Old houses and plumbing

I love old homes, their quirks and charm that is almost non exsistant these days. I hate the plumbing in older homes. It is a domino effect when you start a project. It sucks and it seems to just get worse.

Our shower is torn apart right now. We had a leak on the back wall, and it let water in and then it spread around the rest of the tub, between the surround and the wall, and came out on the edge of the tub, creating a mysterious mildew spot. We bandaided the problem for a while, but then it came back with a vengence. So being the inquistive person that I am, I decided to check around and ended up tearing out the whole surround.

It was bad. It was very bad. Mold and mildew everywhere on one wall, rotting boards on the other, and just some wet spots on the back wall. Needless to say, we are replacing the shower and surround.

Now, it is a good learning experience for me. I get a feeling of pride being able to fix things by myself, being able to take it all apart, and then put it back together. I took most of the tub apart, then let Blaine do the hard taking down of the old sheetrock, as I went off to purchase the new tub supplies.

Then, $400 later I came home with a new surround, sliding glass shower door, paint, and all the other odds and ends required to finish this project. Well, almost all the odds and ends. I forgot the tape for the new green board (water resistant sheetrock) and the expandable foam that Blaine told me we needed when I got home. Thank goodness we still had funds from our tax return available.

So today holds the daunting task of trying to put it all back together so that we can have a shower again, maybe tomorrow.

On a side note, I hate female plumbing too, but I won't go into that right now (just for you Lisle).
Hope all of you are well and doing okay.

Pride Issues

So, I am going to let something out here, and hopefully there won't be too many people who hate my afterward.

So I have recently been chastized and found out I am a snob. I was going to soften the blow, but I just am.

My cousin Amee came down to visit. She is my favorite cousin, the cousin closest to my age, the one I grew up with, who even lived with Blaine and I when we had our twins. While we have both grown older, have differing interests, and look nothing alike (I am tall and "well rounded" and she is petite and skinny (insert curse on people with fast metabolisms including my love of my life here)), we still maintain the bond shared as children. I was exstatic to see her and her husband and son. They are awesome and our husbands share alot of interests. It is always nice to see her and the conversation flows the same as it did when we were growing up.

Here is where my snobbiness comes in. Amee and her husband are not the "normal" looking couple. She has facial peircings, and he has loooooong hair, and they stand out in a crowd. After they had gone home it hit me that if I didn't know them I probably wouldn't be the one to talk to them first. It shocked me and I tried to deny it. There was a time when I would have talked to people that looked like them. But for some reason, I had changed and I couldn't understand why or how it had happened. It honestly freaked my out. I realized there is so much judgement in the world. I know that the government does profiling, and there may be justifyable reason to do so in my life on some level, but at the same time I am always saying appearances are not who you really are.

It woke me up, and made me look at the world in a whole new way. That crack or meth houses are in everytype of neighborhood, there are good and bad in everyplace you go, and that people who look completely different from you can be your best friends.

I know this probably makes no sense to anyone else, but maybe each of us can look inside our selves and find something to change to make our world a more tolerable and accepting place.

Responsibility

Responsibility-- that is a loaded word. It is something we try to tell our kids is a good thing, but I think most of us would rather have less responsibility in our lives.
It is something that makes us grow and stretch ourselves, and sets us apart from childhood. We voluntarily take on more responsibility with each decision we make in our lives.

On Saturday, we attended the World Wide Training for church. If any of you went, you know it was fantastic, and if you didn't, then you missed an amazing meeting. It was worth going, and maybe even going again.
It was on family. Building, strengthening, fortifying, teaching, and making a celestial family. It talked about the ideal, and that while we should all strive for it, we should also tailor the ideal to our family situation. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It also talked about how "house work" is not the same as "home making". They are different and you make your home by the way it feels.
So, I am off to go do what goals I have for today: get my house work done, and strive to make my home feel nice.

Later

No Deal

So, we didn't get our house. I guess it is okay. I am okay with it now, I have cried and mourned the loss of the house I never actually had. I have questioned why and lost faith, and recovered. I am okay now, and we are looking at many different possibilities.
On a much better note, Blaine is loving his new job. He is really having his eyes opened and view expanded, especially where therapy is involved. It is cool.
Other wise, we are just hanging out and living life. It flies by so fast.
I'll go for now, and write more later.