A comedy of errors in which we learn the hard way to never, ever, ever take a used vehicle on a cross country road trip within 48 hours of purchase.  Please, learn from our mistakes.

part 1

part 2

part 3

The diagnosis was a bad alternator.  Perry had never replaced an alternator before but my dad assured him it wasn’t too hard.  He had done plenty of alternators on his own vehicles.  They could handle this.

On Wednesday, we bought the parts and Perry got to work with the help of my 17yo brother.  They managed to break loose the alternator without too much trouble and compared the old part to the new one.  Aha!  There was a difference.  There was a pulley on the old one that was not included on the rebuilt part they had purchased.  A phone call to the auto parts store confirmed this.  They were supposed to detach the pulley and use it with the new alternator.

This was more easily said than done.  They tried a variety of tools and positions and plans, but it just wouldn’t budge.  The auto parts store offered to break it loose for them, so they hopped in Dad’s van.  When they got there, the men on duty tried their best but had to admit defeat.  They suggested another place that would be better equipped, so Perry and Kyle headed out again.  This scenario was repeated several times over the course of the day before they finally found a shop that was able to break the pulley loose.

One simple step had turned into an all-day affair, but finally the pulley was attached to the new alternator and ready to install.  Perry and Kyle decided to call it a day and finish the job the following day.

For once, the job went as planned.  On Thursday, the alternator was installed.  The van started.  The brakes worked.  The sun was shining and birds were singing.  I may have seen a rainbow in the sky.

We all celebrated by going out to see a movie.  This was the vacation we had planned. We were all together.  We were relaxing.  We were having fun.  The van was running beautifully.

The next day, our vacation was over.  It was time to leave.

After the fiasco we had experienced, we were more than a little nervous about taking the van on the road.  It was one thing to drive to and from the theatre with Dad and Mom in their big van behind us.  It was another to set out on the 1,400 mile return trip.  We decided to leave Friday evening and drive straight through.

We drove for 28 hours, never turning off the engine.  We even filled the gas tank with the engine running.  I know, I know.  We were young, foolish, and paranoid.

But we made it home safely, pulling the van right into the yard.  It was late, and we were exhausted.  We stumbled into the house, tucked the kids into bed, and fell asleep.

The next morning, the van wouldn’t start.

We left the van there in the yard for 6 weeks while we saved our pennies, then finally had it hauled to a nearby garage.  We told him we didn’t need a complete fix; we just needed it to start so that we could trade it in.  I called periodically for updates, and each time the mechanic assured me he was trying but just couldn’t find the problem.  He tried replacing the neutral safety switch which keeps the vehicle from starting unless it is in park or neutral, but that didn’t help.  He tried a few other ideas, all to no avail.  After 3 weeks and $300 in failed repairs he finally told us, “I don’t know what’s wrong with it, but if you wiggle this wire right here, sometimes it will start.”

I proposed to Perry that we dispute the bill, but he had already had enough trouble with this van and wasn’t about to make more now that there was an end in sight.  ”He did what we asked.  Pay it,” he said.  We were going to get rid of it as quickly and cleanly as possible, and we would never make another mistake like this again.

No, we would make an entirely different mistake the next time.

A comedy of errors in which we learn the hard way to never, ever, ever take a used vehicle on a cross country road trip within 48 hours of purchase.  Please, learn from our mistakes.

part 1

part 2

We had 6 or 7 hours to go until we reached Dallas.  Since it was Saturday, traffic was light.  We decided to continue driving.  We really couldn’t afford another repair, and even if money wasn’t an issue we didn’t trust a roadside mechanic to do the job right.  We would drive to our relatives’ home and Perry could borrow the tools to do the job himself.

The rest of that drive was nerve-wracking but uneventful.  We drove carefully, leaving plenty of space between us and the vehicle ahead, using the parking brake to augment the regular brakes. We prayed that we were making the right decision.  We prayed again to thank God for our safe arrival at our relatives’ house.

It had been a very long day, and we were badly in need of sleep. We put the kids to bed and went straight to bed ourselves.  The van could wait until morning.  Bleeding the brakes would be quick and easy.  All he had to do was loosen the fitting, then have somebody work the brake pedal until there was no air mixed with the brake fluid that squirted out.

The next morning he got to work.  Did I say he needed to loosen the fitting?  The fitting was not on a part of the brakes that had been replaced recently.  It was heavily rusted.  He worked long and hard with all the tools at his disposal, but the fitting was not going to break loose.  No wonder the roadside mechanic had skipped this part of the job.

Finally, he resigned himself.  We would have to replace the brake calipers as well.  This was not going to be the cheap and easy fix we had hoped.  Oh, well. This was an older vehicle and we should have expected some repairs.

