that's life

So it has been a rough month at our house.  Fortunately, "That's Life" by Michael Buble plays frequently in my car to help me with some perspective.  All things considered my life is great and I shouldn't complain, but here goes anyway.  Often, I feel like blogs always focus on how wonderful and perfect and fun life is (mine included), but rarely on the realities which are far more abundant, but surely not as fun to take pictures of.  I took pictures anyway.  They are ugly, but that is the point.  This is a post for people who are really bored or are looking for ways to feel happy about their own life, so read on if you want.

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So where to begin?  Super Bowl Sunday, we had the worst plumbing problem to date (and we have already had our fair share).  That Saturday, Zach broke off the faucet by slamming it down too hard (in his defense it was rusted on the inside and about ready to go, but it is fun to blame him anyway since he would give me the same courtesy).  He ran outside to turn the water off at the house and since it was late, we just decided to assess the damage in the morning and then call a plumber if needed.  Unfortunately, when we woke up in the morning we had a little pond in our yard.  Apparently, the pressure between the water line at the street up to our house was too much and busted a pipe underground.  They had to come dig a ditch through our whole front yard.  It was a muddy mess, but I was suddenly thankful that we didn't plant winter grass and our yard was a mess anyway.  It took all day and I think all the plumbers hated us because they missed the Super Bowl.  I missed it too, but at least I don't really care and could watch all the commercials online later.  Let's just say it was not a happy day for the old bank account.

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I also had trouble picking out a faucet that I liked.  I didn't like the first one I bought once I got it home, so the plumber said they would hook up a make-shift version until I picked out something else.  Then Zach could hook up the other one himself because it would be "easy" according to the plumber.  Unfortunately, due to my lack of decisiveness we had to deal with this as our sink for a week:

We hooked up the hose because these faucets spray straight out at you.  The dishes seemed to pile up more than usual, which is saying something for me.

And look how lovely our bathroom wall looks now thanks to this as well: 

We thought maybe we were done, but no that would be too easy...

Eventually, when I found a faucet I liked (not as much as my old one, but it will do), Zach put it on.  He had trouble and it kept leaking, but eventually it seemed fine... or so we thought.  Fortunately, I kept noticing a musty smell and since we hadn't closed up the whole in the wall I went to look inside it only to discover the whole wall was wet because there had been a very small leak for days.  I was happy we hadn't closed it up yet, but we had to run a fan in it for a few days to dry it out.  For now it has cardboard over it and looks really classy.  And I had just filled a different hole in our bedroom from a plumbing problem we had a year ago.  So we shall see how long we keep this one--surely awhile.  Zach is thinking of becoming a plumber and I am contemplating a career in drywall.  Maybe then we can afford to replace all of the oleanders in our yard that died from a parasite that is spreading around town.  We felt so blessed to be apart of this popular trend.  Isn't is charming?

And last, but certainly not least we had our first trip to the ER with one of our children.  With Gus, I would have thought it would be from jumping off the dining room table, but no, he was right next to me in the bathroom when he tripped and cut his head open on the corner of the door.  Jimmy screamed when he saw the blood, but Gus calmed down pretty fast.  We had a long frustrating trip to the hospital, but he was a trooper and he only had to get liquid stitches.  By the way, can I just buy those and do that myself next time?  That seems like it would be way easier.  It ended up looking not so bad.

...Until it started to peel off on the fifth day and looked like it opened up again:

Also, the stickiness attracts dirt and you can't get it off so I didn't really know what to do to make it not look gross.  I had to use all my self control not to pick at it.  Eventually, what you see peeling off above came all the way off and while it was still pretty red underneath it didn't seem so bad.  My father-in-law (the pediatrician) said not to worry since he is a boy and scars are cool.   That was fine until last weekend he smashed into the same door and busted it open, again.   I guess it really is going to be a great scar for him to sport for the rest of his life.  Then to top it off he got a big scrape right above it just to add to his look of "dirty little ragamuffin."  That is his style.

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Aren't you glad I shared all this fun and exciting stories?

Oh, yeah and we had Roof Rats.  Yay!