Three Crazy Days

So I just have to share the story of three days last week. As I was living it, I knew I had to tell the story before I forgot the details. I could just hear my Nana's voice, telling me I needed to write it all down. It's just too unbelievable....

Wednesday , July 25, was our day to finish the basement before the carpet installers came on Thursday. Our friends were coming at 9:30 am to pick up the kids for several hours so we could work on that project.

At 9:28, the phone rang. The realtor called to tell us we had our first showing that day at noon. You've got to be kidding me. So after the kids left we kicked it out cleaning and preparing the house for that showing. Then we went to lunch. 5 minutes after we got home, our friends showed up with the kids--so much for working on the basement for awhile! Once our friends left something else came up, and pretty soon it was dinner time. By the time we started on the basement it was 9pm. We worked like dogs until 3:30 am, and got it done. Whew! what a day!

Thursday, July 26, I was up early because I didn't know when the carpet layers were coming. Also early, a truck came with sod that I had ordered a week earlier and that just happened to be scheduled for delivery the same day. Pretty soon the carpet guys were also here and working on their job. The sod was left on the side of the house to wait until Justin got home from work.

While they were laying carpet, I decided to call the plumber to come take care of the leak in my master bath. He ended up coming right at the end of the carpet job. He diagnosed the problem as being something Justin had already fixed 2 times but it hadn't fixed the leak. But I went along with it, knowing he would also discover this after he too tried that fix. After leaving to buy a part and coming back, he realized that there was indeed a different problem, and could he come back the next day to finish the job? I said of course, just FIX it.

Thursday night we went to dinner before coming home and putting the kids to bed. At 9pm we were finally ready to get to that sod. Not five minutes later, the heavens opened up and buckets of rain poured and poured and poured--the FIRST time it has rained in at least three months. What in the world! I am pretty sure I saw the ark floating by. We ended up laughing like children as we manhandled 50 lb rolls of grass into the wheelbarrow, around the house, and onto the soil. Instructions were to water within 15 minutes of laying each piece, and to thoroughly water until "squishy-wet" when we were done. Thanks to God in heaven, we were able to lay the sod in 20 of the wettest, dirtiest minutes of my life. I think it would have taken an additional 2 hours to do it otherwise! We ended up pre-showering in the runoff from the downspout by the garage before going in through the garage and stripping down there so we could run up through the house to take a real shower. Thankfully we got our new blinds installed last week.

So ha ha, we went to bed thinking, that's 2 nights in a row of hard labor before bed, but boy will the realtor be impressed when she comes in the morning! Little did we know that there was more craziness in store....

Friday morning, July 27, the realtor was indeed impressed. I think she was here about 10 minutes looking at the basement, the new sod, and a few other things we had finished up. A little later, we realized that some rainwater had come into the basement from that torrential rain. Our brand-new carpet, not even 24 hours laid, had already been introduced to water in a basement that has never leaked in 2 years of living here. Well we figured out the problem was some rocks we had moved away from the house had allowed all that rainwater to just go right down the side of our house. We can fix it, it's not a big deal. I rented a rug doctor and spent the rest of Friday sucking up water from the spot about 4 feet wide and 1 foot from the wall in the basement. It's now dry and fine, but oh my goodness what in the WORLD?!

Meanwhile.... the plumber had returned with a friend. They spent the afternoon fixing the bathtub leak. I think they left around 4pm. Whew! what a crazy episode! I need to get out of this house before anything else needs to be fixed. I think it's the curse of the For Sale sign: the minute the sign goes up, the house starts to fall apart. My friend Chris got to be here for Friday's drama, she had come over to help me organize my garage. After the plumbers left, we took a little break for some Otter Pops. And it turns out the craziness wasn't over yet...

A few minutes later, I went looking for Jesse who was very quiet. Then I saw him actually inside our chimney firepit. Haha, at least I had just washed it out so it was just funny and not messy. I told Chris to go out and look.

When she came back, she kinda laughed a funny nervous laugh and said, well actually, I don't think the firepit is your problem right now. There's another issue, Maren has scissors.

Holy cow. Tell me it isn't true. Yup, it's true. Maren has just shorn herself. WHAT in the WORLD?! On my mom's birthday (happy birthday, Gramma!). A month to the day before starting kindergarten. Insert stunned silence (followed by numerous other responses) here.

Well we dropped everything and went to Great Clips to see what we could do to, well, to soften the damage. An hour later it was better, but oh wow just wait until you see her handiwork! Then we went to Target to get her some new hairbands, see how to work with the new do (and make mommy feel better by getting to spend money). By the time we got home around 7pm, Justin had already come home from his last day of work, hung around for us, then left for his final poker night. He didn't even eat my wonderful crockpot dinner that had been cooking all day. But that's not even the whole story...

So Chris and I served up the kids and sat down on the porch to assess what we should do for the rest of the evening. And wouldn't you know it, the phone rang, it was my realtor. Someone wanted to see the house in half an hour. I about dropped a brick!

After a wonderful effort getting the house ready, Chris left for a party and I took the kids to the park. We waited a long time and then came home to find out that the power had been out while I was gone. WHAT IN THE WORLD?! I could not tell if anyone had ever even shown up to look at the house. I found out later that they did indeed come, and the result from that showing as well as the one on Wednesday was that they liked the house but found another one that same night that they liked better and decided to put an offer on. For those of you that want to know. Maybe the third time will have that special charm, I can always hope.

Well come Saturday morning, Maren and I went to a birthday party, and when I got home, nothing had happened. Thankfully. Nothing exciting has happened now for three days. And while I just wanted to cry over some of those events, I have to choose to laugh. It's the only way I am going to get to the finish line.