Life was boring

As he walked into his backyard, he watched his neighbor in surprise. Whatever was she doing in her backyard, fully dressed, washing her hair with the garden hose?

Actually, I don't think any of the neighbors saw me. But I'm sure they would have been perplexed if they had. Sometimes, though, drastic measures are necessary.

I mentioned that I was exhausted by Friday, so I skipped washing my hair. I wasn't going anywhere, I was just cleaning up the house, etc., so I didn't think it really necessary. In the afternoon, I started washing some laundry. I glanced out the window and saw the water that was draining out of the washer running down the hill of my driveway, rather than disappearing down the sewage pipes like it should.

Uh oh.

We've twice had problems with the enormous tree in my yard growing into the pipes and blocking the passage of the dirty water. Both times, the problem thankfully ended up on the city's part of the yard. They brought out the machinery, dug up the yard, cut out the roots, and replaced the pipes. Since then, I've tried to put root-killer stuff down the drains every so often, just to make sure they don't grow back. It's a real pain, because it takes them about two days to do everything, and I meanwhile have no drainage. Think of how often the drain is used, even just for flushing a potty... and what would you do if said drainage was not available? Those are not fun times.

Seeing the water running down the driveway - times like this, I'm very happy about the enormous incline of my yard, since the flat yard I would like would have let the water come back up to the house - gave me a slight panic attack. I don't recall the last time I put the tree stuff in the drain, and I knew all the pipes in the house were working just fine. It was definitely a problem with the outside pipes. So I went out to check them. Sure enough, the water was completely backed up. I started to realize that a couple of times I've seen the driveway wet when I didn't think it had been raining, but I hadn't consciously thought about it. My only consolation: when the problem was the trees, it was a gradual problem, and this seemed to have popped up pretty quickly.

Off to Home Depot to look for a drain cleaner. I bought some of the root killer, but that needs running water to work. What I had was definitely NOT running water. The only running part was the overflow that ran down the hill... The one I found said to dump it in and give it 7-8 hours to work in slow or standing water, preferably without using any additional water during that time. Normally, I would have poured it in at bedtime, but since we couldn't use any water anyway, what was the point of waiting? Glug glug glug.

8 hours later, we took a flashlight outside to check it. Nope, still looked just the same. Bummer. Maybe it needs a little longer. Checked it Saturday morning when we got up. Nope. 18 hours after application, and it still looked the same. This was not good news. I now had places to go, and needed to look decent. If the water was just dirty water, maybe it wouldn't matter if it overflowed, but I'd seen some... other waste... bobbing along in the pipe opening and was not keen on having that floating down my driveway! So what to do?

Thus I took my shampoo and a towel out to the backyard to wash my hair with the hose. The water was surprisingly warm from the sun, which was nice as I'd been expecting it to be freezing. I felt rather like I was camping or something, except it was in my yard. In an odd kind of way, it was sort of fun. To do once.

While I was at the meeting, I kept praying about the drainage problem. I truly did not want to call a plumber on the weekend. They are expensive enough during regular hours, I didn't want to pay the emergency call fee. I was trying to figure out if we could survive until Monday. I was also claiming God's promise to be a father to the fatherless and a husband to widows. France is a little far for my dad to just to stop over to help out, so I was effectively fatherless. Didn't that count?

When I got home, it was about 22 hours after we first poured the cleaner into the pipes. At 18 hours, the stuff had not moved even an inch. At 22, however, the whole thing was cleaned out and operating properly. No more blockage! We flushed the toilet to make sure the water was not still stopped up just out of sight. Nope, washed out like it was supposed to do. I did a load of laundry, no problem. Ran the dishwasher, no problem. All better! PRAISE THE LORD!

Life can be interesting sometimes, no? I guess I'd been on a streak of humdrum activities, so I got a little surprise to spice it up for a bit.

And yes, I've applied the root killer now, too, just in case. I'll be fine with boredom again for a little while, thankyouverymuch.

Right on time

I accepted a job today. I applied for it back in December, and it just took them this long to call. It's a full-time but temporary job, only lasting about 4 months. I'll be working with the US Census Bureau, doing crew training and quality assurance. I liked doing training at PATLive, but I'll admit that our hiring standards were probably slightly higher than the level of the average census worker. I could be wrong... I rather hope I'm wrong. We'll have to see. Hopefully when this is over, the economy will be picking up again and people will start hiring for decent permanent jobs and wages.

I'll know a little more after I start training. When is that, you ask? March 13. Which just so happens to be the same day that I receive my last payment from PATLive. How's that for timing?

Crystal Diaper award

I've volunteered in the nursery since before I had Alex. I started with the little babies, but I was asked to help out in the 2yo room a couple of times and decided I liked it there. So for the last 8 years, I've spent the first Sunday of every month helping out in the 2yo room. Since last June, Alex has also been helping me out with the kids. We go to the first service, then volunteer for the second one.

Our church recently held a volunteer recognition service to thank all the volunteers that keep the church running. They gave a description of the various areas people serve - some I never even knew we had - and everyone that worked in that area stood up to be recognized and receive a certificate of thanks.

Pastor Ledford's comments when discussing each area were amusing. Clearly, he has no secret longing to ever work in the nursery with not-yet-potty-trained kids. Absolutely.None.What.So.Ever. Much like my desire to stand up and preach to the church.

