Not the Way we Planned to Spend our Saturday

(c) 2013 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

I went for a run this morning.  Not that unusual - my schedule is to run on Friday evening, but if I don't feel like it, I'll often go on Saturday morning instead.  At some point during my treadmill run, I hear Mr. Kluges come down to the basement, rummage around in his work room, and go back upstairs.

When I'm done running, I head up for a shower, 'cuz yuck, I've definitely inherited my family's sweat genes.  Oh, but Mr. Kluges is snaking out the slow bathroom sink drain. Ah ha! That's why he was in the basement.  Ok, I'll just wait.

Mr. Kluges isn't having much luck, in part because I think the snake came with the house and isn't working right.  In frustration, he asks me about the clog cannon I got from Flylady that I haven't tried yet.  We get it out, read the directions, stick a wet rag into the little the-sink-is-going-to-overflow hole and give it a try.  

We pump up the air cannon and poof!  Nothing.

We pump it up a little more and Poof!  Nothing.

We pump it a bit more yet and POOF!  Some gurgling.

We give it almost the not-more-than-30-maximum pumps and POOF!!!!!  THE RAG FLIES OUT OF THE OVERFLOW HOLE AND BLACK GUNK IS EVERYWHERE!   

And by "everywhere," I mean on me, all over Mr. Kluges, covering the sink, on the hand towel, on the shower curtain, on the side of the toilet, on the toilet paper... everywhere.

But the drain works.

I could end the story here.  You would think that this was the end - little funny anecdote, gross but successful home-improvement story, yadda, yadda, yadda.  WE thought it was the end, and started cleaning up the disgusting black-gunk-splattered bathroom.

...until the children came running up the stairs shouting, "It's raining in the kitchen!  The kitchen is raining!  Through the light!  The light is raining!!!!"

Thaaaat's right.  We apparently have water under the bathroom floor/in the kitchen ceiling and its only egress is the light fixture.  From which is it steadily pouring.  

(Now in case you don't know/remember, this is the same bathroom floor/kitchen ceiling that we've already had rain on us.  At least this looks like cleaner water.  But still - it's one of the only replastered ceilings in the place.)   

Mr. Kluges figures the air pressure probably caused a crack/hole/blew out some rust in the part of the main drainage pipe that hadn't been replaced that leads from the tub to the sink to the toilet and out. ("Oh crap!" I think, "So much for my awesome Flylady tool that not only blew out the clog, but blasted our bathroom with gunk AND broke our plumbing! Mr. Kluges is never going to let me try anything again!")  So we wait until the kitchen stops raining, (and I clean up the black gunk and entire bathroom while we're waiting, 'cuz this takes a while!) and then he has me run the water in the tub to see if it begins dripping again.  I turn it on and let it run and run and run.... 

"Ok!" he shouts up, "turn it off - it's not leaking.  Now try the sink and we'll see if the leak is by there."  I turn off the tub, barely get the handle turned on the sink faucet and, "No, stop!  It's leaking again.  It must be the main drainage pipe!"

This begins a discussion about the relative merits of just doing a basic fix, or taking advantage of the fact that we're going to have to be ripping into walls/floors/ceilings and just redoing that bathroom the way we want it.  I'd always said we had to put in a main floor bathroom (or half bath or 3/4 bath) before we could mess around with the upstairs, but hey, what're ya gonna do?  At least we've got a toilet in the basement that is functional.

In fact, in the basement there's also a "shower," if you're willing to use the term loosely enough.  It's a (rusty, rusty) pipe, with no showerhead, over a drain in kind of an in-between, hallway-ish sort of room. Doesn't work, I don't think, but Mr. Kluges figures it would be pretty easy to fix it up enough to be a primitive shower while our other one is out of commission, what with the not wanting it to rain through our kitchen light fixture and all.

I hop on the phone to my very dear (and local!) friend G, who is in the process of moving (Wah!, btw!!!!), to ask if I can bring my sweaty, and possibly still slightly black-gunky, self over to use her shower.  Finishing up the conversation, I hear Mr. Kluges calling for me.

