his undies at the first opportunity, is a mystery to me. But it happens. Every. Single. Time. So, I shooed him off to the bathroom and followed on his heels to provide the necessary assistance. The minute I stood him in the bathtub and pulled his soiled shorts and undies down, all h*ll broke loose in the school room. I left Clay standing in the tub and poked my head out the bathroom door to see what all the ruckus was about. A brief, but serious, conversation with Weston ensued, and when I turned around, Clay had climbed out of the tub, peed on the floor and further spread the filth around. I plopped him back in the tub, gave him the quickest, but most thorough, bath of his life and plunked the foul undies in the toilet for rinsing. But, the issue in the school room was not resolved, so, I left the now clean monster standing on the bathmat wrapped in a towel and called Ruth over for a conversation that turned out to be rather tense and lasted for several minutes. My brilliant parental lecture was stopped short by the whooshing sound behind me, followed immediately by the most sincere and confused question I ever heard:  "Where undies doe?" To quote Ray Stevens, "I turned around, and, a son-of-a-gun, they's gone!" That child FLUSHED his underwear. I am expecting a major septic backup sometime soon. And, I'll just say, for the record, that I have been rinsing poopy undies in the toilet for a whole lot of years, and this was a completely new experience for me. It was then, with my emotions already high, from preceding events, that I turned into Rumpelstiltskin. Which caused Ruth to chuckle and took the zip right out of my lecture. Everyone got back to work, without further incident, and it was business as usual, until lunchtime, at which point another mystery unfolded: the toddler who wouldn't touch his burger at Wendy's last night, ravenously ate his weight in stir-fried carrots and cabbage. And, then, pooped in his pants...

Plumb tired of plumbing issues

Right before we left for the holidays, the boys' potty started acting up. It was kind of flushing, but not quite. We didn't really have time to deal with it. When we got back, it seemed to progressively get worse. We pronounced it off-limits. Finally, facing a house full of house guests (some of which would need to use that bathroom), I called the home warranty company to have them send over a plumber. A man who exuded creepiness entered our home a few days later, pulled out his auger, and...failed to fix the problem. We did not know this until late in the day the next day. So, on the very day that company was due to arrive, another plumber from the same company came over to "make things right," and...he did! Thank goodness. What he found was a toothbrush wedged at an unnatural angle, and when Jeff suggested that it was almost certainly our little monkey who had placed it there, the plumber scoffed and asked where the toothbrushes were kept. When Jeff told him that they are kept on the second shelf of the cabinet above the toilet (in an attempt to keep little monkeys away from them), the plumber deemed it impossible. "No two-year-old could get all the way up there," he said with a laugh. Clearly, he doesn't know our little monkey!

Right after we arrived home from our wonderful beach vacation, the weather here deteriorated completely into freezing temps...and freezing pipes. The Saturday after we arrived home, just as Jeff was asking me if I had noticed any problems with the water pressure, there was a knock on the door. It was our neighbor telling us that there was a geyser shooting up at the front of our house. Apparently, the pipes froze and the sprinkler regulator or some such thing exploded. We were literally just about to walk out the door to go to Ruth's basketball game, so we got the water shut off to the sprinkler system and the water pressure restored to the house, and just left it. It hasn't been dealt with since, because, frankly, I don't want to think about it.

And finally, today, Ruth asked to wash the van to earn a little cash. I got her set up with her task and then came inside to visit with Jeff. He was leaned back in his recliner, and as we visited, I suddenly noticed a huge puddle on the floor all around his chair. I was just about to ask if someone had spilled something, when I realized it was not a pool but a stream, flowing to all parts of the living room. I ran outside and shut the water off and Jeff ran for some towels. There is apparently some kind of water leak associated with that faucet. Joy. I will be calling the home warranty company again tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm thinking seriously about ditching this house altogether.

Bane of the Bathroom

I guess it's high time I told all of you about the special plumbing in Brazil. It's simple. It's delicate. It does not accept toilet paper. That's not ideal, but it isn't a problem. We just put the paper in the trash can and move on. And, each bathroom comes equipped with a bidet-like sprayer to make clean-up a snap. The problem comes when you add a curious, newly-independent-potty-goer to the mix.

It's definitely a love/hate relationship. For some reason, if a parent is helping said potty-goer, he makes a huge fuss when his little bum is sprayed. When he is taking care of his business all by himself, however, it is nothing short of thrilling to attempt to spray not only the bum, but the entire room. And I have to say, I can't really blame the guy. That's just too much temptation. But, it's no good for the next in line to come in and sit on a wet seat and step in and around little puddles on the floor (even if it is just water--oh please, please, please nothing but water). And it's no good for the one who continually has to clean up the mess. And worst of all is when those people are one and the same. I think you get what I'm saying.

One Less Thing

We keep this perpetual list of home improvements that need to be done around here, and once in a great while we actually check something off. Today was one of those special days! Woohoo! This was actually the completion of the the little plumbing project I began earlier in the week. Now my bathtub drains flawlessly (and the hole I left has been covered up) and I am very happy! Maybe some year in the near future we'll check something else off.

Plumbing

Turns out Jeff is a plumber. Yesterday he managed to fix not one, but two malfunctioning sinks in our house, and win major brownie points by scratching things off the honey-do list. All this without flooding the house or showing any plumber's crack.