He was going to have to take things apart and do a real brake job.  That would take at least a day and a broader assortment of tools than his relatives owned.   We knew that my Dad had the tools we needed in San Antonio, a few more hours away.  Money really was a concern for us, so we made the difficult decision to push on to my parents’ house, trusting that our brakes were sufficient to make the drive.  You could make the case that it was a bad decision – financial and otherwise – to take risks like this, but we were young.  Again, God blessed us with an uneventful drive and a safe arrival.

We breathed another sigh of relief when we pulled into my parents’ house.  There were happy greetings all around.  My 4 youngest siblings are almost exactly the ages of our 4 oldest children, so aunts and uncles played happily with nieces.

The next day was Monday.  Perry was up bright and early again to work on the van.  Dad was able to supply all the tools he needed, and Perry knew what he needed to do.

Once he started, Perry decided he should do the rear brakes as well.  He spent the remainder of the day rounding up the parts he needed to tackle the brake job, and on Tuesday he replaced both front calipers, all the remaining lines, the rear drums and shoes.  He was taking no chances this time.  Since everything on that van was rusted in place, this was more easily said than done.  A job that should have take just a few hours turned into an all-day affair, but by now he knew better than to be surprised.  He took his time, carefully bleeding all the air out of the brake lines after the brakes were reassembled.

At the end of the day, it was done.  He washed up, changed clothes, and invited me to come with him on a test drive.  I smiled and joined him for an impromptu date.

The van wouldn’t start.

A comedy of errors in which we learn the hard way to never, ever, ever take a used vehicle on a cross country road trip within 48 hours of purchase.  Please, learn from our mistakes.

part 1

Perry had me climb into the driver’s seat while he looked under the van.  At his signal I pressed the brake pedal, and his suspicions were confirmed: brake fluid spurted from a break in the line on the driver’s side.

The gas station was open all night – thank God!  Even better, it had a bulletin board with a business card for a 24 hour mechanic!

This was before the days of cell phones – at least for us.  We used the payphone to call him and tell him our predicament.  He answered his phone and listened patiently, but said we would have to wait until the parts stores opened in the morning.  He couldn’t do anything for us until then.We were stuck in Bucksnort, Tennessee.  There was a hotel on the other side of the highway, but I talked Perry out of paying for a room for the few hours we would need.  The kids were sleeping and it was only a few hours until morning.

Perry and I climbed back in the van and leaned our seats back, resigned to a few hours of sleep when we had hoped to be driving.  Out of the darkness, a 5yo voice wailed in despair.  ”I didn’t want to go camping!”

Neither did we.

At 7 o’clock that morning, the mechanic arrived.  After a quick look, he confirmed that the driver side brake line had rusted through.  We realized that it would have been a good idea to replace the brake lines on both sides before we left home, since we had already learned the hard way that they were damaged.  Oh well; live and learn.  We were wiser now.

The mechanic left for parts.  The nearest store was in Nashville, almost 50 miles away, so he would back in about 90 minutes.

3 hours later, he came back.  On foot.  On the highway.  Our mechanic was walking down the highway. He chuckled self deprecatingly.  ”My engine blew up.”  We thought it was hilariously ironic, but maybe we should have taken it as a bad sign.

He was carrying the parts and tools he needed to finish our job, so all was well for us.  We were back on the road by noon with a new brake line on the driver side to match the one we had replaced so recently on the passenger side, still laughing about the mechanic’s bad luck.

We breathed a sigh of relief as the miles flew by.  The kids were restless, but we were moving again.  About 2 hours later it was time for our first potty stop.  I tapped the brakes as I exited the highway, and nothing happened.  I floored the pedal, and the van slowed to a stop in the nearest parking lot.

Perry and I traded places and he tried the brakes several times, starting and stopping.  They weren’t entirely gone this time but they were very soft.  He had done enough brake jobs himself to recognize the problem: our roadside mechanic was cutting corners with his time.  He had either forgotten or neglected to completely bleed the air out of the brake lines. Our brakes were only barely functional.

This was bad.

A comedy of errors in which we learn the hard way to never, ever, ever take a used vehicle on a cross country road trip within 48 hours of purchase.  Please, learn from our mistakes.

Years ago when our 4th child was born, we panicked.  Or rather, I panicked and my young husband indulged me.  At the time we owned 2 small cars.  They were very gas efficient but neither was big enough for our growing family.  We had to drive to church in 2 cars, and we had an upcoming cross-country trip to visit my family in Texas.  We would drive 28 hours each way, spending a total of 10 days away from home.  With our current situation we would have to drive two vehicles, making it impossible to drive for long stretches into the night.  This would never do!  We questioned whether we should even make the trip under those circumstances.

I decided that it was very important to buy a mini-van before our trip.  We didn’t have the money to do it, but since both cars were paid for we didn’t mind taking out a small loan.  That was how we had bought nearly all of our vehicles and it always worked out for us.