Turns out, he had already begun the getting-the-primitive-basement-shower-to-work project, and in the process discovered he needed his BIG wrench.  Which was upstairs in the guest room by the open panel exposing the back of the tub with its plumbing and piping.... and the plug he'd taken out to try snaking that pipe.  The plug that was still lying on the floor, NOT back in place where it would keep water from flooding out.   

Hooray!!!!  I call back G, we rejoice in the simple fix, and I tell her I don't need her shower after all.

But then Mr. Kluges tells me that there's no shut-off valve to the basement "shower," that he's already got it partially disassembled, and that he's discovered, the hard way, that the control valve is frozen in the "on" position... and that therefore he's had to turn off the water to the whole house.

I call G back and go find my travel toiletries bag.

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Epilogue:

I am clean and smell much better.   The water is still off to the whole house. Mr. Kluges and Penguin are at the hardware store.  The kitchen light fixture is disassembled and the part with the cloth-wrapped wiring is drying on the radiator.  The power has been shut off  to much of the kitchen, including the refrigerator.  The plug has been replaced and I'm about to point a fan through the access door at the back of the tub/guest room panel at the sodden kitchen ceiling.  Mr. Kluges says he should be able to get us water back by tonight.  I sure hope so.    

(Cross-posted to House of 42 Doors.)

Kids and Money Skills, Part 1

(c) 2013 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Kids need to learn about money.  Just like they need to learn about cooking, cooperation, planning out long tasks, cleaning up after themselves, being a good friend, doing laundry, and all those other life skills.  I've been doing some thinking about kids and money skills, and how Mr. Kluges and I can help our girls learn about money at ages 8 & 5 and beyond.  

They get an allowance.  Or rather, they got a weekly allowance until we got lazy about remembering to give it to them.... and then they ...just kind of didn't anymore.  I wasn't keen on how things were going anyway - the girls just had some money, but didn't really have a plan to use it.  They'd get their allowance or some birthday money or something and they'd just squirrel it away in their banks.  They made plans to purchase big things, like a DS game thingie, or a large American Girl furniture item.  Granted, Pumpkin did use some of her money to buy her second American Girl doll a couple of years ago, so there was that, but it just seemed very haphazard and without any real-life-skill learning going on.

Also, our method was that they had to be done with that week's jobs (1/day during school year - for example, 5 minutes picking up your floor, or find your school library book the night before library day... but the summer had about 5/day including things like set the table) to get their allowance.  We weren't thrilled with that method though - we wanted the girls to see those jobs/chores as just something they needed to do as members of a family and people with responsibilities for their own living space.  But it was hard to remember to give their allowance if it wasn't tied into the completion of the chart.

Around Christmas time we were thinking about and talking about getting them a 3-part bank like one of these options.  They were kind of pricey though, especially to get two, and I wasn't quite pleased with them.  I want our kids to have pocket money to spend for things like the student council's pencil sales at school or when we go to the zoo for a souvenir.  I also want them to have some to donate, so that they are giving to/for things like our church's Haiti school meal program or Jump Rope for Heart at school.  I want them to have the chance to save for a larger item like that American Girl doll, but I also want them to save for the distant future - for something like college or a car - where they're not going to see the results for years.

There are a couple of four-part banks, but the reviews were poor, the size of the compartments looked small, and it would not be easy to get the money out to do anything with it.  So I decided we should make our own.

Some months ago, Mr. Kluges and the girls had come back from a trip to Home Depot with a Venus flytrap and pitcher plant kit.  (Did I mention I wasn't along?!)  It needed a terrarium sort of thing to keep it moist, so I'd ended up finding this clear acrylic box at  Hobby Lobby.  Worked great.   Mr. Kluges even drilled a few holes in it 'cuz it was too airtight.  So as I was pondering just how we could make some sort of four-compartment bank, that container popped into my mind.

Combine 8 clear acrylic boxes, some paint markers, and a couple of bands made out of pretty pink elastic and you've got yourselves two 4-part banks!  Mr. Kluges cut coin/bill slots in the tops of the lids and the girls each decorated their banks.  I wrote on their name and "Donate," "Spend," "Save," or "Invest" on each piece (making sure to do the top lids and the bottom bank parts!).  
 

