Will Tends to My Plumbing!

I only have a few brain cells minutes to update today, while paint and the flooded basement dry.

Yes. you read that right.

I had a pipe burst in the basement the other day, so yesterday was spent cleaning up the basement. How lucky am I that I had BARELY finished cleaning everything up down there-- there wasn't much to get ruined by the water. Apparently, when I turned on the outside sprinkler, and couldn't figure out why there was no water pressure-- yah. It's because the putonincorrectlybyamoron broken pipe was busy making a pool in the basement.

When dayhome kid came up to me with a soaking wet butt FROM THE OUTSIDE, and the kids tell me she got into the 'poison' in the basement, I didn't even get concerned. Seeing as I knew there WASN'T poison in the basement. Bear said it was just water.

So, I'm expecting to clean up a water bottle they opened.

Uh. Or not.

So, I freaked out, knowing that my realtor is arriving TODAY to list my house.

Yesterday, I called the plumbers. Will drove up in the middle of the night to make me feel better and give me a hug help. So, when the plumber arrived, and told me it would cost me another 300+ bucks to fix (which, you know...like that movie where Demi Moore is naked (uh? I have NO idea which one it is, cuz she's naked in EVERY movieI've never seen it), I'm just ROLLING in that kind of 'spare' cash) I was SUPER grateful when Will convinced the plumber to teach him what to do. The plumber left after giving me a free home inspection, and Will and I were off to fix it ourselves.


Things to fix all the other junk around here? Check.
Pipe to fix the other, burst one? 20 bucks
Paint? 50 bucks
Someone incredibly handy and sexy who saved the day? PRICELESS!




Will fixed my pipes-- for 20 bucks at Home Depot and a half-hour lesson from the plumber. The basement is drying. He is now half-way through painting the house. My deck is pressure-washed and ready for stain. We were up far too late last night painting, so I'm SOOO ready for a nap. But, uh. You should see this place-- I won't be sleeping.

So. Blogging will be sporadic for a bit while I spend as much time as possible getting everything cleaned and ready.

ug.
joys.

Tuesday Tunes- Scattered Thoughts

I'm totally random right now. Fair warning.

Finding a theme to the posts lately?! Being BOTH divorced, now we can say what we want and not care about who reads what, so I'm loving the freedom of that. And, so, because of that, you're all getting my pent-up mushy-ness. Trust me, there's LOTS to go around! ;) And, "too bad, my blog!" ;)

Yesterday I just smiled at random times at the memory of the weekend. Being with Will. It MAY have been because I'm sporting a ring on my left fourth-finger from him and so everytime I looked at my hand, I thought about him and laughed. Our little matching rings makes for some fun comments, seeing as Will's father and Chris both asked if congratulations were in order. yah. Uh. Cuz we'd get engaged with plastic. lol it's a mood ring. lol Makes me giggle.

Soooo loving a 'clean' house, even if it's because I have to move. It's so freeing to have everything minimized, aromatized, alphabetized, organized and ... uh... uh... caramelized? The carpets came out pretty well, and for family night last night I put the kids to work and got the windows/mirrors, door handles, light switches and bathrooms cleaned. The family that cleans together...um...
yah. nothing clever rhymes with CLEANS. nevermind.

Mimi's having some separation anxiety, and every night cries for Daddy. I don't know why. Maybe she's too tired lately because she's been avoiding/weening off her afternoon nap, and it's her way of 'releasing' her daily stress? Whatever the reason, it's kinda sad, and I can't say anything other than "Daddy's not here, he's at his house." And, being the good mom that I am, I bribe her to shut up by letting her stay up until midnight with cookies and sugarpops in bed. Forget this "I want Daddy" crap: Mom is SOOOO gonna win her over.

Note to self: Self, when one of your contacts feels wrong and MAY have a tear in it, don't try to be so frugal as to wait until the next day to replace it. When you don't find dirt on it, and it's not bent or in backwards, odds are good that it's time to open a new one. And, for goodness sake, DO NOT try to be a martyr and keep the darned, painful thing IN YOUR EYE for the whole day. Your eye is crying for a reason. Because, if it COULD, your cornea would tell you that the whole entire next day, your eye is going to hurt like a mother!

I got the funniest sunburn that's totally hurting. I wore shorts while I was helping Will paint the hotel again this past Saturday, and the backs of my knees got burnt, but the rest of my legs (calves, everything) is pale-white still! What the? One HALF of the back of my neck got burnt too, but only in a palm-sized spot. It's very odd.



And it's Tuesday, so I'm tuning you today into five of my newer fave songs.

The Arms Of A Woman - Amos Lee
My sister, Keeks (Kiki) introduced me to this guy. I'm totally in love, and have downloaded a bunch of his other songs. Check out Southern Girl, Colours, and Careless... a bunch of my other faves.

