Busted pipe=blessing in disguise. Also a new addition to our family!

This is a post I didn't publish last winter. I guess Preston having the Shingles in his eye kind of derailed us.

Enjoy:


Well folks. As you might have heard Texas has some pretty kookie weather. It kind of reminds me of a woman going through the menopause mixed with a pregnant woman's mood swings. So far we have had so many freezes I think we are on the verge of a record. This past weekend was the biggest mood swing, er, weather swing I have ever seen. Saturday it was 80 degrees, I was wearing shorts and a tank top. Sunday, the high was in the low teens. That's Texas for you.

Sadly for us, the Home Improvement Newlyweds we didn't drip the pipes as well as we should have and you guessed it, we got a busted pipe.

We thought giving the faucets a good drip was good, but the next day when we realized we had no water pressure we had a leak. When we went into the kitchen to regroup we heard something. A Fountain? We don't have a fountain........oh no!!!!  Umm....Preston! Look!!!! We have a fountain under the house!!!!! (the explanation points were sarcastic) After locating the location and fixing it (with the help of John, Preston's friend from work) we were able to thank God that it had happened because we had never had such good water pressure. It was such a blessing in disguise because after fixing that we had THE BEST water pressure!!!!!!  What we did for the fix:
                             Sand both sides of the copper pipe till shiny and push the "shark bite" in-it's a compression fitting.



Here's the finished product: (yes, under the cast iron main drain, but look folks-we aren't millionaires, just trying to get by)




Insert the Shark Bite plumbing fixing thing:

http://www.sharkbite.com/product/flexible-coupling-hoses/

we got ours at lowes. Literally saved our lives.

and voila!


Also, during this time I was having a brake problem in the  Bumblebee (1999 mustang, 35th anniversary edition) I took these pictures and sent them to
Preston while he was at work because I was annoyed because the Autozone boys were sassing me saying "you're going to change your own brakes?" and other nonsense like that.

Me working under the house on the busted pipe!





Our new kitty Waylon, he found us in our backyard right before a thunder storm-he was nearly dead when he warmed our hearts.











Preston and John working on fixing the busted pipe.






Oh yeah, during this menopausal Texas winter UTD cancelled my Bachelors Graduation because of the ICE! I was obviously not a happy camper. I spent all day in my cap & gown in my OWN celebration. F U ICE!

Maggots, demo and Cowboys!

Well folks, I would love to tell you that since my last post (almost a year ago) the house is finished. I would love to tell you that, but it would be a complete and udder lie and my mother told me never tell a lie. As the house stands we had gotten it to a level of "we-feel-pretty-good-walking-around-in-bear-feet-but-know-it-is-far-from-where-we-want-it-to-be". We started to realize that if we ever want to have kids (or lower blood pressure) we needed to kick this thing into high gear; the foundation, roof, HVAC units and electrical needed to be done. We knew if we wanted to spend a few more years we could probably do it all ourselves but thought it would be more worth it to get the house refinanced and tack on a renovation loan for those big items.

You would think getting contractors to give you bids would be easy! Well, it would have been 2 1/2 years ago when we bought the house (but our real estate lady didn't have much of a clue about the kind of loan we needed and royally effed us unknowingly)  Now apparently there is so much work to be done contractors don't even call you back! Oh well, we think we might have found someone great and hope it works out.

So knowing these HUGE projects are on the horizon we started to get excited about the house for the first time in a year. We decided on the floor plan, eventual Attic Master room, and other very exciting touches. We decided on a whim to take out the back of the wall between the current living room and dining room-





Then we decided to tear out the ugly upstairs bathroom vanity. Now, something I should mention; a few weeks ago I woke up to the sound of Preston banging a shoe around in the bathroom. Honestly I didn't pay much attention to it, thinking he was just killing wasps (because they had come back with a vengeance) After a few minutes of him banging his shoe and muffled curse words I came to see what in the world was happening. Maggots. Yes folks, slimy yucky icky maggots. hundreds of them. All over the bathroom floor. So currently we have dealt with opossums, fleas, spiders, squirrels, roach eggs, more opossums, random cats, mice, rats and now maggots. So there Preston is, in his boxers with a shoe in his hands giving me a look of horror and serial killer and said- "just go! I got this! save yourself!" So I went downstairs and waited. When he finally emerged from the- what we thought "the safe bathroom" he just said, we need to stop living in the upscale lap of poverty.

After that maggot morning, we decided we needed to let whatever had died get really dead before trying to find it. We bleached the bathroom and uneasily went about our business. Until today, at 11am on Sunday morning we were trying to decide if we wanted to watch TV, tear down a wall, or "find the brick" like one of our favorites Nicole Curtis on Rehab Addict. Finding the brick won, so we went to work upstairs. Very shortly into this venture Preston gagged and said "Oh Sh**!" I knew it had to be something dead. Me, being the loving wife I am sent him after the supplies we would need-gloves, trash bag, broom & dustpan,  and vodka. He came back minutes later and I disposed of the rat. After just getting back to normal I saw a tail. THANK THE LORD IT WASN'T MOVING! I told Preston to just go to the hall, it looked like the rat had a friend. He did, and they went into the same bag.

While demoing part of the bathroom, I got some great candid footage of Preston:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFVELNOL5kI&feature=youtu.be


















After cleaning up that mess we decided to watch the Cowboys!! More updates soon.