We quickly shopped around, looking at the vehicles that were in our very modest price range.  Time was short, and we needed to make a decision.

Just a few days before our trip, we heard about a van that my father-in-law’s friend was selling.  It was older with very high mileage but had been reliable for him.  In fact he had just taken it on a long road trip himself.  He was selling it because he was ready to update his own vehicle, and he was asking less than $3,000.  Perry was a little concerned about taking an untried vehicle on a road trip, but I was confident.  The engine and transmission had been recently replaced and had less than 50,000 miles on them, so it wasn’t really like it had over a quarter of a million miles on it.  With a solid engine and transmission, any repairs required would probably be minor.  And besides, the guy was a pastor.  What could go wrong with a deal like this?

The van was 2 hours away from us, but we asked a friend to watch the children and hopped in the car.  When we arrived, we looked over our new Grand Caravan. It had a little rust, but that was to be expected in older vehicles up north.  The interior was a little worn, but we knew our family would be hard on it anyway.  It seemed to drive very well for a vehicle with 300,000 miles, and that was the most important thing.  After all, it was Wednesday and we were taking it on the road in less than 48 hours.

We shook hands on the deal and headed home, one of us driving our car and the other in our new-to-us van.

On the way home, the brakes went out.  In retrospect, maybe this should have been a warning.

We found that the passenger side brake line had rusted through.  Oops.  We should have seen that coming in an older vehicle from the Cleveland area.  They used even more salt on the roads up there than in our part of Ohio.  The brake line was repaired the following day and we packed for our trip, preparing to leave Friday morning.

Morning arrived and the van wouldn’t start.

We were more than a little chagrined, but it was only a bad battery.  All vehicles need a new battery now and then.  This was just routine maintennance.  No worries.

The battery was quickly replaced and we were on the road in our big, roomy van, just a few hours behind schedule.  There was room for all the car seats, our luggage, some blankets and pillows, and one seat to spare.  This was luxury.  We were on our way to Texas, and we had a good feeling about this.  This van would serve us well.

Our plan was to drive all the way to Dallas, where we would stay Saturday night with relatives.  On the following morning we would drive the final 5 hours to my parents’ house in San Antonio.  Since we were behind schedule, we would have to drive through the night, but we were young.  We had done this before.  Nighttime drives were peaceful and efficient since the children would sleep.  Potty stops would be few and far between, and we knew we could make good time.

At 2AM, Perry was driving and thought the brakes felt soft, so he took the next exit, labelled Bucksnort, Tennessee.  When he tapped the brakes to slow down on the offramp, nothing happened.  He stood on the brakes and we coasted to a stop just in time to roll into the parking lot of the only gas station – the only sign of civilization – in sight.

This was bad.  This was very bad.

Just in case you’ve been laboring under the laughable assumption that we are the Mary Poppins family (practically perfect in every way), let me set you straight.

We normally sit in the back row at church.  I know many families find that the front row works better, but we have our reasons.

Reasons to sit in the back row at church:

1. It’s nearest the exit.
2. It’s nearest the bathroom.
3. It’s the easiest place to insert 12 people who are often late with minimal disruption to others and embarrassment to us.
4. It’s the least intrusive place for us to whisper corrections and threats, and play musical chairs as we rearrange and divide bad influences from one another.

Last Sunday we were a few minutes late.  Believe it or not, we were late for legitimate, unforeseeable reasons of church business.  Doubt me if you dare.  Even the pastor would probably agree we had a pass.  However, because we were late, our usual seats were occupied and we had to sit near the front.

Reasons to sit in the front row:

1. The pastor will see fidgeting, bickering children and correct them by name from the pulpit.

I am reasonably confident we will never have to warn those particular children again – at least, not if we sit near the front where they know the pastor can see them.  I don’t know if that’s enough to entice us back to the front of the church, but it does change my outlook a little.

By the way, lest you think less of him, I am exceedingly grateful our pastor has the frank, outspoken personality that brought him to do this.  Perry was not sitting with us, and I was rightfully embarrassed that I missed the behavior that was happening under my nose.  Our children were rightfully embarrassed by being called out.  The pastor spoke with us afterward to make sure we weren’t hurt or offended (we weren’t) and to make sure we understood what the problem had been (we did).

Are you wondering which children were corrected?  They’ve suffered enough for their crimes.  I’ll never tell – unless it happens again.  Then all bets are off!

I am a loser.  Not just because I lost weight, but because I’m apparently too old for this trendy P90X thing.

Perry and I did the preliminary fitness test on Sunday evening, and I was feeling pretty good about myself.  I couldn’t come close to doing a single chin-up, but I far exceeded the minimums on several other parts of the test.  Example: I did 20 real push-ups, not the girly ones on your knees.  Not bad, right?

