R.I.P. Sweet Blog

It has been brought to my attention by more than one friend and family member that my blog may be dying a slow death.


Not true. It's just paralyzed. Not terminal.


I'm debating between posting that a lot has been going on and we've been really busy or that nothing has been going on that is worthy of blogging.


Truthfully, it's a little of both. We have been working hard, but a lot of it isn't really on things that can be seen.



We've been tearing down more walls.







We've been doing plumbing (with a little help from the dogs)








We've been doing electrical.





We've been insulating the walls.








. . . and hanging drywall.







. . . and mudding drywall.







(I'm a messy drywaller)







Oh, look! We found more drywall to tear out - this time, the ceiling.








Watch out below!






We've been framing walls.







And finally making a little visible progress.




Whew. No wonder I haven't had time to post.


We're hoping that this week will bring a lot more visual progress. We have started to feel a little bit stressed about the amount of work still to go to complete this project, and we are seriously lacking in elbow space because of all of the construction materials we are storing, so we have decided to concentrate on the two main walls of the kitchen and try to get the drywall finished, primed and painted, and get the cabinets installed at least on those walls.


Of course, you know what the saying is. God laughs when you try to make plans.


I can hear the giggling already.

The Great Well Disaster - The Final Chapter

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll spare you the words and just give you the pictures. While there is still some more work to do to complete the job, it's all inside and under the house, so it can wait until some of the other more pressing projects are over.

At Last

I'm happy to report that we have water. It's only a temporary solution to a much larger problem, but all that matters is that we have water. The shower is wet and the toilet flushes. I don't care that there is a big ugly hole in our yard, that our basement looks like we have buried bodies recently, or even that we have spent what seems like a year's salary on resolving this.

We freaking have water.








Vern worked long and hard, and still has a lot to do to make it all final, but he didn't work alone. The labs supervised.

Well, Jackson supervised.

Lincoln tried his best to fall into the hole. Repeatedly.

Just like the Good Old Days

I'm wondering how good the good old days were now that we are on day 4 of having no water. Boiling water for dishes, having no toilets, and using a wash basin to bathe isn't exactly all that good if you ask me.

I'm really gong to have to find something else to write about because my daughter threatened to stop talking to me until I do, but right now, it consumes me. You just don't realize how many times you just reach to turn the water on in a day.

Vern is beyond frustrated trying to fix it. We haven't been able to get anyone out here to look at the well.

Last I heard, we may try to put in a temporary sand point well (not sure of the terminology here) so that we can pump water from the creek so that we can at least shower and flush the toilets.

The Good News and the Bad News

The Bad News is that we still don't have water. And we still don't know the exact nature of the problem. While the lack of showers and the lack of bathroom facilities has been pretty much the problem I expected, the inability to do laundry or dishes is more of an issue than I expected. Because we were having water issues, I let the laundry go, thinking I could catch up after Jesse left and Vern went back to work. As a result, we may be making a trip to the laundromat.

Also, as much as I'm trying to use disposable plates, I still had two dishdrawers loaded with dishes ready to wash, and it's virtually impossible to cook without creating dishes. If we don't get water soon, I'm going to have to start boiling water and washing the dishes by hand with as little water as possible.

Unfortunately, Vern had to return to work tonight. On the positive side, however, he was able to take a couple more days of vacation and get someone to cover his other shifts for him, so he'll be home in the morning and have another week to work on this issue. God I hope it doesn't take that long.

The Jeep is also still not fixed since water seemed to be more urgent than secondary transportation.

The Good News is that I have a heck of a lot of Halloween candy left over.

Thank God because I feel a huge rush of PMS coming on.

Words you don't want to hear your husband say

"We are now officially out of water."

It just doesn't really give you a warm and fuzzy feeling. Warm, no. Fuzzy, possibly in a day or two.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have to take a shower before I do anything in the morning. Even before I clean toilets. But I guess cleaning toilets isn't really going to be necessary since no water also means no toilets.

It just doesn't get better than this.

Sounds like a good idea to me

Want to hear about my fantastically crappy day? Too bad, you’re going to anyway.

First of all, we get up this morning with a bunch of calls to make, not the least of which is to someone to get out here and to fix our well (more on that particular gem later). No phone service. Instead, I’m routed to Verizon’s financial office where I’m informed I have a $200 past due balance. Odd, since just last week I received a bill that said I had a $150 credit. Even more odd because as I checked our bank account, regular payments have been made for the past, oh five years or so.

I’m connected with a man named Ken. Except that I later learn that Man named Ken is really a woman named Kenisha or something of the like. (Note to Ken/Kenisha - you have a masculine voice. Very masculine. I'd suggest at least giving your full name and not shortening it to "Ken") He/she kept insisting that there was a balance due for the past three months. He/she didn’t really care that I’ve only had the phones for one month and that it's virtually impossible to owe three months worth of charges on phones that you have only had for a month. He/she did not care that I’ve paid Verizon every single month for the past five years. He/she did not care that I held a credit statement in my hand. Instead Man/woman named Ken apparently did not like my tone the least little bit because he/she kept putting me on hold to “calm down,” which only served to make me madder.

Long story short, they are trying to find the money my bank has been sending them and they have apparently been misdirecting into another account. And I now have phone service.

But I still haven’t figured out if he/she is really a woman or a man.

Problem number two wouldn’t actually BE a problem if my husband was 6’5” tall. But he’s not. Not even close. Nor am I. However, the seat of his Jeep apparently prefers a tall driver because it moved itself back all the way and now won’t move forward. It is, of course, electronic, so there’s no fooling it. There’s also no driving it since neither of us can reach the pedals. So for now, we are driving MY Jeep, which I was informed was a crapmobile. But at least we can reach the pedals.

Oh, and finally the well. You didn’t think I’d forget the well did you? How could I when I took a dirt shower this morning. We’ve moved from water/air to air/dirt. It’s fan-frigging-tastic to wake up to that in the morning. Ironically, our neighbors just came over to borrow some water (ha – the joke was on them as I handed them our mud mix we now call water!) because their well and/or pump isn’t working. Sounds like a dry well situation to me. It also sounds like money wooshing out of our bank account.

The only thing that can make me feel better at this point is to spend money we don’t have. On something fun. So tomorrow, we order the cabinets. Screw Verizon, the car, and the well. I'm getting new kitchen cabinets and you can't take that away from me.

Brought to you by the letter F

I'll let you fill in the blanks with your own favorite word, but basically mine are all four lettered.

It appears that we need to have a new well drilled. Unless we can live on air alone.

Because air is basically what we are getting when we turn on the faucets or flush the toilet.

Fabulous. Which is not the first f-word that comes to mind.