Homeowner's Week of Fun!

The past few days, we've definitely felt the full brunt of home ownership.

First, after some on-and-off really heavy rains Tuesday, that night, we had the windows open as it was gorgeous out (immediately after rains are often the only times it's not ick humid... except when it is). There was a very obnoxious noise coming from the neighbor's yard, maybe? I asked James what it was, and I went outside. It was to the east of our house... As I was looking to see if maybe someone was using a saw or grinder, I saw the light on the mystery box at the back of our fence lit. Uh oh. All I knew was that it was ours, it had something to do with the septic tank, and that can't be good.

I had no idea what to do, and more than concern over the septic was concern over how to make that box STOP MAKING THAT NOISE, and how much is it going to cost to get someone out here at 7:30 at night? I looked up the name on the box, and tried to find a way to shut off the noise, but neither proved helpful. So I called non-emergency police and said, "I'm sorry, but I have no idea what to do here..." They put the fire department on the line, and that lady told me I'd need to call a septic service. By the way, the reason I called local authorities in the first place is that our septic tank is kind of "governed" by the Lower Colorado River Association, and they were closed, so I didn't know if there were a protocol about which I was not aware.

AND THUS, I called a generic septic service. They told me that I could indeed turn off the alarm myself, and then I needed to give the drain field time to dry out, as it was likely saturated from the rains plus my having done laundry. I didn't realize that we needed to try not to put a lot of water in the system during heavy rains. I had a septic tank for 7+ years in Sherman, and never ever heard that.

Anyway, I went back, and, sure enough, there WAS a "silence" switch. I hadn't looked really thoroughly because 1) it was loud, 2) there is a lot of growth, including poison ivy, back in that corner (probably outta do something about that), and 3) I was kind of freaking out.

After 24 hours, the light was still on, and that was a problem. The stuff I'd read said 10-15 hours and the light should go off. It also said the alarm gave us 24-48 hours before it would reach critical mass. So something needed to happen.

A tech made it out on Friday (yikes!) and, as it turned out, the drain field wasn't saturated. The septic pump was burnt out. It was kind of funny: The tech gave James the price for the pump, and when James said, "Yeah, of course... what am I going to do?" the tech kind of laughed and said, "Yeah. You have to."

As a consolation prize, here is a thing I saw in our yard this week.

During this same time frame, our Nest thermostat gave us a warning that something specific was going on, complete with a URL to look up. I did, and it gave me trouble-shooting tips, THEN asked me to do some wire stripping and reattaching, that I did not feel comfortable with doing. So I called them, and they talked me through some stuff on the phone, and between what they can tell on their end and what I was able to read from our system, they were able to determine that the original message error was gone.

However, at that point, our actual air conditioner wasn't working. I'd reset every breaker when we were doing the thermostat stuff, but the house wasn't cooling down. It took us about 45 minutes, but finally, for some reason, at some point when I flipped the breaker, the unit came back on. So that was a fix without having to spend any money. Yay!

Saturday, we'd come back from a walk or something when I started wondering why there was so much Chinaberry debris in our front yard. Looking up, I realized that a large branch had mostly broken off and was just wedged in. Heavy winds, and it would come down. We tried stuff with our ladder, rake, etc. and it didn't work, so we had to buy one of those telescoping-handled saw/branch snipper thingies. The only ones I saw in Lago Vista were chainsaws, and those were $400-600, so James went into Cedar Park and got a hacksaw thing for like $50.

I was able just to manhandle the branch down, after a few tries, standing on the porch and therefore under the roof so the branch wouldn't maim me (yes, I wore goggles). Then I realized there was ANOTHER branch above that one that was also dead. James came out and helpfully pointed out that I didn't actually have the thing fully extended, which would have helped with the first branch, but was absolutely necessary with the second. I had to saw that one off, as the break was on top of a branch, and the dead part was pretty securely wedged in.

That was a work-out! But it finally came crashing down, and Mal even helped me clean up the front yard of all of the sticks and leaf bunches.

Between that maintenance stuff and then my spending 4 hours Friday mowing and weed-eating, then James spending really untold hours all weekend planting irises a neighbor gave us, we've been feeling very much like fully-fledged homeowners.

And while we're outside working and enjoying stuff, here is a little record of what our back yard looks like right now, if you're interested. I took the video to mark this for posterity's sake, so if you don't want to watch it, I'm not even offended. Also, the wind wasn't that bad; I need to get a muffler for my camera, or a remote mic with a cover.

Lots of other stuff, but we'll save that for another time. Happy Easter, and have a good week!

Our weekend

Spoiler alert: unless you enjoy discussing bodily fluids and the like, you might want to take a pass on this one.

Hello, everyone. How are you? This is a picture of my son and me from Friday.

See how he's cuddling on the couch with me? He doesn't ever do that. In case the face doesn't give it away, he wasn't feeling well. Neither was I.

This weekend, our whole family pretty much died. Too dramatic? I don't think so.

There's a little "blessing" about living in Austin called "cedar fever." It's actually an allergic reaction to the juniper ashei, also known as mountain cedar. The pollen is spiky (on a microscopic level) and can cause inflammation even in people without allergies. Well, most of us in this house have allergies, too, so we're having a lot of fun with the spike in levels that just hit.

