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Unscheduled Home Improvements

Talk about a crazy week or so…  Last Saturday, on February 12th, Brenda and I celebrated 6 years of marriage.  Can you believe its been that long?  I am sure most people can relate to the feeling, some days it feels like it was just yesterday.  On other days, it feels like we have been together forever.  And no, I don’t mean that in a “prison sentence that just won’t end” kind of way.  Rather, being married to Brenda has been the greatest ongoing joy of my life.  We live real life together in a way that I just didn’t know was possible 7 years ago.  I would categorize this past week as a testimony to the strength of our marriage.  We are certainly living out some of the “for better or worse” moments right now.

So let’s take a step back here.  Since our anniversary fell on a Saturday, and a Valentine’s Day weekend, my beautiful bride and I decided in all of our practicality, that we would celebrate our anniversary, not on the 12th, but rather on the 19th.  An kid-free overnight trip to San Antonio was planned.  There was a night in a nice resort, a couple’s massage in the spa, dinner reservations at a restaurant with no children’s menu, and even reservations for Sunday Brunch with some friends before we headed home on Sunday.  By all accounts, this was going to be a really nice weekend away!  Both of us were really, really looking forward to it.   Some adult time, some tension relief, some pampering, some attentive service… can’t you just feel the relaxation? 

Well, with this great weekend planned for February 19th, we decided that the beautiful weather on our actual anniversary was not something to be taken for granted.  We debated which outstanding project to tackle.  The garage was in desperate need of re-organizing, the pool needed some attention, and the yard was going to need to be cleaned up in preparation for Spring.  So we spent our anniversary in our backyard doing yard work.  Twelve bags of leaves and debris later, we were sore, tired and feeling pretty good about what we had accomplished.  We were putting up our rakes and tools when I came around the house from the backyard.  As I turned the corner to our driveway, I caught one of those glimpses that makes any homeowner drop their jaw.  Water was pouring down my driveway, from under my garage door.  I entered my code in the keypad as quickly as I could and ran into the garage.  Hot water heater, good; garage refrigerator and freezer, good;  laundry room door… oh no… I opened the door to laundry room and there was about an inch of standing water.  The washer itself was not running and didn’t seem to be the likely source, instead what we found was the adjoining powder room toilet has overflowed (again).  This has happened before in the past, several times actually.  But in the past it has always been quickly caught and resolved.  But on this day, Grace had come into the house to use the bathroom while we were working out back and had not noticed that the toilet did not flush properly.  No telling how long that toilet ran, but water covered the floor in the bathroom, the entryway, and it was flowing out the front door and through the laundry room. It had even started to make it into the living room.  What a mess. 

So Brenda took the shop vac and started working on the water.  I opened the garage door and started pulling things out.  We have a lot of stuff in our garage.  There are Christmas decorations, camping gear and tailgating equipment and lots of just general stuff, some of which sits on the floor in cardboard boxes.   So after an afternoon of yard work, we had the joy of also cleaning out that garage and doing some major clean up in the house.  It was a rough weekend, but maybe was just what we needed to kick us into gear about re-doing that powder bath.  After all, 2 of the cardboard boxes in the garage contained a new vanity and mirror we had bought with this precise intention.  It was a blessing in disguise really.  All we needed to do really was pick out flooring, a new toilet and a new faucet.  A great project to tackle with the tax refund we told ourselves.  With most of the water up, we pulled out the carpet and padding in the powder room and even took the opportunity to remove the tack strips that held the carpet down.

No, not the most romantic anniversary weekend ever, but we live real life in our house, and we took it all in stride.  I was committed to not letting this little episode put a total damper on our weekend, so I muscled through with my plans and at least delivered a nice steak dinner for my bride once we got the damage under control. 

But it had only just begun really… (To Be Continued)

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