Trouble

John is gone until Wednesday. He left early Monday morning. And wouldn't you know it, all hell breaks loose. Okay so maybe it isn't that bad. I know now that I have to almost expect mayhem when I am left alone. It happened a couple weekends ago. And this time it began just hours after he left yesterday.

The sump pump quit working. It is kinda quirky and sometimes just needs a nudge. Monday morning I was walking out to the mudroom to dig out some meat from the freezer when I realized that I hadn't heard the pump go off lately. (usually during this time of year it is every 5-10 minutes). So I decided to check and make sure everything was dry in the basement. I opened the basement door to find a good 12 inches of water....EVERYWHERE. Great. Of course. So I walked up the steps, slipped off my nice warm slippers, plunged my feet into my knee high rubber boots, grabbed a flashlight (cuz knowing my luck there wouldn't be any light down there either), and ventured into the wadding pool that is my basement. Jars floating around, a couple of empty buckets bobbing on the surface. It was quite the sight. I sloshed over to the sump pump, gave it a good nudge, and sure enough it kicked on and began draining the basement. 30 minutes later it finally shuts off.

Not the first time this has happened.

A couple hours later I go to rinse off some dishes before putting them in the dishwasher and there wasn't any hot water. *grrr* I should have known to check the pilot light on the hot water heater.

I am not very experienced in lighting pilot lights and didn't really want to try without some help. So I made a few calls. None of the surrounding farmers had any experience in that either. And none of them wanted to try for fear of blowing something up. Great. What now? Calling a plumbing/heating guy would cost $125 for an 8 minute job. Nope....didn't have $125 laying around to just give away. So I called Kurt. Kurt is my college roommate's husband and John's friend/coworker. (okay, so he's my friend too). Kurt would know what to do. He's pretty handy. And sure enough, he saved the day. He stopped by the hardware store on his way out and picked up a little sump pump alarm (which has gone off twice now but without it I'm sure the basement would have been full).

The pilot light is on. The sump pump is working. And I have hot water again. What more could I ask for?

How about a couple sick kids? Yup. You got it. Yvette has a croupy cough that makes her feel like crap and she looks even worse. Poor kid. And now Wyatt is sounding the same way. Two kids on cough medicine and tylenol. And Hayden....the poor guy just wants to go outside. But the weather has been less than ideal with misty rain, a few flurries, and grey skies. I don't want to take them out in that especially when they are coughing. So we've been watching a lot of movies and reading lots of books. And playing this........

Anybody else remember this game?