Ahem, Is This Thing On?

Hey all. Remember me? I'm Maria. I used to blog around here. It has been a crazy last 10 days. I've got a lot of catching up to do. Here's what's been going around here:

My mom came up last Thursday night. Friday morning she and I left for St. Paul to attend Women of Faith. I've lost track how many of these weekends I've been to, maybe 8 or 10? Always fantastic! Loved the time with my mom and few girlfriends!

DH did his first solo over night with the kiddos. Everyone did pretty well--even my Little Man, who happens to be quite the mama's boy. I was nervous for all of them. Mostly because I know how miserable it can be listen to a screaming baby for hours on end. But thankfully (Praise God) my concerns were unwarranted. Thanks, DH for making it possible for me to be gone!

Tuesday evening, the women's organization at our church hosted the Fall Gathering for our conference. Which probably means nothing to you. Basically, we were responsible for helping plan an evening for 150 women, including dinner, leadership training and worship. I am currently serving as President of our local unit and many of the details fell to me. And those details consumed much of my time over the last couple of weeks. It was a great evening and I am SO GLAD that it is over. SO GLAD. Again, my DH came to the rescue and ran the projection at church for the worship service. I don't know what I do without him!

My house is reflective of my time being spent ironing out details for that event and being gone to Women of Faith. There is a tour of homes going on today over at one of my favorite sites. I would love to participate, but good grief the amount of work that needs to be done prior to taking pictures is overwhelming. We'll see...but if you love to look at homes, you really should head over and see Julia. I could spend hours on her site. Oh, wait. I do spend hours on her site. Maybe that is contributing to the condition of my house?

We are going to be doing some work in our back entry. It is in desperate need of attention and has been on "The List" since we moved in six years ago. But you know how that goes, always something else going on! Last night, DH pulled trim off a couple of the windows to measure for replacements. So, the wheels are now in motion and I am going to be battling with my tendency to make the project bigger than originally planned. Any one with me?

DH is in the process of changing jobs. He put in his notice this week and has begun the transition process. Please keep him in your prayers as he makes this move.

Have a fantastic weekend! I've missed you all. Maybe I'll be back later with pictures. Speaking of, I still owe you all pictures from A Maze N Farmyard a couple of weeks ago!

The Tale of a Fateful Drip

When I last blogged, I was off to work on laundry and figure out dinner. Well, I did both--pulled the last bit of laundry off the line just as it was starting to rain and we had meatloaf for supper. While I was getting dinner ready, I noticed that a crack in the plaster of the kitchen ceiling seemed like it was bigger than I had remembered. Granted I don't spend a lot of time staring at the ceiling, but it did seem like it was different from before. Our home was built in 1919, so small cracks and some shifting are not unusual. So I made a mental note to tell DH. I got busy with dinner prep and forgot.

When Princess Pigtails was finishing up her dinner, she got off her chair and went to the kitchen. DH was cleaning up and sent her back to her chair to wait for her third serving of blueberries. He had washed the blueberries and carried the second serving in his hand to her bowl in the dining room. So when Princess Pigtails came out of the kitchen saying that her foot was wet, I really didn't think much about it. I figured that there were some water drips on the floor from the transport of the blueberries.

When she was done eating, I went in the kitchen. Then I saw the amount of water on the floor. It was a relatively small amount, I guess. Like a glass of water had been splashed. I commented to DH that the ceiling was leaking. DH ran upstairs. Checked the bathroom directly above. Nothing on the floor. Came back down. I asked if he had checked the sink or bathtub. Back upstairs. Opened the access panel. Hmm. Slow drip from a connection in the copper of the bathtub faucet. Hmm. Flipped the shut off on the water line. Okay, drip stopped.

Back downstairs, we put a towel on the floor to sop up the water. It was of course, bath time while all this was going on. Alternate bath plan enacted and accomplished. Princess Pigtails and The Little Man in bed. I said to DH as we are shutting off the lights in the kitchen to head to bed ourselves "What do you think about this ceiling? Is it going to crash down in the middle of the night?" DH assured me, that he thought it would be fine. It would need to dry out and then we'd have to repair it, but it'd be fine.

I suppose you can see where this is going...11:30, we are awaken to a huge crashing sound. We ran down the stairs and this is what we found in our kitchen:




Good times, good times. Anybody know a good plumber?