Not a Good Week...and Our Pipes Cracked!

Happy 2014!  Yes, with record temperatures in Atlanta of 6 degrees this week, our pipes did not hold up.  We had left all the faucets open and had a slight drizzle coming out.  Then Wednesday afternoon my brother Brrrian noticed that there was no drip out of the kitchen faucet and went into the crawl space to investigate. Sure enough there was a crack in one of the pipes. The good news is that Brrrian was able to fix the burst in 10 minutes with $12 of supplies at Lowes. (Thanks again tio Brrrian!)

Wait!  That sounded like it was the bad news didn't it?  It did add to my bad week no doubt, but there was a lot more to it.

Mateo had some serious cabin fever with the freezing weather, so we ventured out to Barnes & Noble Monday morning to play.  They have a big train set and Lego table.  There were lots of other kids there playing too.  Lots of kids with lots of germs.



































Mateo got up from his nap that day and yelled down the stairs "uh-oh!"  I know when he says that, he is not playing, something happened that needed attending to.  Well, that "thing" this time was a couple piles of vomit! ugh! In the next 3 hours he got sick 3 more times but ran around like nothing was wrong.  I gave both boys a bath and as I was taking Marcelo out of the tub I got sick.  Luckily the john was right behind me, so no mess, but picture me holding a naked wet child and puking.  Or don't.

Ps. That was the first time in at least 12 years that I have gotten sick (other than a quick bout of food poisoning).  

Next was Marcelo. He vomited twice that night.  Mateo and I were fine the next day, but Marcelo continued vomiting.  Two more times in the morning. I thought he was done, but he did it one more time at 11 pm. Ugh!






















Even through all of that, my ever-happy boy didn't cry once.  Does this look like a boy who is sick?

The fun didn't stop there.  With one load of vomit clothes in the washer [plus one more & and a load of dirty diapers waiting to be washed] a burning rubber smell hits me and the washer stops, just short of finishing the spin cycle.  This washer is OLD (Plus it was free - thanks Smita!) and it has served us well.   But we were planning to get a new front load stackable set after xmas anyway.  Why couldn't it last just a week longer?!

Marcelo got sick just once more and the puke clothes/sheets just piled in the laundry room until I begged my sweet neighbors to borrow there washer. (Thanks guys!)

How about a dishwasher problem? Ok.  While we didnt have running water for 24 hours our dishwasher sat with dirty dishes.  I washed the ones on the counter, but I was not about to wash all of the ones in the dishwasher by hand.  Ain't nobody got time for that!  

When Brrrian fixed the pipe and water was running again, I turned it on.  Sometime later I, again, smell something burning.  I go over to the dishwasher and open it up, seems it ran a cycle, but maybe with just one cup of water.  Great! Add new dishwasher to the list!
(Secretly, I was not upset about this at all because I don't like our dishwasher.  It very loud...and I want stainless instead of black.)

Our downstairs bathroom toilet was leaking so I called the contractors who did our renovations last year.  Ernesto suspected the toilet was not sealed properly after they laid the new floors.  Turns out it was the three screws inside the tank were not on tight enough which is something Ernesto could've fixed.  We ended up locking the downstairs bathroom for over a week and having to run upstairs to use bathroom...For. Nothing.  It added to the fun though.

Any one of these things may not have been so bad, but I have to say it was too much for me and I was stressed.  I get angry when Im stressed.  At one point I was angry at Ernesto for getting to go to work and "be free."  I know, silly.  Because I would be waaaaaay more angry to be working outside in the cold.  I get angry when Im cold too.

Anywho, it's a new week and things are working again in the house.  The boys are back to normal and Ernesto will be done taking down lights in just two. more. days.

Anybody up for a beach trip?  You better believe we are planning a winter getaway.   It's been a long season.

Update** When Ernesto was home yesterday (due to thunderstorms) he went ahead and put a load of dirty laundry in the washer and ran the dishwasher.  Both worked?!  Go figure.