Is this what home ownership is like?  Never ending disaster after disaster, headache after costly headache?

We have been having trouble with our plumbing.  

The first issue was the plumbing under our kitchen sink.  The plumbing from the garbage disposal ran uphill.  So when my husband went to replace the kitchen sink, he fixed the pipes too, and redid the whole darn tootin’ thing.  And he did well.  And we have had no issues.

Then, the problem was our master bath.

Here is the situation:  It was just a full bath, but we plumbed it in for a laundry room, so I wouldn’t have to go down to the basement to do laundry.  There is no sink in there right now, just the pipes coming out of the floor waiting for a sink to be installed.  And a toilet (which was a whole separate issue….  installing that was not fun!).
Last time I was doing laundry the whole floor became a lake, because it all backed up through that pipe for the sink.  :(

We thought there was a clog, so we tried to snake it from one direction and couldn’t get anything.  So we went to the basement and cut out part of the pipe.  Well, the clog came out easily enough – it fell right out of the pipe, and all over us!  It was….  kind of disgusting, to say the least.  

Anyway, the clog is out, we re-plumbed the pipes and all was well.

NOT.

So I did laundry again today, and once again there was water ALL OVER the floor.  We called a local plumber to come out and take a look, since apparently what we did didn’t work.  He said that since that side of the house used to be a garage, so it’s on a slab, the only way to really tell what was going on is to rip up the whole floor in that bathroom and take a look.

So.  To review, that means we have to move out the washer and dryer that we just got installed, take out the toilet that we just installed, and rip out the brand new linoleum that has only been there a few months.  Plus, that is currently our only working toilet, and that means I will have no way to do laundry.  

Let’s just say I’m not a happy camper right now.

Our house is a complete and total disaster…  there is STUFF everywhere, because we haven’t been able to put anything away yet because we have projects going on in every part of the house that we would store things.  So basically all the stuff that you would typically have put away – clothes, bathroom supplies, dishes, canned goods, shoes… everything…. is right out in the middle of everything.

I had thought we were getting kind of close to being able to start putting some stuff away, but now we are going to have even more things piling up now that I can’t even do laundry.

I don’t know how this is all going to turn out, but I hope it gets fixed soon so I can get back on track with organizing this house!

The New House!

We finally closed on our new house! In July. *shameful face* It was in need of quite a bit of TLC (it still is.), so we have had our hands full working on it, and NO time to do anything else.
Here are our Before pictures, minus pictures of the front of the house, because I completely FAILED and haven’t taken one yet.

This is the living room, looking back towards the dining room.  The door on the left leads to the master bedroom (which used to be an attached garage.)

Here is the kitchen, from the dining room.  The door on the far wall on the left leads down to the unfinished basement.  You can’t see it in this picture, but the backdoor is on the wall right next to it.

The hallway (on the right, in the first picture.).  You can’t really tell from the picture (I’m not good at taking pictures…..) but there are five doors down the hallway.  First on the right is a bedroom, then another bedroom, storage closet, third bedroom then the bathroom on the left.

First bedroom.  Looking in from the door, and looking back towards the closet (and the door, on the left.)

Sorry that first picture is so dark.  This is the second bedroom, on the right at the end of the hallway.  Looking in from the door, then back towards the closet and door on the right.

The third bedroom.  Looking in from the door, and looking back at the closet and door on the right.

Main bathroom.

Back on the other side of the house, this is the Master Bedroom.  First from the doorway, looking towards the front of the house, then back towards the door on the right.  You can also barely see a door leading out to the side of the house on the left.  And just across from that door is the Master bathroom.

The Master Bathroom.

So….. yeeeah.  We have A LOT of work ahead of us.  We have already been working very hard, and it already looks SO much better than it does in these pictures, but there is a lot more to be done.  I’ll be working on getting updated pictures up soon.

 

 

Lemon Garlic Tilapia

On nights when I don’t feel like cooking (and to be completely honest, that’s been happening a lot lately….) I usually make lemon garlic tilapia. It’s super quick, super easy and completely delicious! So I thought I would share that recipe with you.

Four frozen tilapia filets (thawed)
2 Tbs Smart Balance, melted
2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1/2 lemon
Dried parsley flakes

Heat oven to 350. Place tilapia filets in a glass baking dish. Pour butter over fish. Sprinkle garlic over fish. Squeeze the lemon half over the fish. Sprinkle with parsley flakes. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes.

That’s it! And it tastes SO good! I’ll sometimes make pasta with it, or rice, and steam some frozen vegetables to make a complete, nutritious, tasty meal.

If anybody tries this, let me know your experience with it!

A Total disaster.

So I wrecked my car yesterday.  I was on my way to a babysitting job, the road was wet from an overnight rain shower, and I lost control around a curve.  I spun out and ended up in a ditch, with bits of my car scattered all along the road.

