Plumbing & Cleaning

After my extended weekend, I still feel like I have a TON of stuff to accomplish before Greta’s party on Saturday next week – although I managed to get quite a bit done this weekend, despite everything that happened to delay me. The first thing that happened was the washing machine backed up into the bathtub. We’ve been fighting with this on a lesser level for some time (remember the kitchen flood shortly after we moved in...?) but it finally got to a point where we just couldn’t do anything. Every drain in the house was blocked. This also meant no potty! Great. (And from a woman's perspective, this was REALLY not a good time - if you know what I mean...) So, Saturday morning found me calling my friend Barb to ask if I could, with my kids, invade her house until something got resolved with the plumbing situation at our house. This, thankfully, was not a problem, and though she had an early morning errand to run, she was perfectly fine with me and mine hanging out while she was gone. Barb’s house has a great play room with lots of fun toys (meaning different toys than ours) and lots of space in which to use them. Charlie had a blast playing by himself, and was completely thrilled at the prospect of playing with Barb’s son Sammy. (Sammy and Charlie have known each other their entire lives and are very good buddies; they are one month apart in age.) When Barb got home, we had some much-needed girl time along with peanut butter sandwiches, celery sticks, carrots, and strawberries. Yummy! I never get to see Barb any more, and we live three miles away from each other! I love her dearly and so it was a very nice break to get to spend some time with her - even with the distraction of the kiddos. I guess busy is what happens when you become a parent, eh? Eventually the boys both started getting tired, and therefore there was more arguments and general grumpiness. I took Charlie and Greta home for a nap, and though Charlie complained bitterly about napping, he fell asleep in less than five minutes. While I was at Barb’s house, Jamie was at home with our friend George and a very long pipe snake trying to make some headway with the plumbing situation. When their efforts yielded little, Jamie called a plumber. The plumber came, did his thing, yanked out a bunch of weeds and roots growing in the dark, damp pipes (oh...great) and was on his way...$250.00 later. It was then that the laundry began again in earnest. It had been piling up for two days, not to mention the stuff that had been in baskets waiting to be washed. Needless to say, the pile was significant. (Laundry and I are not friends, even though we are well acquainted.) Then on Sunday, I took a cue from my friend Sarah and completely rearranged my bedroom. This also added to the pile of laundry because I picked up several loads of stuff that the dog was sleeping on!!! (Don’t ask...) So now there’s still a lot of laundry to do, but the bedroom is neat and clean! I’ve got to finish cleaning and organizing the stuff in the living room and kitchen, but otherwise, I’m on a roll. I’ve got major motivation in that I’m having people – real, live people – over to my house for an actual party! If that’s not a fire under my you-know-what, then I don’t know what is! Anyway – I guess that' s it for now. Hope everyone had a good weekend! TTFN JMS