We did our first workout on Monday, and I had very mixed feelings about how it went.  I knew it was supposed to be hard, but there were quite a few times when I just had nuthin’.   After the first few sets of pushups, I couldn’t do a single one. Not even on my knees.

Ditto for the ab workout that followed: there were some parts where I thought, “Hey, I’m still in pretty decent condition.  Look at me go!”  And then there were parts where I couldn’t come close to completing ONE of a particular exercise.  I still have not found the muscles required to attempt a real situp.  My abs feel firm, and I can do crunches with relative ease, but the situps?  They’re just gone.  The muscles are AWOL, and I don’t know if they’re ever coming back.  I think they disappeared somewhere between my 5th and 7th child.  You might be laughing, but I’m serious.  It’s not that situps are too hard.  It’s like trying to wiggle my ears.  I can’t find the right muscles.

But all this has very little to do with my loser status this morning.

After my workout last night, after cooling down, resting, and showering, I headed to bed.  On my way, I leaned over the baby’s bed to check on him.  He was covered in blankets, so I pulled them off.  He didn’t need them.  So far, so good.  Then I noticed a toy next to him.  “That might be uncomfortable if he rolls onto it,” says I.  I’m a good mother, so I notice these things.  I leaned over and pushed the toy against the far side of his bed.  “I think I just pinched a nerve in my hip,” says I.  I slowly stood up, breathing slowly and shallowly to cope with THE FIRE IN MY LOWER RIGHT BACK, and slowly eased myself onto the bed.

“I think I shall die now,” I thought to myself.

Perry came to bed a few minutes later and I warned him not to jiggle the bed lest he kill his old lady and live out his days as a widower.  He brought me 4 ibuprofen and a glass of water, which I pitifully sipped out of the corner of my mouth because there was no way I was raising my torso to drink properly.  For the rest of the night, I didn’t move.  I didn’t roll over or shift position or reach for the sheets when the temperature dipped below 90.  I said a prayer of thanks and praise when the baby slept through the night.

This morning I am marginally better.  My bad feels like smoldering coals instead of a streak of lightning, and I did manage to dress (slowly, painfully, one step at a time) and go to the bathroom.  I’ve taken 4 more ibuprofen.  Now I am planted in a chair 3 feet from my bed with a heating pad on my back and I plan to stay here until…well, until I have to go to the bathroom again.

Oh, and while I was in the bathroom I stepped on the scale.  I’ve lost another 2 lbs. this week, putting my total loss at 11 lbs.  I am just 1 lb. over my pre-marriage/pre-pregnancy weight range.  Now I want to know why my waist is still 5.5″  bigger than it was back then…oh, wait.  Never mind.

How is your weight loss/fitness goal going?  Have you hit any bumps?

Enter our current giveaway for a free toy of your choice from Down To Earth Toys

I have a new baby nephew.  He was born to my brother and his sweet beautiful bride in Waco, 3 1/2 hours northeast of us.

Since this is their first baby and they have no older helpers or family nearby, we sent Kaitlyn and Lydia to help for several days during Baby Samson’s first week.  On Thursday evening, I headed up to retrieve the girls and see the little guy firsthand.  Becca and Parker rode with me in Perry’s little work car, but both fell asleep halfway through the trip.

As I came through Georgetown, it was already past 11 PM and I-35 was nearly empty.  The nearest vehicle was a silhouette in my rear view mirror, at least 100 yards behind me.  I was tired and kept finding myself dropping below 60 mph, although the posted limit was 70 during the day and 65 at night.

Confession time: I was talking to Kaitlyn on the phone as I drove.  Not the best idea, I know, but I was hardly in traffic and I think the conversation was keeping me from getting drowsy.  This is relevant because I am hard of hearing in my right ear and always hold the phone on the left side, with my left hand.  When I realized that I was in the far left lane and decided to move to the right, my left hand was busy and it seemed like too much trouble to signal.

I know you are gasping in horror.  Changing lanes without signalling?  Who knew that KimC was capable of such crimes?  Will you still read my blog now that you know my dirty secret?

Fear not, dear readers.  My life of crime came to an early end, and justice was done.  The authorities were on the scene.  The one car on the road – the dark silhouette in my rear view mirror – exploded into a whirling array of red and blue lights and I found myself by the side of the road, rifling through my husband’s glove box looking for an insurance card.

But I’m afraid I may have been a disappointment to our brave hero.   Georgetown is a college town, and I’m told that eager college students often start their weekend drinking binge on Thursday night.  I’ve never been guilty of DUI, but I have driven behind a few likely candidates and they are slow. They tend to go 5 or 10 mph under the limit, and they probably don’t pay much attention to details like signalling a lane change.  They probably drive smallish, older, inexpensive cars too, just like Perry’s work car.