The Luckiest- Ben Folds Five
I know. It's not new. But I have this song on a permanent repeat while I clean these past few days.

Goodbye- Kristinia
Allison got me on this one. So fun. So "me" last year. What a great work-out or, in my case, scrub-the-floor song. Scrubbing the floor IS working out, I'm pretty sure. So is blogging. And, uh.. napping. Yah. Total workout. It's been researched somewhere, I'm sure.

You Could Be Happy- Snow Patrol
Just a good song. It calms me, the way the tune goes. I guess it's kinda a sad song, but I still like it.

Closer- Joshua Radin
I love his stuff. "I take the blue ones every time". BEST LINE! Blue mood ring = romantic or in love. :) I know that's not what he's talking about. But whatever.

Why Love is Indescribable

Saying that you love someone romantically for the first time is never a small deal.

• Maybe you shouldn't love them? Perchance you feel it's too early to love them. Likely, you've said it one too many times when you didn't mean it, and you worry about doing that again. But, when you really discover that you love someone, you probably knew it a while before. You DID love them even then, but admitting it out loud to ANYONE just wasn't 'safe'. Even to yourself. You tried to convince yourself that you didn't... but you knew better.

Saying that you love someone romantically for the first time, after being divorced is one hundred times MORE never a small deal.

• You're hurt. You're scared that THIS love will be as fleeting, perhaps, as the love you said goodbye to with the bang of the judge's gavel. You worry that maybe you can't love ever as much as the last time. That your broken heart is too flawed to love again. That your judgement didn't exactly work out in your favour last time, so why trust it now?

Hearing for the first time that you are loved is scary and ethereal and euphoric and terrifying. Hearing for the first time that you are loved, after divorcing, is one hundred times MORE scary than anything else. Shocking. Exciting. Engulfing . Validating.

****************

We knew we loved each other before it was said on either side. Just something you could just.. know. It. just. was. And that made it beautiful. And scary. SO scary. It was too early, it was intimidating-- "what if I love them, and they don't love me back? How can I handle that AGAIN after my last love died so similarly?!"

I remember sitting on the couch, cuddling with kids, and I felt perfect. Felt like I was where I needed to be, right at that moment. Soooo many times before that, I had wanted to tell him I loved him. I'd open my mouth, yet, stopped myself; I didn't say it. It wasn't the right time, and although I was sure I knew I did love him, I didn't want to say it then.

A few days passed, and we were in a phone conversation, where we were kinda discussing how we weren't allowed to say that we loved each other because we were worried about the timing of it all. Frustrated, Will decided to call it a night.

Will: Well, it's getting late and I'm tired.
Me: Yah, me too.
Will: Okay. Well, goodnight then. And just so you know, I do love you. OkayIgottago,goodnight!

*pause*
Me: uh. WHAT?! *smiles, butterflies and shock take over.*
Will: Yah. uh. Talk to you tomorrow, kay?
Me: *giggles* okay. Goodnight.

I smiled all night. He loved me. I knew he did, but saying it was different. And hearing it was rapturous.

Another day, a few weeks later. Another phone conversation.

Will: *finishing a conversation about something totally banal, when I cut him off:*
Me: I love you.
Will: *pause* Just like that, eh?
Me: Yah. Just like that!
*pause*- I start kinda worrying that I've wierded him out.

Will: Well, it's about freaking time!!! *laugh*


I hung up the phone that night, expecting to regret saying it. But instead, I just wanted to shout it from the rooftops. Only one other time in my life had saying "I love you" for the first time ever made it into my memory. And I had said it more than twice, believe me. This, though, this was... perfect. It was awesome and sensational and if it culminates me ever falling in love again (here's hoping I don't have to) I'm happy knowing that it could be this incredible.

Six Word Saturday- Good Will

(I'm late, barely making the cutoff, but here's the Six Word Saturday from Cate's blog. Check her out on the button on the right.)

Been Busy! Technically, it's still Saturday!


What a week. So much cleaning got done, so I was SOOOO grateful for Becka's offer to drive me out to Will's neck of the woods for the weekend without the kids. I got the carpets cleaned last night, which is PERFECT because they're drying WITH NO ONE IN THE HOUSE TO WRECK THEM AGAIN!!!!

At least for another 24 hours. shhhhhh.

So, I'm here with Will. Painting. Going for walks. Eating icecream. Checking out abandoned, cool farmhouses. Swimming in MINUS DEGREE water! (okay, so it wasn't THAT cold, but I lost my nipples breath once I jumped in!) You know-- just the general I'MTOTALLYINLOVE things people do. :)

Isn't It Amazing?

Isnt' it AMAZING what you can find in a basement that hasn't been 100% cleaned in 5 years?

