I know I haven’t posted in over a week so just wanted to update everyone on the Life and Times of Margie G.
So, about two weeks ago, we noticed a leak coming from our ceiling. Was it the AC, the roof, the house fan? What a fun mystery to solve! (Not!) Our landscapers thought they saw a hole in our roof, but the guy I was trying to talk to spoke Spanish and while I took Spanish for five years and knew it well enough to find my friend’s missing umbrella on a college spring break trip to Cancun, years of no use, left me speaking a dialect that was far from Spanish. Therefore, I am not convinced we really understood each other and he knew what I was asking. I think I gave him a good laugh, though.
Anyway, the roofers came and while they found a few tiny spaces that required patches, they found no hole. The ceiling continued to leak. Our carpets continued to get wet. The house began to smell. A lot. Now, those of you with toddlers, know that the house can be filled with a number of smells at any given time so for a while it wasn’t obvious why the house smelled. However, after emptying the trash a number of times and making sure no traces of poopy pull ups remained, the house still stunk.
We called the AC people. They said our AC pan (or something like that) was rusted out. The whole system needed to be replaced. They asked why we were still running the AC. Didn’t we know that’s why it was still leaking? Um, no. And then they said, “Well, the damage is already done so you may as well run it if you need to.” Uh, ok.
Then, the insurance sent someone to assess the damage. They told us something was growing. They covered the whole place in plastic wrap while wearing protective space outfits. Took off a part of our ceiling in the rec room (that part was fine by me because I always hated that ceiling anyway–it has that bumpy popcorn like look), stripped the carpets. Of course there was no air by this point anymore. We had to leave our house. Moved in with my parents. Luckily, Little Guy turned 3 last Saturday so he had a whole bunch of new toys to play with while at my parents’ house.
Eventually, the mold (or whatever it was) was killed and the AC was fixed. But that was all finally finished just yesterday so we’re still at my parents and hoping to move back tomorrow. Hubby was at our place tonight taking out staples from the floor and loose nails and sharp things and putting furniture back.
I was supposed to be finishing copy edits and working on other projects but that hasn’t happened so back to all that by Friday. A few pluses of this whole experience (aside from the loss of that yucky ceiling):
1. Being back at my parents’ house has been nice. We all have gotten more tolerant of each other as we’ve grown older and their advice bothers me far less than it did when I was a teen. I was even able to tell my dad when to back off (very nicely of course) and he didn’t get all huffy.
2. LG has been sleeping much better here. Don’t know what that’s about, but I’ll take it.
3. Speaking of sleeping, the little bed LG sleeps in is upstairs and there’s a pull out in that room but too small for Hubby and me to sleep in comfortably so Hubby has been sleeping downstairs on a big pull out and LG and I have been in a room upstairs. Can I just say I totally get the two bed thing? I think people have two beds to hold a marriage together. No wonder all those couples in those ’50s sitcoms were so happy! I was able to fall asleep without anyone’s snoring leaving me tossing and turning and since LG comes into our bed in the middle of the night and proceeds to toss and turn, kicking us with his feet and draping his legs over Hubby’s face and mine, just him and me in the bed let both of us sleep. I wouldn’t want separate bedrooms on a permanent bases, but I think when Hubby and I need extra sleep our pull out couch will be getting some use. 🙂