Making things easy...

Well, I'm obviously falling down on the job of timely blog posting. I've lots of stuff to add and will over the next couple of days.

In the meantime, my birthday is fast approaching and to make things easier for the family - I am adding a "Wish List" of things that would be wunnnerful b-day presents!

Friends are *not* obligated to purchase anything for me. Keeping in touch is the best gift I can think of!

Of course, the Mister is definitely obligated to acknowledge my birthday (and this is mostly for him...)! :)

More to come soon...

So, after talking about getting a tattoo for years - I finally did it! My very first tattoo ever.

In case you wonder, "but what does it mean?", it's a statement about what my boys (husband and son) mean to me.

Derrik Noble, at Lucky Devil, was my wonderful tattooist and he did a pretty terrific job (IMO).

It was still bleeding when I decided that I want another one. Of course, Mr. and I are supposed to get "we got hitched" tattoos (no, that's not the actual tattoo). So maybe, that will be my next one... or I'll get a similar one on my right arm signifying the women in my life... Decisions! Decisions!

Let it Snow

Some pictures from the first snow of the winter:

The puppy

So, a little late posting these, but here are pictures of our puppy Sampson when we first got him. He's already two or three times the size seen in these pictures:

Charmin! The most $ toilet paper in the world...

 

Wrapping up the Plumbing woes..., the Master of the house arranged for the septic service to come out and look at the tanks. Naturally, they were nowhere near full and didn't need to be pumped out. However, we did get dinged for a service call (which was as much as pumping would have been).

 

The next stop in our plumbing journey was to call a plumber to find the clog. So, I stayed home to supervise the service call. (Which was also as much as pumping the septic tank would've been.)

 

The cause? A hard bend from the toilet to the main pipe and too much Charmin! We have since made a new house rule for the person using that bathroom that "if it doesn't come from your body, don't put it in the potty!"

 

As luck would have it, my landlord arrived with his plumber, while the plumber I hired was finishing his work. My estimation of my landlord's plumber is definitely on the low-side.

 

I don't know where he found this guy (apparently, a number of other folks have found him too since he said his schedule is full for at least a month). I do hope he is getting a rock-bottom price though because his expertise leaves something to be desired.

 

His solution to the current plumbing situation was to clean out the main pipe. It took me 4 explanations of why that was not the optimal answer before I finally got the point across to the landlord and he decided that my suggestion is in fact the best long-term solution.

 

As I explained to my landlord (and his plumber), the current issue has been fixed. What I am interested in solving is what caused this to happen like it did in the first place.

 

It just isn't a good idea to have a toilet empty to a main pipe at less than a 5% grade and is only 15-20 feet long. It means that anytime there is a clog in the main pipe you run the risk of black water backing up into all of the sinks, bathtub(s), and appliances.

 

One would think a landlord who is interested in maximizing his profit on a rental property would immediately grasp that the immediate investment will save emergency expenditures later. Thankfully, I was able to get that across to him and now we simply await the scheduling of plumbing work.

 

Watch, it will be scheduled around the same time as a fabulous snowstorm this winter...