Tuesday, I got my shopping done for a cookie making day with Angie and the girls. I spent about $200. Yikes! Don't even get me started. Chloe is going to go away to college (no decision yet on where, but she knows she wants to go out of town or state), and this will be her last Christmas "at home". We must make it special. I also noticed a small water leak under the sink in the master bath and pointed it out to Gary. He'll fix it "tomorrow". Norma (my 90 year old neighbor) came by for a quick visit, and Gay another neighbor brought us a couple bottles of booze for Christmas. Nice day.
I woke up bright and early Wednesday, around 3:00 am, got up and got started. I made two batches of cookies. The dough must be rolled out and chilled. I got that taken care of, and then round 6 am, I cut out all the dough, then laid them all out in a single layer to dry for minimum of 2 hours. I then made six colors of glazing liquid. I was set.
The girls came over around 3 pm and we got started. We stopped around 6 pm and ate dinner. I had made a roast in the crock pot, but it was not tender enough to eat as is.... so we had chips and salsa. You know, your average Texas healthy meal. We decided to call it a day and finish up early Thursday. After they left, I mentioned the sink AGAIN to Gary. He made a run to Home Depot at 8 pm and got the part for the sink, and worked on it. I had previously put a large pot under the drip to catch the little droplets. As I was going to bed, I noticed water was dripping really often under the sink again. I got a bigger pot, put it under the sink, and got Gary. Just a small leak, he'll turn the water off and fix it tomorrow. Cool.
Thursday, I woke up even earlier, around 1:45 am, and got up and made new batches of glaze. I was in the bathroom and I used the hot water faucet and once again realized there was water dripping rapidly again into the pan I had placed under the faucet. I got Gary, and it was because the hot water was running back into the cold water line. I am like, OK, we need to get this fixed. yeah.... right.
I tidied up the kitchen and the girls came over around 9 am and our cookie project was in full swing. My kitchen was a disaster, to say the least. The mess from yesterday on top of the mess from this morning. We did manage to get all the cookies either frosted, eaten or given away. My big plans were to take a ton of pictures, but I had none. I did take a couple (stopped blogging to do it) to add to the blog.
They all went home and left me with a big mess. Gary was no where to be found, and I got really involved is washing 20 cookie cutters, sorting through the other 100 cookie cutters we didn't use (I decided to organize them before I put them back in storage), getting glaze out of all the bottles with all the various tips we used, started cooking dinner (I cut the roast up into bite sized pieces and had slow cooked it turning the roast into stew... but it WAS tender), and so on, when in walks Gary to not too nicely remind me that I know better than to use the carpet shampooer then not dump the water out of the dispensing canister before I store it in the garage. WTF? Where did that stupid statement come from. Didn't he realize I was the Christmas Cookie Queen and I would NEVER abandon my cookie making to shampoo carpet?
Well, he is a man, so allow for that. I asked him what he is talking about. He explained that he'd gone to walk the dog (about an hour or so ago) and came home and I have caused water to be all over the garage floor. I have him show me, because I have NOT left the kitchen. We go to the garage (exit via the front door) and see water ALL over the garage floor. It is a 2 car garage, and the shampooer only holds one gallon of cleaning solution. I head into the house thru the laundry room, and there is water all over the floor. I also HEAR water running. Gary cannot hear and will not wear his hearing aid. DAMN! I run to the bathroom, and there is a waterfall coming out from under the sink.
Amazingly enough, while running into the bedroom to get to the bathroom, the water is coming over the rims of my shoes, and my feet are getting soaked. Gary runs outside to turn the water off. He comes back in as I am frantically grabbing my shampooer (it makes a great water removal tool when used properly) and he grabs his shop wet-dry vac. I call Angie and leave word that our house is flooded and could she bring supplies and family over and help. Off we begin. I will not write what I was saying to Gary while sucking up water, but he informed me that he had wanted to finish the sink leak. Unbeknownst to me, he turned the water off outside, replaced the valve, then got the dog ready for her walk, and as he left the house he turned the water back on. That was about an hour ago. He was fast on the repair, cause I was in the kitchen (evidently he caught me while I was sorting cookie cutters) and never realized the water had been cut off. Why would anyone do that and not tell the person that is home what they had done? I mean, he obviously didn't check his own work. Anyway.... the rest sort of speaks for itself.
