Mario and Luigi

**Special thanks to Kerstin for the use of her camera.**

This is the outside of our house:
This is the inside:

These were the problem pipes. You see how they are so neatly wrapped with foam and electrical tape. The actual copper pipe was not being held together by much at all. Good thing they added the padding.

This is my crabby plumber reenacting the scene of which I so badly wanted to take a picture.

So, the plumber came to our house Wednesday morning to fix the pipe. He resoldered the two pipes and explained why there was wrapping around it. Apparently pipe tend to freeze in Iowa, especially pipes located within inches of windows. Now I feel like a jerk for assuming the previous owners took shortcuts when making repairs.

On a side note, the kitchen faucet is still inoperable. Lee said he didn't want to ask the plumber to do it, but in hindsight he wishes he had. I guess that is another blog for another day. Until then, I must wash dishes in the basement and endure a horrible smell emanating from my garbage disposal and drain with no water to cleanse it and wash it down. Thanks goodness for candles.

Also, here is a picture of Miss Petunia wondering what her mother was doing on the front lawn:

PS Don't you all think that the front door should be painted back to match the shutters?

92 Years of Character and Counting

If you didn't already know, Lee (my husband) and I bought a beautiful, old Dutch Colonial home last summer. In the past 10 months we have had to, amongst other things, add central air conditioning, resheet and shingle the roof, fence off one side of the back yard, reline the fireplace and tuck point the chimney (not to mention updating the cosmetics). we love it and we knew that it would be a project when we bought it.

So Sunday, I was using the kitchen sink when water started spraying out of the neck of the faucet and onto me and the window. I was laughing so hard, Lee had to come and see what was so funny. Fast forward to Monday...We were driving past Home Depot and we decided to get a new faucet and try to install it ourselves. We bought one, went home and decided to start on our project. We went to the basement to shut off our water and ended up spending an hour looking for the correct water controlling spigot. So we got the water turned off, and then began to clean out under the kitchen sink. Lee got his wrench out and started to disconnect the pipes under the sink as I read the directions for installation.

He unfastened the first pip with ease and moved on the the second. This one proved to be a little more tricky. He got red in the face and used pliers and wrenches and the darn thing wouldn't budge. As he keeps at it, we think that it appears that the pipe is turning with the nut we are trying to loosen. Then we heard an unusual noise, like a dull pop. When we follow the pipe from the kitchen floor to the ceiling of the basement and see that there is some water on the wall, counter and floor.

When we looked into the ceiling we saw that the pipe had come loose from another pipe and the residual water had flooded out. I want to back up and point out that we had to use a knife to cut off the foam padding and duct tape that were surrounding/insulating said pipe. So...we stayed at my parents house last night (which is super fun because my dad hates dogs. I wonder where Katie gets it...), and the plumbers won't be over until Wednesday at 11am.

The funniest part was that when Lee was lying with his head under the sink getting angry at the pipes, all I could think of was, "I wish I had a camera so I could blog this exact moment." I have learned that blogs without pictures are not as loved.

Girls' Club

This is the Girls' Club. You will notice that we are not all girls. Our little club began as a small break from the stresses of the school day. I would walk down to Jill's office and Brenda would join. Soon enough, Mr. Williams would poke his head in and asked if he could join the "Girls' Club." And so we were named.

We all have different roles in the building.



Jill is the school social worker. She is also out special ed consultant. Her office was the original meeting place (mostly because she has padded chairs). We had to move because we were too loud and people got suspicious when her door was closed.





Brenda is the school's activities/athletics secretary. She has a great view of the hallway. Everything that happens has to pas by her window. She is our hair and wardrobe expert.

Mr. Williams (Rick to most people) is the school's assistant principal. He was also my middle school gym teacher and tennis coach. He is our administrative connection. He offers the male perspective to whatever is on the agenda for the day.

The Girls' Club meets during 3rd hour (my prep time). We occasionally have agenda items, but most often we discuss whatever is on our minds. We had a little levity to a not always fun job. We can cry in front of each other (illnesses and job transfers). we have also had one outing. Our Sugar Daddy took us out for a Friday celebration.

The Girls' Club makes my day brighter. Thanks guys!

Crappy Blogger

I am sorry I am such a bad blogger...I promise to try harder. I must be having a creative block. Any suggestions for upcoming blog topics?

Prom

I was getting sick of looking at the back of my head (I am sure you all echo my feelings), so I decided to update. This update is not about me, but something I think we can all laugh at...I helped with my high school's prom on Saturday. The part I helped with was fairly uneventful. When I got to school this morning, I heard all sorts of stories from the happenings after I left:

Apparently at the dance, which was held at a local country club, several students were breathalyzed and parents were called. It all began when I country club employee noticed that a car's dome light was illuminated and when to get the license plate number so they could announce it and the batteries would not wear down and leave a couple stranded. When the employee looked at the car, he noticed that a full minibar (ice, booze, mixers, shakers etc) was set up in the backseat. When they located the student who drove the car, he and his date had to talk to the police along with several of their friends.