D caught it first and has been struggling with it the longest. This weekend, she was spitting up blood. Fun. Good, fun times. She's been drinking a lot of chocolate milk and tea, and even consented to a dose of Flonase. It's a work-in-progress.

Mal started getting it next, followed quickly by me. His actually started as congestion and drainage due to teeth-cutting. In the past three weeks, he's gotten both of his top molars and at least one of his top eye teeth; the other one might be coming in, but he doesn't let me look in his mouth very much.

He's had a hard time sleeping, because he'll get choked on his drainage and cough and reposition... and then want to nurse. We're talking every fifteen minutes or so, awake or sleeping, actually. I'm pretty worn out and sensitive in the chestral regions.

Then, I started... sneezing at first, and literally blowing through all of our handkerchiefs (repurposed wipes James' mom made) in one day. I've gone through one roll of toilet paper since then. After the two days of sneezing, it became coughing. Coughing to the point of gagging and almost passing out. In the meantime, I've taken Claritin, Flonase, and bronchodilator pills every day.

This morning was the first time I've ever had asthma symptoms so awful that I couldn't do something with my kid that he wanted to do (all the way back to when Daphne was a baby; it never stopped me playing with her). He wanted to "ride the pony" by sitting on my hips whilst I lay in the floor. But I felt like I was going to suffocate and after one round of bouncing him, I had to get up. I hated it.

(Note: before you tell me I need to see a doctor, let me explain something: Every doctor I've seen gives me crap about refilling a rescue inhaler. They say I need to manage my asthma better so that I don't have to use the rescue inhaler, which they say should last more than a year and which I tend to go through in about three months when it's bad like this. A maintenance inhaler is $500 a month without insurance, and more than $300 WITH insurance. I'm not dying. I'm bothered and inconvenienced and my back hurts and it ticks me off, but I'm not dying. I can't spend $500 a month on a maintenance inhaler. Thank you for respecting that.)

I have learned that I can help my progress when I start coughing either by getting on my hands and knees if I'm in the floor or by putting my hands on the countertop and leaning over if I'm standing. It usually shortens the fit from coughs until I nearly black out to two or three good ones.

Meanwhile, Friday morning, I needed help. I needed more sleep, and I asked James to take Mal when he first woke up so that I could get just twenty minutes more sleep. But guess what? Yep. It had gotten to James, too, at this point. As an added bonus, James also got some kind of stomach bug, so spent a good deal of the weekend excusing himself from our company.

In the interim, I might have yelled at a lady from Chase who encouraged me to call back "on another phone" because she couldn't understand me as our connection was bad, after I'd been on hold 30 minutes, to find out why our HSA card wouldn't pay for our OTC Flonase - although I assume it's because they changed the rules to apply only to prescription drugs... AFTER THEY ALREADY HAD OUR MONEY AND THERE'S A PENALTY TO REMOVE IT. I asked her if I could call back without having to wait again, and she very cheerfully said, "Yes, ma'am; you can just call back on another phone." And I might have hollered something like, "I DON'T WANT TO CALL BACK ON ANOTHER PHONE. I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO WAIT AGAIN SO THANKS FOR NOTHING."

Then, as an added bonus, I immediately looked at my husband (remember the one who hadn't been able to help me with Mal that morning?) and said, "I NEED HELP AND NOBODY WANTS TO HELP ME."

>>>Edited to add: Mal was in the kitchen playing and started yelling random babble. Nice.

(Do you see a pattern here? I think I'm getting fragile in my old age. Actually, I've always been a little bit like this. I can hold it together though a lot... until I can't. Then, good god, it's messy.)

Now, I'm not proud of this, but James immediately emptied the dishwasher. Guys, he's a good man, and he puts up with my craziness, and I love him. He helps all of the time, and I'm totally in danger of taking that for granted. My pity party had nothing to do with him, except maybe my total lack of empathy for his illness since I kind of wanted my own space to be sick and have everyone else do everything so that I could lie down. I don't think that can happen again for several years, honestly.

Then, as an extra added bonus, I started my period last night. Which I hope explains my utter inability to deal with anything this weekend.

So... today, I haven't coughed much. I've blown my nose a lot, but no coughing. James went to work. Daphne's still asleep. Mal's been very very very very clingy and "nursey" and I keep trying to clear his nostrils, but he isn't very keen on that. I'm trying to distract him every time he asks to nurse, but once he starts crying and won't take orange juice, yogurt, a banana, cereal, or anything... I just let him. I'm sure I'll get the feeling back in my boobs some day.

There you go. There's the romantic weekend we had.

Just to let you know, we also went to breakfast Friday (which James had off) at an awesome barbeque trailer near here, then took a 3/4 family trip to the grocery store; we went to Mal's gym and later to Target to get James jeans and D a Minecraft gift card; and Sunday, the kids and I went to church. So we haven't just been rolling around in our misery. We're still living the life. It's just been a lot more intense the past few days. I'm ready for it to get boringer again.