If you still doubt me, the officer had me walk the figurative white line: he subtly tested my ability to  multi-task, something the inebriated simply can’t do.  We used to be good friends with a police officer, and he told us all about that trick and the amusement it provides.

Between the sleeping 9yo, the baby who woke up and cried on cue, and  my ability to multi-task, I think the officer’s suspicions were allayed.  Also, you probably don’t see too many 38yo women wearing their hair in a bun on their way home from a sorority party.

In the end, I left with a warning but no ticket and my driving record is still squeaky clean.  I have to admit that I am just a little grateful for the reminder to signal when I change lanes.  It’s very important for me to use my turn signal every single time.  How else can I justify my extreme irritation at drivers who don’t?

That’s true for Texas weather, but apparently it’s also true when appliances start breaking.

You probably remember that we replaced our washer recently.  Then the fridge.

I remember joking at some point that if the stove went out, we would have replaced every major appliance in the house.  The very next day, one of the burners died a dramatic death.  It quite literally exploded in a burst of light under the glass top with a loud pop or bang, depending on the level of drama you expect and tolerate from an appliance.

The rest still worked, so we didn’t panic.  We decided to look into repairing it ourselves, then the kids and I got used to cooking with 3 burners.  It was somewhere on my list of Things To Do.

Then yesterday, the microwave went out.  We use our microwave a lot, but the kids and I started talking about The Old Days when I was a kid, and what it was like to live without a microwave.  We used to heat Dad’s coffee a cup at a time in a saucepan.  Leftovers were eaten cold or warmed slowly in the oven.  Cocoa was made on the stovetop, whether you were making one cup or 8.   There was no such thing as microwave popcorn, not even on Friday nights when company came over for a movie.  That’s ok, because there were no DVD players or VCRs either. (“What’s a VCR?”)

I thought it might be fun to spend a few days researching replacements rather than having Perry pick one up on his way home.  After all, the last one was probably less than a year old (note to self: keep better track of receipts).  We could rough it without a microwave for a little while.  Fun, right?

Late last night, I remembered that I had bread rising for tonight’s dinner.  I popped it in the oven and set a 25 minute timer.

The window in our oven door is entirely blacked over with…something.  I run the cleaning cycle regularly, I promise.  That window has never been see-through-able.  So I was slightly alarmed when I saw light through the window.  I heard a slightly alarmed voice next to me.  ”Mom?  Something is on fire in the oven!”

I opened the door and flames were leaping and fizzling from the lower element.  I closed the door to think for a moment.  I opened it again and watched as the fire worked its way from left to right – at least it was travelling in a sensible direction.  Perry looked curiously in my direction.  ”Is the bread done already?”

“No, but the oven is on fire.  It’s the element.”  I took the half-cooked bread out and closed the oven again as we considered what to do.

After a moment, Perry went to the breaker box and turned off the power to the range.  I put the bread back in, hoping the residual heat would finish cooking it.  As we headed to bed, we agreed that maybe I should expedite the microwave research.  I might also expedite the shipping on the 2 parts for my range, assuming they won’t cost more than a replacement range and we can replace the burner in a glass top range ourselves.

Have you had your microwave for several years?  What brand is it?

While the rest of the country is quietly enduring blizzards and ice storms, south Texas is being devastated by cold, winter-like temperatures.  Have some pity, people.  We’re not prepared for this stuff.  Our blood is thin, our houses are designed to stay cool, and our plumbing is exposed.

Yes, my pipes froze again.  Yes, I know this happened last year.  Thank you for reminding me.  Yes, we really should figure out a way to avoid this, but then what would I blog about?

This time it was all of them, instantaneously.  During the day, while we were using them.  It’s that cold here.  I have it on good authority that today was colder here than in Alaska, at least on the day in question.  See?  This is not our fault.  Texas was not designed for this weather.  Darn global warming – er, climate change.  Al Gore warned us that global warming could cause colder winters.  It can also cause warmer winters, wetter and/or drier winters and/or summers, inflation, male pattern balding and acne.

Perry and I bundled up and rushed out to see if we could isolate the problem and solve it before it got worse.  Since everything quit at once, we deduced that the main line out at the well must have frozen, cutting off supply to the house.  We needed to get it defrosted before all the lines under the house froze as well.  We didn’t want to risk having a pipe burst somewhere.  Heavens, no.  Not that.

We started with a hair dryer, then quickly moved on to more sophisticated equipment: a space heater under a makeshift tent constructed from a table, a folding ladder, a shredded old drop cloth, and 3 sleeping bags.  At 2 AM, with temps in the teens and a windchill in the single digits, the pressure relief valve in the well opened up and started spewing water like fire hydrant.  This sounds good, but it’s not.  We needed the water to go past there, and now it was taking the easy way out.  After shutting off power to the well, we called it quits.