 And now, since this is plenty long, I've still got to finish getting things ready for the morning, AND I've realized I don't have any pix of the finished banks, we'll just add "Part 1" to the title of this post, and I'll continue another day!  :)   

Happy Valentine's Day!

(c) 2013 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Ok, so it might be a bit belated, but Thursdays are always crazy for us because it's the day I volunteer the entire morning in the girls' classrooms (alternatively).  Then I do lunch duty at school, followed by a short break at home which includes making supper bento-lunch-boxes for the girls to eat after their tumbling classes in the evening.  THIS week, tumbling classes were picture day, so, of course, classes ran long & we weren't home until after 7pm, which means streaking through baths & stories to get our need-their-sleep!-ers into bed.

But fortunately,  Valentine's card prep happens before Valentine's Day, 'cuz this is what the girls and I conspired upon for their valentines...

Hope your day was filled with love and gratitude and friendliness 'cuz you know I adore you all!  Happy Valentine's Day to YOU! 

Sunday Brunch Visitors

(c) 2013 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Hurriedly finish up brunch-making on Sunday after church, I brought an egg-in-a-basket to the dining room, to plop it on a plate, when this view out the window caught my eye.

Hi! I see you have peanut butter toast crusts out here.  I'm sure the birds won't mind sharing!

Yeah, we had a deer visiting, right outside our dining room window.  I'd known at least one, probably two of our neighbors had been feeding the local deer, but apparently our peanut butter toast crusts, tossed out for the birds (and some greedy squirrels), smelled better.

Then his friend? sibling? decided to check it out, too.

Hey, that toast any good?

  

They didn't seem to mind that by this point we were all in the dining room watching them eat.

They didn't seem to mind when I moved closer either.

Oh, look! ANOTHER one!  This is getting ridiculous!

Hi, guys! What's up?!

So the three of them ate some toast, looked at us watching them, and finally decided to wander off somewhere that had not so many paparazzi.

I fear for my garden this summer. 

Rainbow Day!

(c) 2013 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Today was "Rainbow Day" at school & the kids were encouraged to wear rainbows, tie-dyed stuff, and bright colors in general.  Nice and cheery for the middle of winter, don't you think?

We kinda got into it....

A close-up of that fancy hair!

Also, I maybe had a little fun with their bento-style lunches, too...  

Penguin's lunch on Rainbow Day!

Close-up of the fruit - dried cranberries, clementine sections, dried  mango, dried banana chips, kiwifruit, and blueberries!

They usually just have one rubber band holding their lunch box together, not 5 in rainbow order! :)

 

My very own cold box

(c) 2013 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Last year I decided that the amount of frostiness of the sides of the basement chest freezer had reached my tolerance limits.  It was time to defrost it.  So I figured I'd wait until we had a couple-days-to-a-week predicted cold streak, then unload the goods into totes and stick 'em outside on the back porch just long enough for the defrosting.

But last winter was rather mild.  Record-settingly mild, in fact.  So, no long-enough cold stretch for my planned defrosting. 

Fast forward to this winter.  THIS winter, which is much more winter-y that last winter!  Some snow, sure, but only (for us, at least) in two big storms.  But now we've got a cold stretch coming in.  Enough of a cold snap that I'm going to defrost that freezer!

...and then I realized...

...I don't have to put my frozen goods outside in their totes, risking animals and all.  No, my back entryway - through which I must travel every time I want to visit the washer/dryer, run on the treadmill, get to the freezer, access any storage totes - is below freezing.  It has been consistently 28F for some time now, and with the predicted high tomorrow of 4, and low of -11 (!!!!), with Tuesday's high/low predicted to both be 3F, I feel pretty confident it's not going to exceed freezing any time soon.

Hooray for an old house?!

Edited 1/23: Freezer was successfully defrosted & food reinstalled. I definitely didn't have to worry, 'cuz the morning when I went to finish up the job, the back hallway was at 12F.  BRRRRR!!!!!

 

Happy Holidays!

(c) 2012 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Leaving after school today to head to MN to see all the rellies & won't be back until after Christmas, but I wanted to wish you all a happy holiday season, whichever holiday(s) you celebrate, and a wonderful 2013!