Saturday, August 9, 2008

Saying "When"

I remember when we were kids, sometimes my parents would let us stay at my grandparents house for the weekend. My Grandmother would say, "say when" when she poured milk into our cereal bowl. It meant for us to say when we'd had enough. I'd officially like to say "when", I've really had enough.

Let's do a brief re-cap of the move-in excitment. Starting with one week prior to closing on the house Keith gets hospitalized 2 hours away from our house. We finally sign on the house. The next day as our new washer and dryer are being delivered the Lowes guys inform me that our washer bib appears to have been possibly broken during the disconnect of the previous washer and dryer. Everything works, just needs a plumber to tighten a few things...add plumber to my list of people to call. The following day our house hold goods arrive - the truck driver manages to bust up our mailbox. It still works, the mailman just has to push the mail all the way back so that if it rains before I get the mail, it doesn't get soaked - add new mailbox to my list of things to do. Two days later (on a Sunday, no less!) the power company knocks on the door letting us know that our home is currently a fire-hazard due to a power surge from the power box in our backyard. It's possible that the box was struck by lightening, sending a surge through our house and the street light across from our driveway. Sure enough, when they opened our box near our power meter, the protective insulation was fried off and the wires were exposed. So we spent a few days without electricity (we continued to stay at Grandma and Grandpa's house during this time). So with the power back up and running, we had the pool-guy come out and school us on all of our pumps/filters/cleaners/chemicals. Let's just say that after a few hundred dollars, a half a day and a very handsome handy husband (he's mine, ladies) - our super-cool pool vaccuming system was back up and running. So with all this, I ask you what on Earth was I thinking having a tree cut down in our backyard?
For a number of reasons, this gigantic pine tree had to go. It probably should have been cut down years ago. The entire yard is covered in pine needles and sap.
So after a few referrals and a few estimates, we chose someone that had a good reputation and was licensed and insured. They were also on the higher end of the estimates, but brought the greatest number of workers to the job, so it all evened out.
It really was a sight to watch the tree's limbs get cut down piece by piece. The guys were doing their job just the way the boss had described it to me, when disaster happened. Fortunately everyone was safe, except for the pool. It's hard to even describe what happened, because it all happened so fast. A heavy, awkward part of the mid-trunk of the tree slipped as it was being lowered - landed on the hilly grass and bounced to a landing on the side of the pool. Because of the weight and the force behind the fall/bounce, the walkway around the pool was dented and the tiles shattered off into the pool.
I was in such shock that nobody was hurt, that it was impossible to be angry. Accidents happen. The company completely repaired the side of the pool. Fortunately, all the damage was above the tile-line and on the walkway. After two additional days of jack-hammering up old concrete and pouring new concrete, setting new tiles and skimming out the pool - everything was back looking wonderful again.
Once the area around the repair is pressure-washed, the coloring should match up much better. For now the only thing left to do is to rebalance the chemicals in the pool and we'll be back to normal.

With everything that's gone on, I think I'll refrain from any other major home improvement projects for a little while.

1 comment:

Rachel Holloway said...

You guys have seriously had WAAAAAYY more excitement than anyone should have for a long, long time. Geesh!@

Hope things ease up a little bit!