Angie and Morgan arrive and we have four units (they brought their own shampooer and wet dry vac over.... I trained Angie well) sucking water up, and we're just dumping it into the tub. I was getting about a gallon of water every 2 minutes. I just dumped it into the bath tub. It became stopped up with dust, cat hair, dog hair, and all the dust balls that were under the two furniture chests that were in my closet next to the stack of suit cases, etc. There is water all over half almost half the house. Gary starts removing furniture from the closet, my shoes, stuff comes out of the cabinets in the bathroom, all the towels are thrown on the floor to soak up water, then into the laundry room, everything in the bedroom is moved to another room in the house, on and on. No order, just panic.
When it is half full, we decide to blow off all the carpet, and we start cutting it into manageable pieces and Eric arrives to help. They start hauling it out. I sneak next door and have a glass of wine with Norma. I am exhausted. This has already been like a 2 hour ordeal for me. I finally go back home, and it looks like world war 13. Utter chaos. Here are a few pictures.
Gary has left the water off. While I was cleaning underneath, he came in and looked at the repair job. He was where he had it connected wrong and he made the repair. He turned the water back on and it was not leaking. I forced him to turn the water off when I went to bed... I couldn't sleep knowing it "might" fail again. Got up next morning and turned it on, and VOILA !!!! It is fixed. Needless to say, we were both too tired to do anything the next day. Not even pick up the house.
I have not mentioned the delay in fixing it to Gary again. I have too many other things to worry about. Like I bought a pop up tent from Walmart, and the delivery date and entire order got screwed up so I canceled the order and got a different one from Amazon. Once I ordered a different one, the first one came in. I made arrangements with the vendor to pay for return shipping and a full refund. NOTE!!!! Walmart on line now allows (for 6 months now) vendors to sell directly to the purchaser on their web site. It is not guaranteed etc. by Walmart. YOU MUST READ THE FINE PRINT on every item. Walmart had to provide me with a telephone number for the vendor. Per the vendor, my item was screwed up in the Walmart database, it had a FedEx shipping number assigned, but they never have used FedEx and they were unable to update or change the database. They said Walmart is working on some problems, and they apologized. That was the only reason I was able to get a refund was because it was a computer glitch someplace, else I'd have to pay for return shipping AND restocking. READ THE FINE PRINT.
Anyway, I put the new return shipping label on it, and because it was so heavy, I had Gary take it to UPS for shipping. I specifically told Gary to make sure he got a receipt because that is the only proof we'd have that we shipped it back should it get lost. Yup,,,, he said ok. BUT..,... when he went in, the line was so long he just handed it over the counter and they said they'd take care of it. See, I do have lots of things to keep me busy. I also managed to go to Home Depot and buy a tool to unstop the tub. Still haven't done it, but the water eventually drained out. Thank gawd I'm a shower person.
I did go visit Betty, my friend since I started playing golf. We had a good visit, and I gave her a Christmas pillow, small pillow, and a Christmas serving basket. I didn't tell her I was bringing her anything, but we must have been on the same thought plane. She gave me a tin of cookies, some homemade candy, and an easel. She is such a sweet heart. Gary and I then went to Flying Fish for some grilled salmon and squash. That is our favorite restaurant. We have never had a bad meal there. And, their COLD Beer for Gary, frozen margarita for me, and bread pudding (we split an order) with bourbon sauce is to die for.
Finally today, it is Christmas eve. I again got up at 3 am, then Gary got up around 4 and joined me. We read the paper together for a change. I tried to bake biscuits around 6 am in the convection oven in the microwave, and the display doesn't work correctly. You just have to know what buttons to push and in which particular order. It never asks the temperature or how long you want to cook. One more item... but good news. I will NOT ask Gary to work on it. I will hire it done. LOL!
Tonight is the Gibbons family Xmas get together. It will be at Angie's, just like it has been for the last 5 or 6 years. I am taking over all the girls packages this afternoon so we can just get up Christmas morning and take coffee and the newspaper over. It will take hours to open everything. I'll take a breakfast casserole over also. That makes for a relaxing Christmas morning. I will also be taking my camera. Then all I have to do is remember to use it. Surely one of the adults there will remind me.
For those that read this periodically, I used this to blow off steam. Sorry about not being entertaining or informative, but it was just one of those weeks.
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