I felt like an idiot.  Who in the world totals their car when it’s not even raining/freezing????

The first thing I did was call my husband.  ”hi.  I really fucked the car up good this time.”

I love my husband.  He didn’t give me a hard time about it (too much…), and was really supportive.  He jumped out of bed, hopped into the truck and headed my way.

Another pair of reasons I feel like a failure:
1.  I had my 9 month old in the car with me.
2. After a cursory glance at him to make sure he was still there/alive, I was focused on other things like calling my husband, and calling the person I was going to babysit for to tell him I wouldn’t be making it that day.  It was only after all my phone calls were made that I really looked at the baby, to make sure he was really okay.  How’s that for great parenting?????

I had several people slow down on their way past to see if I was okay, or if I needed them to call somebody for me.  When people show concern, it really helps restore my faith in humanity.  However, there was an equal amount of people who just sped past.  Oh well.

Finally, an off-duty cop stopped.  She asked if I had notified the police, and I said “do I have to?”  She laughed at me, and said yes, and called them for me.  *insert grumpy face here*
In one way, it was nice that the cops were there, because they took Blake out of the car so he wouldn’t be sitting there vulnerable to all the other slip-sliding cars coming down the hill and around the curve.  They ended up shutting that section of road down, so nobody could come rushing past.  And they were really nice about it, they didn’t try to make me feel bad at all.
But, I got a ticket for “careless driving in the conditions.”  Blech.

My good friend Stephanie drove over to pick up Blake for me, and get him off the road.  She took him to a babysitting job she was going to, and kept him pretty much all day for me, while we dealt with everything going on.  It was such an amazing help!  It was so comforting to know that he was safe with her, and was able to play and have a good time, instead of dealing with the aftermath of a car crash.

When Devin got to the “scene of the crime,” he dragged my car out of the ditch with his truck, assessed the damage, and we ended up getting it towed home.
Then he took me to the hospital, because I had hit my head during the wreck.  I got a CT scan, and there was nothing wrong with me.
Today, I’m super sore, and just have no energy, but otherwise I’m fine.
It didn’t affect Blake at all.

The whole time, all I could see were dollar signs floating in the air.  This wreck cost us SO much money.

-literally two days ago, we had just put new tires, new synthetic oil, and a new transmission line in the car.  ka-ching (that’s the money sound, in case you were wondering…)
-at the same time we got those put in, we got an alignment.  ka-ching
-I probably did at least $6000 worth of damage to the car.  ka-ching
-we don’t have full coverage on it.  ka-ching
-Blake’s car seat was involved in a wreck, so we will now have to buy a new one.  ka-ching
-I got a ticket.  ka-ching
-I missed out on that baby-sitting job.  ka-ching
-Devin took off work to help me, so he missed a days worth of pay.  ka-ching
-I had an ER visit, and a CT scan, of which we will have to pay 10%.  ka-ching

And, we already have no money.  I work at a preschool, and so I’ve been off work all Summer, we have all of our spare cash tied up in this house we’re trying to buy, and we just went on a trip to a family reunion in Michigan.  We had literally $17 in our checking account, and we have credit card debt for the first time of our married life.  And now this.
We can’t buy a new car yet, because that would mess up our income to debt ratio, which could potentially keep us from buying this house.  Which means I can’t go anywhere right now.

BUT.  There are also SO many things I am thankful for.

-Blake wasn’t hurt.
-We just went into a ditch, and not into another vehicle.
-Blake wasn’t hurt.
-We didn’t roll.
-Blake wasn’t hurt.
-My husband is so sweet and supportive and caring.
-Blake wasn’t hurt.
-My mother-in-law rode down to the wreck with my husband, to check on me and make sure I was okay. (She’s a nurse.)
-Blake wasn’t hurt.
-My friend Stephanie was willing to come at a moment’s notice and pick Blake up, and keep him all day for us.  I’m SO grateful to have such a good friend like that!
-Did I mention that I’m grateful my son is ok?  I don’t know how I could forgive myself if something had happened to him.  It just makes me sick to my stomach to think about, and it makes me appreciate every second with him, even though I’m sore and tired and don’t really want to go get a crying baby up and watch him every second because he’s into everything.  But I would rather have a lifetime of chasing him around than to have anything bad happen to him.

 

If this wreck had happened a few months ago I probably would have said that it was a metaphor for my life.  I was really struggling with anxiety and depression, and my relationship with my husband was suffering because of it.  Actually everything was suffering because of it.  There were so many things that had not gone the way I had always planned.  There’s too much to really go into detail here, but briefly – we had moved out of our dream house into a place I despised, and whenever we tried to buy a new house to start over, things always fell through.  It felt like we would never get out of there, never get to have a fresh start.  I felt like it was my husband’s fault somehow.  My life felt like a car wreck.  Everything was going along smoothly and calmly, the way it was supposed to, and then the shit hit the fan and it all fell apart.

