We had a Bubble

Why do we have a toilet on our front porch, you may ask? Well, it started with a little bubble. Our little bubble turned into a great big bulge, and that's when we knew something was wrong. So we called in reinforcements. My Father-in-law, Dale, stopped everything, and came a running. For two entire days, his only days off, he worked in our little bathroom, with my amazing husband, diagnosing the problem and then correcting it. What was the problem? Oy-E-Vay! Our toilet had a leak. It had been leaking since we moved in, four years ago. So when the linoleum was lifted and the floor exposed, we found yuck! Seth was going to lift off the first layer of flooring, when his hammer decided to continue through the entire floor. Was he too forceful? No way. The entire floor was completely rotted through. Dale informed us that we would have been falling through the floor ourselves within the next two weeks if we hadn't begun fixing it this weekend. The entire floor had to go. So for all of Saturday and most of Sunday, the boys sawed, and hammered, lifted and removed until we had a great big hole in our floor. But praise the Lord, the rot stopped an inch from the tub and an inch from the wall, and we never fell through the floor.

I have to admit that I used to think that plumbing wasn't that hard. Plunge a little here, Drano a little there and wallah! problem solved. Well I learned a thing or two this weekend. First of all, plumbing is hard work. Not only is there sawin' and hammerin', there's also creapin' and crawlin'. Have you ever been under the floor of your bathroom, after it has been recently de-molded. Yuck, yuck, yucky! But they did it! Not only did they crawl, but at one point they had to lay flat on the ground! Ooooo! They crawled right on down there and then hung out for a while. Crazy kids. Secondly, it's dirty work, which I got to participate in. Here is a picture of a pipe. This is the pipe that the toilet sits on top of, and all of that wonderful stuff gets flushed down. This is also the pipe that chunks of the flooring fell down, and of course, they had to be removed. Unfortunately, Dale's and Seth's hands were too large. They are just too manly. Mine however fit into the pipe perfectly. What do you know. Does that make me girly? So here I am in my pretty blue skirt about ready to remove crumbled flooring from poopy pipe. I would like to say that yes, I am now a plumber. If you ever have the chance to stick your hand down a pipe like this you will also be able to call yourself the same. (I think I racked up a few awesome daughter-in-law points though!!)

After two days, of hard work I now have a floor again. This project which could have cost $2000.00, only cost $118.00. Praise the Lord for my husband and his dad. I felt so blessed this weekend by them both. And strangely enough, I felt loved. I felt loved by a father-in-law that was willing to drop everything to help. It showed how much he cares about us. I felt loved by a husband, who after getting up at 4:00 a.m. the previous morning, driving 3 hours to Yakima, working 12 hours, and then driving home 3 hours, continued working through the weekend to make our home safe. I felt loved by a mother-in-law who bought a booster seat for my daughter this weekend, because she saw a need. (I know that has nothing to do with the plumbing, but it made me feel loved.) We are blessed, and God is good.

I think the moral of the story is this, don't let a little bubble turn into a huge bulge, but if you do, you might find that your loved too.