Wednesday, April 15, 2015

The weekend woes and a few bluebonnet pics

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly plumbing problems arise and how quickly it matters. It matters so fast. For us, the plumbing began to matter on Thursday night when the bathtub wasn't draining properly and I announced the news to John. He then went to the front flower bed where our sewer clean out lives and discovered, via a sighting of toilet paper, our plumbing was plugged and therefore all things leaving our home, weren't really leaving. So many sighs.... 

John called the city to come check the lines and after they did what they had to do, we still had standing water in the flower bed. On Saturday John decided to put on his plumber's hat and go rent a plumber thing...I don't know or care what they call it...and began a six hour process of trying to unclog the line. The six hours included resting and strategizing and working and blah blah blah he finally managed to get the line clear. No professional plumbers need apply. Although I was glad he got the problem fixed, I told him it wasn't worth six hours of his Saturday trying to fix it and instead in the future, we were calling the man. We had learned a lesson. 

Until....sometime on Saturday night the bathroom sink wouldn't drain. So many ughs. John treated it with drain stuff, didn't work. The next line of attack was using a hose to flush it out. We've done it so many times before. John connected two hoses together so it would reach the bathroom and we were working to plug all holes and make sure all water from the hose went down the drain...or so we thought. When we felt like we had made all the necessary preparations I went outside and turned the hose on to hopefully blow out the pipes under the sink. BUT. At some point in the hosing process, John thought he heard something in the den. I didn't hear it but I have one good ear and one bad ear. SO. We went back to our job. At the next stopping point once again he thought he heard something in the den. Turns out he was correct. We walked into the den to discover water spewing in our den from the place where the two hoses connected. I then moved from so many sighs and so many ughs to cussing. At that point we stopped the hose work and began cleaning up the water in the den. John was SO HAPPY. He was clicking his heals and laughing.....or something other than that. I don't know why, maybe just the absurdity of it all, but I was amused about it but tried to keep my chuckles to myself.  

In the middle of the hose debacle, I got a phone call from Emma who was in a total fright because while she was in the process of getting in the shower, she discovered a wasp had joined her in the bathroom and decided to brush his teeth. OK, that may not be true but it sort of fits the kind of crazy night that was happening in our family. She was searching for someone to come to her house and kill the offending wasp and therefore rescuing her. Well since I was cleaning water up in our den, and John and I still had to continue with the hosing of our bathroom, I was less than interested in fixing her problem. Instead I told her VERY quickly that she could handle it, I believed in her, and hung up. Turns out she managed to trap the wasp with a Swiffer duster and drowned the thing. Peta beware we are not friendly to our enemy the wasp. 

After we admitted our attempts at unblocking the sink drain were futile, we closed up shop, cleaned up all things and brushed our teeth in the bathtub. So after two days of that practice, on Monday we called the man. The real plumber came Monday morning with all his plumber tools, blasted the plugged up drain like a pro and was gone in thirty minutes. And I'm not even kidding. I suspect the whole experience will end up costing us about $200. I'm super pumped about that since today is tax day and we have to write a big check. So. Awesome. Weekend warriors had a bad one.  

And that's what crazy looked like last weekend. 


I'm ending this post with some pictures of the bluebonnets from our trip to Texas. They are fabulous and wonderful.





Seriously gorgeous.

I'll be back sometime.

You'd think I'd be more consistent.

Wouldn't you?

4 comments:

Emma said...

Just made one of those pictures my desktop background!! They're all so pretty!
The wasp experience was traumatic but I'm glad I was able to take care of it myself. I have more strength than I ever imagined haha

CAW said...

You are woman hear you roar Emma!!! You go girl!! Beautiful Bluebonnet pics. One has to always have just one more picture. You never know you may get just the right one in the next frame. So sorry about the plumbing issues. So glad it all got fixed. And so glad for a new post

Anonymous said...

I could wallpaper my house in bluebonnet pics!!! love em so much!! hate wallpaper though!!!

Karla Foster said...

Yikes! The plumbing issue took a lot of your time, but at least, you found out the root cause behind the improper draining of the sink, and have resolved it already. It seems that you are really happy now, especially since you ended your post with stunning pictures of bluebonnets. Thanks for sharing that, Lisa! All the best to you!

Karla Foster @ South West Houston Plumbing