Recently I’ve had a new perspective on things.  Devin and I went to counseling for awhile, which really helped a lot.  I learned ways to deal with my anxiety and my husband. (ha ha)
So it kind of feels like the shit is hitting the fan again.  I finally get stuff worked out, and then the figurative and literal car gets totaled.
I’m trying NOT to think of it that way, but I promised to try to be honest on this blog, and that is genuinely what I’m feeling.  But I don’t want to go back to the way I felt before.  So I’m really trying hard to keep a positive outlook on everything.

And I guess that’s it.  Kind of a depressing story.  At least for me, anyway.  I think I need to go back and read my “grateful for” list again…. and again… and again….

 

Could it finally be happening at last???

We might be closing on our house soon! I have been waiting for this for over a year.
We had to move out of our house with two weeks notice, and into my husband’s uncle’s trailer on my husband’s parent’s property. It’s a place to live, and I’m very grateful… but I’m SO ready for a space of my own!!! We were originally going to build above my husband’s parent’s shop, but after a year with only the floor done, I was ready to move on to a new idea. So we started house hunting. After several lost contracts, we finally had a contract on a house that I loved! But then we waited… and waited… and waited. And then we found out the loan we were trying to get wouldn’t work. So we backed out of the contract. That was a sad, sad day. I cried.
Now we have a contract on another house that I’m not quite as in love with as the other one, but I think in the end it will turn out well.  I’m excited to be able to put some of our personality into this house, and really make it our own.  And hopefully I’ll remember to blog about it as I go.  :)

Should I stay or Should I go?

My relationship with God is very important to me. He sent His own Son to bear the punishment for MY sin, so that I could go to Heaven. That’s pretty incredible.

Here’s where I run into trouble. It’s not God. It’s not Jesus. It’s not any doubt that I will see Him face to face one day.
It’s religion that I struggle with.

Hypocrisy.
In a way, I like it. I know, it doesn’t make sense. Let me explain.
There is a certain standard to which God calls us to live. He calls us to love our enemies, and pray for those who hate us. He calls us to forgive, and to not judge. He calls us to be righteous.
It is impossible for any human to do all these things. Yes, God gives us the strength to be more like Him, and we are to become more like Him every day, but we are still human. We will mess up.

So. In one sense, you have to just expect hypocrisy. It’s easy to talk about what God wants from us, but it’s a little bit more difficult to actually be that way all the time in every aspect of your life.

To me, if you’re honest about your mistakes and transparent for everyone to see that you ARE human, then hypocrisy can actually be used as a tool to reach the unsaved. We are basically telling the world “yes, I messed up. I went against what God wanted me to do. But God still accepts me as His child.”

When we speak the Truth, and say “this is how you should live,” but don’t admit our own faults – well, that’s when it gets dangerous. That’s when it becomes a giant “club,” that requires certain qualifications to get in. You have to act a certain way to be accepted, and so Christians become terrified of admitting anything that they did wrong. And non-Christians don’t want anything to do with us.

I was thinking about this because I haven’t been to Church in a over a month. I do believe that it’s right for Christians to go to Church to learn, and to have fellowship with other believers, but I also don’t think that it’s a sin not to go. I don’t feel bad for not going – I have had reasons. We’ve been sick, the baby didn’t wake up in time, I had other things to do, I didn’t have a vehicle, etc. But I’ve been worried about it because I feel like the people at Church will look down on me for not going for so long. But why should they? What do they know of my relationship with Christ?

So here I am embracing my hypocrisy. Yes, it’s good and right to attend Church regularly. No, it’s not a sin if you don’t go all the time. It will not affect your salvation. It will not affect your relationship with Christ.

The End.

Honesty.

It’s hard to be honest. Seriously. Like, REALLY honest.

For example, it’s really hard for me to say out loud that I’ve been struggling with depression for the last few months. And it’s not postpartum depression – I don’t have any doubts about Blake. I just feel…. displaced. Unsettled.

There. I said it.

It’s hard to remember to be thankful. I have SO many things to be thankful for, but sometimes I forget. I tend to focus on things that are bad in my life, or what I perceive to be bad.

I used to be different. I was always the one who saw the good in everything. Nothing fazed me. I was JOYFUL.

I want that back.

How do people just change like that?

Sure, I’ve been through a lot of things the last few years. Moving out of my parent’s house, getting married, moving again, changing jobs, having a miscarriage, moving again, having a baby. I guess those things can have an affect on people. Maybe I just need some stability in my life?

I need to remember that God is my stability.

“The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer. My God, my rock in whom I take refuge; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” Psalm 18:2