The following day I had to come to grips with the truth: my pipes didn’t just freeze.  Most of them burst as well.  In the winter wonderland that is under my house, I walked around and counted 13 visible breaks.  But 95% of my pipes are covered in foam pipe insulation, so I’m sure I missed a few.

We were entirely without running water for over 24 hours.  During that time, 9 of my 10 children got sick.  Again.  Yes, we just finished with a bug.  Thank you for reminding me.  Why yes, there was vomit.  Why is there always vomit?  Thank you for asking.  Two of my children were unusually spontaneous and missed the toilet.  We appreciate spontaneity in our house.

In that 24 hours, I also managed to teach my children not to flush the toilet unless they did #2, a lesson I’m sure to regret in the years to come.  Isn’t it funny how quickly they pick up certain lessons while others take weeks, months, years, or even a lifetime?

Fortunately I know a very hot guy who does plumbing.  It’s no secret he has a crush on me, so I figured he would take the job.  After 6 long cold hours and several unforeseen problems, we had cold water running in the tub.  We also had a big hole in the kids’ wall where I had drywalled years earlier without leaving plumbing access, but that’s easy to fix.

At that point it was midnight and the temperature was in the teens again so I invited the plumber to a sleepover.  Oh – did I mention that I’m in a romantic relationship with him?  It helps that we’ve been married nearly 18 years.  Sorta breaks the ice, if you know what I mean.

That was Wednesday.  We enjoyed our indoor running water Thursday and Friday, using buckets in the tub to fill the toilet and heating water on the stove for dishes and a few badly needed baths.  We even shared with other family members whose water had frozen.

I assured Perry that this was far less hardship than it would be for him to come home from work in the evening and stay up late into the night replumbing the house while the nighttime temps were in the teens.  I wasn’t just willing to wait until the weekend; I wanted to wait until the weekend.

So he bought supplies Friday while he was in town and on Saturday, he set to work again.  By now he was sick as well as the kids, but it didn’t stop him.  This time he redid nearly all the plumbing under the house.  Each milestone was a new celebration: cold water in the kitchen and bathroom sinks!  Hurrah!  Cold water to the washer: Start the laundry!  Hot water to the kitchen sink: Let’s do dishes!

When the hot water to the tub was done, we ran into a new problem: the flow was almost completely blocked by sediment in the taps.  Perry disassembled the handles and the faucet, but there was no way to clean them.  He found a way to temporarily ease the problem by letting the water in the pipe fall back down the pipe and drain out a valve under the house but the blockage kept returning.

In the end, he solved the problem.  The good guys always win in the end, don’t they?  He turned off the main supply to the house, taking pressure off all the lines.  He turned on the bathtub taps, hot and cold, wide open.  Nothing came out, of course, because the supply was shut off.

Next, he opened a valve outside near the main supply, where any water in the system could simply pour out.  Then we attached a garden hose to the spigot by the well – the only one that still had pressure with the supply to the house shut off – and brought it into the bathroom.  We turned it on and forced the water into the tub faucet, backward.

Do you follow?  One daughter called it “giving the tub an enema.”  I don’t know where she learned that term.  Nobody can accuse us of raising sheltered homeschoolers.

So we forced water backward, through the taps, through the supply lines, and out the open valve under the house, onto the ground.  Ditto for the shower head.  Hubby stayed under the house working the valves and monitoring the success of our efforts at creating backward flow, while a daughter and I worked together in the bathroom.  Don’t try to picture it; just believe me when I tell you the whole process was comically awkward and messy, and also slightly terrifying when I realized water was spraying out of the tub enclosure onto the floor and the huge puddle had very nearly reached from my feet to a live extension cord.

In the end, it worked and nobody got electrocuted.  Oh, and we all got hot showers with the best water pressure we’ve had in years.  And we will all live happily ever after, unless the water freezes again next weekend when the temperatures dip again into the teens.

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We left the beach, tired but happy, and headed toward the parking lot.  We were thinking we would load our possessions, then go back to the visitor center to shower and change in shifts.  It was about 7:30, the sun was below the horizon, and darkness was moving in.  That’s when the terror began.

As we made our way between the sand dunes, they surrounded us. Swarms of giant mosquitos.  We panicked.  We swatted madly.  We screamed and ran.

Perry, Kaitlyn and Megan brought up the rear with the remainder of our gear.  As they flew past the few remaining beach visitors, Kaitlyn slid out of control and careened into the boardwalk rail.  ”Trip her, Dad!”  Megan shrieked.  ”Leave her as bait!”

When we arrived at the van, it was even worse.  We opened the doors to more thick swarms, screamed, tried to load our belongings, swinging wildly all the while.  We sprayed mosquito repellent blindly in every direction, all to no avail.