Isn't it excessive amazing how much stuff you forgot you had and realized you haven't NEEDED, USED, or even WANTED in 5 years?

Isn't it disturbing amazing what kind of crap can be left on the curb AFTER a basement guttage, and even more disheartening amazing that I still have two floors of the house to gut? Specifically, the bedrooms and toyroom of broken McDonald Happy meal toys. Ug. I loathe those.

It will be unlikely amazing if the garbage truck takes it all and saves me from a trip to the dump! *edit- The garbage man was obviously in a cranky mood and did NOT take the stuff. BOO. Now I have to clean my van of all the garbage inside it in order to have enough room to stuff it full of MORE garbage and take it to the dump! Where's the logic in that?!

Isn't it overwhelming amazing how, other than the basement, the rest of my house looks DISGUSTING-- boxes of stuff everywhere: one pile for goodwill, one pile of Chris' junk, one pile of stuff for the 8GVs to sort through...

Isn't it depressing amazing how much laundry accrues when you're busy for 3 straight days in a basement?

Wednesday Ws and Word Verification Wednesday

Who: The Master of The House
What: Has a master plan
Where: The master bedroom, the basement, the kids' bedrooms, the overgrown gardens
When: allllllll week
Why: because the house is being sold. For sure. And masterfully skilled me gets to get the place all spic-and-span before next week, when I plan to list it. That's cleaning carpet. That's painting/mudding/sanding/fixing/washing walls. That's the .....*eeek* basement. ORRR the Garage!! So, if I'm MIA, you'll find me crying curled in a ball trying to avoid the kids too many mightie Mouses...ew spiders and cobwebs. Cleaning the masterful mess. Don't make me clean. You won't like me when I'm cleaning!

Who: YOU!
What: are invited to play along
Where: Down below, in the comment section
When: This morning, this afternoon, this evening-- whenever!
Why: it's Word Verification Wednesday, thanks to Jillene. So, play as many times as you like!

The Night It All Began

I had bought crabs for dinner. You know: those live things that have yucky eyes that bulge out at you and pinchie fingerie thingies. And, apparently, they needed to be killed humanely before they died a slow death in the plastic bag the Stupidstore lady put them in. Sheesh. SO not my idea!But, Chris wasn't around. And I had to kill them myself. And it was getting late. Time was running out!!!!

Uh. This is not a fish. I can kill and clean fish. This was a crab. Still alive. Blowing bubbles out it's mouth while it suffocates slowly in the bag. This was a cranky crab. ("crabby" crab just seemed too easy) Ready to kill me and my sleeping children. With all his crabby friends. The Crab Mafia!

So, I did what a regular person does. I cried.

And then, in laughable tears at myself, I called my girl. My girl who is more afraid of killing crabs than *I* am. But I knew that, if she at least came over, she'd cheer me on through the tears, and the laughter would make the horrid experience worth it.

So, Sin tells me that her brother is at her house for the night, and he can come over to help.

uh, okay. Whatever makes me NOT have to kill them. Bring over PETA, for all I care! Really, party at my house. Watch Debbi cry. Kill some crabs. Good times.

This is "hot-brother-Roll-On-Floor-Laughing" from the ONE picture on Facebook I had ever seen of him. And believe you me, according to what *I* saw, he was NOT 'hot'. Sin had told me a million times how hot he was, (in a not-creepy-for-your-sister-to-say type of way), but frankly, these pictures were NOT verifying her statement. See?

And then they arrived at my door.

Seriously, you could feel it. Where "it" equals "chemistry".

He WAS hot brother. He was fun, and we started talking and joking just like we knew each other for years. Which was weird, cuz I didn't know a THING about him, other than, like me, he was also recently separated.

Sin and I couldn't go near the box of plastic-encased, bubble-blowing crabs. We were stuck, holding each other in that nervous laughter/near tears way, curled in little balls, on the couch in the other room adjacent to the kitchen. Will walked over, all manly, to kill the killer crabs and save the day. Grabbed one. Stuck the knife deep in its belly.And then. The crab *grabbed the knife with its claw and tried to pull it out!*. NO WORD OF A LIE. Will literally SCREAMED LIKE A GIRL, jumped away, and ran towards Sin and I with a look of sheer terror on his "manly" face.

Now, that "Roll-On-Floor-Laughing" part?! Yah. Sin and I literally DID! We were laughing soooo hard at poor, terrified Will's girlie scream. And he was sitting on my couch, curled in a ball, just like the two of us!

Eventually, Mightie Crab died. And Will was business as usual- getting back to the crab cull. But, he was getting crab-o-death juices EVERYwhere. (ew) So, I grabbed an apron, and, being the flirt nice person that I am, I put it on him because his hands were all gross.

And so, there it is; The day Will took my crabs into his own hands and saved the day.

And the rest, as they say, just friggen ROCKED.