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The latest goings on...

We are on our third week of everyone being sick. Everyone seems to be getting over it now except Madison and I. We take turns coughing on eachother. It's getting pretty old.

As most of you know we are still preparing to move. It has caused the whole family a lot of stress. We don't have an exact closing date, but have been sure that it would be "soon" for several weeks. Due to the lack of a specific date our preparations have lacked focus. You don't want to have everything you own in boxes weeks before you move. The process has forced us to examine our inventory of "stuff." It is a lot of work to sort and dispose of extra stuff. We have made a couple of trips to Goodwill already. All the baby stuff needs to go. We would love to make a few bucks by selling some of it, but that either requires a garage sale or photographing and posting on line. Both of those options are time consuming and seem daunting. The little people have not been a big help in the whole process. Just keeping them all fed and happy is a full time job.

Imagine trying to pull all the things you don't want out into the driveway while four little kids are either running amok inside or trying to play with sharp things in the garage and running into the street. It makes me have to stop and take a deep breath just thinking about it. So most of the baby gadgets, that we have spent thousands on, will be going to Goodwill. I have nothing against charity, but getting rid of things is against my nature. I am a pack rat at heart.

We have managed to pack a handle full of boxes. Mostly books and dishes that we don't use much. I had started packing several boxes of toys. However, the annal retentiveness in me forced me to try to sort the toys as I was packing them. I left the boxes open so that as I found more Legos or Little People or doll house furniture I could put them in the proper boxes. Big mistake. The kids find packed toys much more interesting than loose toys and most of what was in the boxes has been removed by small hands.

We are trying to get the rental house sold. It has been headache after headache. I went over a few days ago with the realtor to see what we could do to make the place look a little more attractive. That is when we discovered that the water heater, in the attic, was leaking. Leaking badly. Most of the water was going into the drip pan, like it is supposed to, but some was running down a rafter and into the house somewhere. I propped a board between the water heater and the rafter it was leaning against. That was a big mistake, it caused the water to leak down onto the ceiling of the bathroom.

The realtor had put a home protection plan on the house, which was nice. However, the contractor they used had me jumping through all sorts of hoops to get the job done.
"They don't make water heaters this size anymore. You won't be able to fit a new one up here." He told me.
"What? That can't be right." I said.
"This one is 18 inches and the smallest on I have is 22 inches." he said. So I got my tape measure and measured the opening to the attic. 20 inches.
"So...what do I do?" I asked the "professional."
He stared at me with a blank expression for awhile then shrugged and said, "I don't know."
"Nice..." I said.
I called my Dad, as he is a very knowledgeable guy, and asked him what he though I should do.
"They DO TO make 18 inch water heaters, call Lowes or Home Depot." He said. So I did. And they do have 18 inch water heaters."
"Hey, I just called Lowes and they have 18 inch water heaters." I told the guy.
"We don't buy ours from Lowes. You don't want one from Lowes." he says.
"I want one that fits and works." I said.
"If Lowes has them then we probably do. I have to check with the warehouse." He tells me. "You will also have to put some decking up there so the new one can be installed."
"What? They got the other one up there without any decking." I replied.
"The office will call tomorrow to set up a time for the install." He says.
"I thought you were going to do it today." I said.
"Nope." He says with a smile.

I didn't have warm fuzzies about these guys so far. They called later and said that if I didn't build a deck around the water heater they would not come to install it. I couldn't believe it and was tempted to find someone else to do the job, but I didn't want my tenants to go without hot water any longer than necessary. So I went to Lowes and bought a bunch of particle board and spent a couple of hours flooring the attic. I also took the time to remove the attic door so they wouldn't have any reasons to complain about not making it fit up there. What a hassle.

The kids still get into mischief on a regular basis. Yesterday Kari's face cream went missing from her bathroom counter top. She walked around questioning each little person she encountered.
"Did you take my face cream out of the bathroom?" She would ask.
"I didn't do it." was the standard reply.
Kari asked Madison "Do you know where Mommy's face cream is?"
"Over hee ya." Madi replied becoming excited. "Over hee ya." She continued, leading the way to the kitchen. "In hee ya!" she said pointing to the freezer. Kari thought "Well they could have put it in there." So she opened the freezer door. Madi was hopping up and down.
"Right hee ya. Ikeem!" Madi announced proudly pointing to the tub of strawberry ice cream.
We all had a good laugh. But the face cream is still missing and I shudder to think where it may have been applied.

I feel like we have a lot on our plates at the moment. I have recurrent training to study for, two days of ground school coming up, I need to renew my medical certificate, need to continue packing, stressed about Reagan's upcoming surgery, still hoping to hear something about Kari's medical issues and migraines, I should start training for the 757 in April...and the list goes on. However, a friend put it in perspective for me when she told me about the health problems that they are going through. Her husband and daughter have brain tumors, her daughter also has Lyme disease, her son has migraines and an undiagnosed bowl issue that has him doubled over in pain most of the time and they (the doctors) recently removed his appendix, unnecessarily it turns out.

So things are not so bad and we are moving forward and staying fairly positive.





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