We closed the doors and windows to keep them out, but found to our horror that we were only locking ourselves in with them.  It was like being in a horror film.  We screamed again, opened the windows and started the engine, cranking up the a/c.  Without even stopping for a headcount, I hit the gas and swerved toward the park entrance, using my free hand to smash, swipe, swoosh and shoo the vicious creatures that engulfed me.

The panic in the van became more subdued as we drove, finally settling to a faint irregular thudding as the kids in the back picked off the remaining population one by one, smearing them into the windows with the palms of their hands.

Ten minutes down the road, we finally took a breath and calmed down.  I heard a few nervous giggles from the back, and suddenly we could laugh about it.  It was funny, but I wouldn’t want to do it again.  We have resolved: next year, we leave the beach before sundown.

Blister Beetles – Did you know Texas has 120 varieties of a horrible little bug called a blister beetle?  We see them everywhere and only recently learned what they are.  One of the girls found one in her bra last week. Right now my 22 month old nephew has blisters all over his arm, blisters that look just like a severe burn but are the painless result of being spit on by a blister beetle.   We discovered the same blisters on Becca’s shoulder years ago but didn’t know at the time what had caused them.

Rat Tailed Maggots – We found some of these last year, and again today.  Ugh.  The name falls short of the true horror of the thing.

Hairballs of Daddy Longlegs – We saw precious few of these during the 2 year drought, but they’re back.  I hope I don’t have flashbacks.  The video in the link?  It’s not mine, and it’s only a very small and sluggish group of daddy longlegs.  It doesn’t begin to capture the horror of reality.  In the storage space under the house we often have groups the size of a soccer ball with many hundreds of occupants.

Scorpions – Hardly newsworthy here in Texas, but Kaitlyn found the cutest li’l baby scorpion in her shirt the other day.  It was even cuter after she squished it with a rocking horse.

Centipedes – No, you’ve never seen centipedes like these.  Over a foot long with bodies as thick as your finger.  We also have matching milipedes, though they’re not so scary with their teensy little legs.

Lichen Orb Weaver – Lydia found one of these in web that was 5 feet wide and high.  It had a body nearly the size of a golf ball.  It was so fat that when it fell over, it couldn’t right itself.  She decided not to hold it.

Cone-nosed Bloodsuckers – We used to lightheartedly call these “cowboy bugs” because they walk with a swagger and look like they’re wearing spurs.  Now we know that they can inflict a painful bite, and are generally full of blood (whose blood?!) when we smash them.

We made it through my birthday without the traditional freezing of the pipes, but 2010 is a new year with troubles of its own.

We woke up Friday to dry taps in the tub, and only cold water in the kitchen and bathroom sinks.  We’re hardy, pioneering stock so we didn’t panic.  We heated water on the stove for dishes, and to thaw the chicken waterer.  No baths, but we got by.  We figured if the pipes didn’t thaw by Saturday, we’d take baths at Grandma’s house nearby.  It would work out fine since there’s a huge family gathering at their house anyway.  We’re all going to be there – most of the 14 siblings plus offspring and spouses.  We’ll just bring some clean clothes and towels.  One of their bathrooms is under construction so they only have one right now, but we’re all family.  We can make it work.

By Friday night, the hot water in the tub had begun a slow trickle – hurrah!  But we had a new problem: the drain had frozen.  Water was coming in, but none was going out.  This was a problem.  We couldn’t take baths like that.  We couldn’t even leave the water dripping overnight to keep it from freezing again – the tub would fill and overflow.

There was no way around it.  I had to go outside and do the hair dryer thing under the house.  The temperature was 20 degrees and falling, so I bundled up.  I headed out with a hair dryer and an extension cord, impressing upon the children that if they loved me someone would be out to take my place in 10 minutes.

When I got down there, I was greeted by a rushing geyser.  The cold supply to the washer had burst.  I found the cutoff valve (my very smart hubby built cutoff valves into every part of every pipe where we might need them!) and took care of that.  No laundry until we fix it or until hubby is back in town.  Good thing we were caught up on laundry.

I got back to my original purpose, thawing the bathtub drain.  Two children joined me (they do love me!) and the process went surprisingly quickly.  We had an open drain in less than 10 minutes.  Hurrah!  Baths!

Somehow, nobody took a bath last night.  Not one.  What were they thinking?  I’m afraid to peer too deeply into those recesses.

Somebody who shall remain nameless swears that she left both the warm and cold water dripping, but this morning the hot was frozen again.  Worse yet, when I went under the house, I found another burst pipe.  This one was right at the first elbow coming from the water heater.  I had to shut off the supply to the water heater.  No hot water til we fix it or til hubby is back in town.

Now we were back to plan A, right?  Baths at Grandma’s?  No.  I called Grandma, and all of their water is frozen.  They have no hot or cold running anywhere in the house.  They are using a 55 gallon drum of water they brought home last night.  They have 7 children living at home, plus – remember this part? – a houseful of company today.