In the end, eight people were sent home with their parents and suspended from school, and school activities. A couple of the students are going get kicked out of the National Honor Society (one of them has already been kicked out due to previous offenses earlier in the school year) and one of them is a tennis player who was supposed to compete in the substate qualifying meet on Thursday.

I hope we have all learned a lesson here...if you are going to drink at prom, turn off your dome light so your minibar doesn't get spotted.

1 Corinthians 11:15

Aren't you lucky? The picture is of the hair, but the booty gets thrown for no extra charge...

Yes, that is me with a full mane of brown hair. I need some opinions. Here are your options:

a) Morticia Addams Long; too long, you can wipe your butt with it.

b) Demi Moore Long; too long, but she can pull it off.

c) Gwyneth Paltrow Long; long, but it looks good on her.

Feel free to be anonymous, that way if you all pick a) I won't know who hurt my feelings.

Wallpaper

For those of you that don't know, my husband and I bought a house last summer. The house was built in 1915 and has a lot of "character." The people we purchased the house from had lived there for 38 years. Most of the house appeared to have been decorated 38 years ago and left. We had a lot of painting and wallpapering done in the fall.

A friend of mine from Boston and his girlfriend were back in Cedar Rapids visiting his family, and they were excited to come over and see our new house. I was giving them a tour when we came to the dining room:
My friend got up close tot he walls and started touching it. He said, "What are these...pilgrims?" I just smiled and said, "I think it is called French toile." Then he said matter-of-factly, "How soon are you getting rid of this?" We had just had it put up two weeks before.


It hurt my feelings. A lot. I never told them. If they had only seen what was on the walls before we got there...there were columns of multiple shades of blue and green fruit (ie: aqua melons, olive bananas, turquoise grapes, etc). Lee and I both really liked what we had chosen, but it shook my faith in my decorating skills. Again...feel free to laugh at my expense.

The Sad Truth

The real reason I started a blog was because I got some bad news about two weeks ago and I thought to myself, "I don't want to have to call and tell everybody over and over again; this sure would be easier if I had a blog." So here it is:

I have been teaching for six years. My first three years were at the middle school level and with three separate one year contracts. The last three years I have been teaching at my alma mater, Washington High School, where I have also been coaching for the last seven years. So, a couple of weeks ago I went to check my mailbox in the main office and I had a weird letter from the Human Resources department. When I opened it, it stated that I had been surplussed, which means that because of declining enrollment in my department, they would letting go of one teacher. That would be me. I am being transferred to a school on the other side of town because they have a man retiring.

The good new is that I still have a job, but the bad news is that I will not longer be a Warrior; I will be a J-Hawk. What the heck is J-Hawk anyway? I am really angry and I have no one to be angry at. It is because "technically" I have the least seniority. But there is some weird point system in place where seniority is just one factor. Apparently I am not black enough or am a head coach of an important sport. It doesn't matter that I go to every football and basketball game, chaperone dances, and sponsor a club...I have a million objections and great points I could make, but there is no point. I just have to suck it up and make the best of it.

I know it is God's will and I will be fine, but sometimes it just doesn't feel like it.

My Mouser

This is one of my two cats, Lord Helmet. Helmet got his name because Lee, my husband, thought that he looked like he was wearing a helmet. I guess it is also a character in the movie, Space Balls. Who knew? Our other cat is Master Yoda, just in case you cared.

The story of our cats goes like this...I was going to sleep one night in my parents' basement and I heard a high-pitched noise. I looked around and went over to look out into the window well, which is a good five foot drop from the front yard. When I looked out I saw two glowing eyes looking at me. In the end, my dad and I pulled out four baby kittens, two of which did not have their eyes open yet, so we knew they had to be about a week old. For the next six weeks, my mom, Lee and I took turns feeding them with kitten replacement milk formula every 4 hours. So, needless to say, we kept two of them. One of them, Zitty (he was all white with a blackhead, so we called him balckhead, and then that turned into Zitty...I knew you guys weere going to ask), died at five weeks from a tragic accident with a baby gate (may he rest in peace), and we gave one of them away.

Last night with 5 minutes left in Dancing with the Stars, which I am addicted to, Lee yells from the basement, "Come here. Hurry!" I, being a good little submissive wife, jump off of the coach to see what he needs. When I got to the basement, Lee said, "We have good cats." I turned the corner and there lay Helmet with a dead little black mouse lying next to him, and Master Yoda not too far away. I started to freak out and Lee just laughed. Helmet just kept touching it with his little paw like he was trying to make sure it didn't get away. I am sure that mouse lived all by itself, right?

I never want to go into the basement again, but with cats like mine, I will be protected.