Then came the surprise... the staff members that run each area had selected a Volunteer of the Year for their area. Their names were called out, 'the winner is' music was played just like at some entertainment awards show, and the person went to the front of the church to be specially recognized for their efforts. You'd think they might want to warn people of such a thing, but no...

And so I suddenly found myself in front of the church, getting a hug from the pastor and receiving this beautiful plaque. How cool is that? When awarding my plaque, he said they really should have a Crystal Diaper award to present, but I'd have to settle for the plaque. I was so surprised in the first place, I thought this was just fine!

Pleasant Surprises

I had two lovely surprises yesterday:

1. I normally have a difficult time getting Alex up in the morning. It takes a good 20-30 minutes usually to rouse him out of bed. Neither one of us are morning people, and it shows very clearly on weekday mornings. Yesterday, I woke up when the alarm went off, only to find him just getting out of the shower. He'd woken up a little early on his own, and decided to just go ahead and get ready for school. Shock!
   
   
2. I had participated in a local survey about something or other, and they said they were putting together a focus group and would I be interested. I filled out the information, they called me back to review the screening questions, then scheduled me to be part of the group. They were paying $50 for each participant. Yes, I'd love to be part of your study! I arrived at the meeting time, only to be told that they needed X number of people and they had scheduled a few extra just to make sure they had the correct number actually show up. The X number had already arrived, so they handed me the $50 check and told me I was free to go home. Seriously? Please let me know if you are ever doing another one...

Both my morning and my evening contained pleasant surprises. Ah, for more days like that!

Strays welcome

"Mom, who's the guy sleeping on the couch?"

That is a sure way to wake up in a hurry when you know there was nobody on the couch last night when you went to bed.

I usually leave my bedroom door open, but the door had swung closed last night. The dogs were in the room with me, and started barking up a storm around 4am this morning. I got up, checked the house, but everything was quiet and dark so I figured it must have been a neighbor setting them off. There are college kids next door who sometimes have parties, and I just assumed they were having another one last night and people were probably making noise as they went home. I let the dogs outside to go potty and to reassure themselves of nobody prowling around the yard, and thought I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. That seemed silly since even smoking friends don't smoke in my house, so I figured a neighbor must have had a fire burning. I brought the dogs back into my bedroom, went ahead and pushed the door closed again, and went back to bed. One of my dogs kept looking at me like she was expecting me to do something else, but again, it was 4am and I was sleepy...

Then Alex's question this morning. Sure enough, an unknown guy was sleeping on my couch. We kind of stared at him, not sure what to do. He looked early to mid 20's, was in "going out" clothes, and seemed like a normal person. Except I've never met the guy before. Finally I shook him a little bit and he opened his eyes. He looked around and was clearly very confused. I asked him if he'd slept well and if perhaps he wanted to go home. He asked where he was, and finally woke up enough to realize he had somehow wandered into a complete stranger's house and gone to sleep. And then he started to freak out a little bit. He kept assuring me that he was an honest guy, he had a job and paid his bills, he had no idea what had happened but he was so sorry, etc. He wasn't driving, he had been at a party somewhere and gone with someone from there out to another party, and had no idea where he'd last been or how he'd gotten here. He seemed to have lost his cell phone, so I loaned him my phone so he could call home but he got no answer. He put his shoes back on and prepared to leave immediately, but he was going about 3 miles away so I offered to drive him home. Alex took the guy's picture because he said nobody would believe him if he didn't.

The front door was locked and closed, so I'm not sure how Chris got in. The door sometimes sticks, so it is possible it wasn't completely closed last night even though it looked it. And that bothers me. I do live in a neighborhood that has had very little trouble the entire time I've lived here, so I'm still not excessively worried about security. I do believe I'll be triple-checking the doors tonight, though. I'm also enormously surprised that apparently my dogs bark loud enough to hear a mile away if someone dares to step onto the property, but they didn't have much to say about someone actually coming into the house. I guess they figured they'd warned me; I got up right when the dogs started making noise, but the house was dark. So how did this guy enter an unknown house, find his way to the couch in the dark, take off his shoes, and get comfy and go to sleep in the moments it took me to put on slippers and come out of my room?

We've had a number of stray animals gravitate to our house over the years, but this is the first time a human stray has shown up. I guess if you are in the neighborhood, feel free to nap on my couch! Just make sure to close the door behind you.

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I debated whether to post this, since I'm sure some of you won't find this nearly as funny as Alex & I did. Yes, it's a bit discombobulating. Yes, I'll make sure the dogs have free reign of the house tonight. Yes, the front door situation will be getting fixed very quickly. But no, I'm really not afraid. Either I have great faith in my guardian angels and God's timing, or I'm foolish and naive, but we were more bemused than scared. It occurred to me that this could be an interesting premise for a story line should I ever decide to write a book.

I am thankful for...

faith... family... health... a place to call home... and the vacation time I didn't take this summer that will supplement the severance package I received when I got laid off on Friday.

Yep, after 13 years of PATLive, I find myself free of the telephony business. I was really quite tired of telephone services, so there are some advantages of being forced to find a new line of work. Too bad I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up!

I know this is a terrible time to be trying to find a job, both being so close to the end of the year and in our current economy. I also know that God is bigger than a bad economy and will provide. I'm not looking for work this week, I'm on vacation. I'd really like to spend next week doing some projects around my house that have been put off for much too long. After that, though, I'll need to start looking. Please pray that the right job will come my way.

Meanwhile, I'm off to keep counting my blessings. Food in the fridge... pets everywhere... friendships...