Now we’re up to Plan C: Heat water on the stove for baths and dishes.  Small people can bathe in an 18 gallon rubbermaid tote to conserve hot water.  Hair might get washed in cold water in the sink.

Country living at its best.

There’s a first time for everything.

Today as I was leaving Costco, I was rear-ended by the vehicle behind me.  Legally, I’m sure it was her fault, but under the circumstances I completely understand why it happened and I feel partly responsible.

I was turning left out of the Costco driveway.  There was no traffic coming from the left, and just one car coming from the right.  Since I wanted into the center turn lane, there was no need to wait until that car had passed.

I drive a big van, so I start and stop slowly.  As I eased out into the intersection, the oncoming driver swerved into the center turn lane and switched on his blinker.  He was turning in just where I was coming out.  Since he was on the main road and I was coming from a driveway, he had the right of way.  I stopped halfway into the road and waited for him to make his turn.  I was blocking two lanes, but there was nobody coming from that direction.

Then - BAM!  The SUV behind me rammed me.

I’ve never been rear-ended so I have nothing to compare it to, but it felt like a pretty hard hit, especially since I was driving a 15 passenger van.  She must have been looking left and right, and hit the gas without stopping for her turn at the stop sign.  She obviously didn’t realize that I had stopped.

After the oncoming vehicle turned into Costco, I finished pulling out into the turn lane, turned around, and came right back in.  The lady who had hit me rolled down her window long enough to ask if I was ok – I was – and we agreed to stop and assess damage.  I wanted to see how bad it was.  I was sure my lights would be smashed, and I just hoped my back doors would still function.

To my very great surprise, there was not a scratch on my van.  Even the bumper gave no clues as to where it was struck.  Other than a rippled license plate, the other vehicle was entirely unmarked as well.  We assured each other that all was well and parted ways, greatly relieved.

In retrospect, I’m not even sure that the rippled license plate was anything new.  Maybe this wasn’t a first time for her.  If my license plate was mounted right on my bumper, the back one would have been rippled on my van too.  No, not from being hit today.  I mean from what I did last week. 

If the water in the toilet is going up instead of down, let go of the handle.  NOW.

If the water in the toilet bowl is already overflowing, it’s still a good time to LET GO OF THE HANDLE.  NOW.

If you are transfixed with horror at the growing flood surrounding you and your hand just won’t let go, at least call for help.  NOW.

Today did not go according to plan.

We left the house at 6 AM – all 11 of us, dressed according to the highest Vision Forum code.   We were wearing our khaki skirts and white shirts for the annual staff photo.

We didn’t technically have to leave at 6, but  leaving later just doesn’t leave enough margin for traffic, vomit, etc.  We learned our lessons in past years.  Those years always wind up in the “gone awry” category.   This year we had a great new plan.  A fun plan.  A plan that would work.

So we got up at 5, and left at 6.  We drove all the way to town, an hour away, and stopped for breakfast.  There was rain all around us, but here in town it was dry.  There were low clouds ahead, but maybe they would burn off.  The weather was far milder than in past years, perfect for standing outdoors.

We all trooped into WhatABurger like a mini-Duggar wanna-be family, turning heads and eliciting whispers and friendly stares.  Texas is nice that way.  They stare, but it’s all friendly.   The girls were beautiful in their white and khaki, and the Perrys were dashing in their khaki slacks, button down shirts, ties and navy blazers.

We had a leisurely breakfast.  We laughed and reminisced about other photo shoots.  We were on time.  We were happy.  Birds were singing.  We finished eating, and meandered out to the van.  We changed a diaper and set out again.  We were just minutes from the Alamo, and would be there at the appointed time.

It was beautiful, and then the phone rang.  The birds stopped singing.   The photo shoot was canceled, and would be rescheduled.

I would love to tell you that we all laughed at the irony and thanked God for a safe trip and a fun breakfast, but instead our van was suddenly filled with dead silence.  We were crestfallen.  Only hubby maintained his cheerful attitude, and did his best to spread the cheer.

“Why so quiet all of a sudden?”

There was a long pause, and I answered for the rest of us: “Because we have nothing nice to say.”   I heard grumbles of assent.  I’m ashamed to say I was a leader among the grumblers for a good while this morning.  But when we went back to Vision Forum to drop hubby for work, I was struck and convicted by the cheerfulness of the others around us.

“Oh well,” said a smiling friend of mine.   “I guess we get to practice being flexible.”

Ouch.  Sometimes peer pressure is a good thing.  I guess I can blame myself for the fact that the photo was rescheduled.  I was obviously in need of some sanctification, and God knew exactly what to do.   Now we get to try again next week, and see if I learned my lesson.