All I want for Christmas is unfrozen pipes

Sorry for not blogging in awhile....apparently not much has been happening to us until this week so here I am again to share all the details. 

Let me start this post by saying this was definitely NOT how I pictured our first Christmas as a married couple going. Here was how I thought it would go: day off from work on Christmas eve day, sleeping in, Rob making pancakes for breakfast, hanging out all day, going to church on Christmas Eve, waking up Christmas morning to presents and yummy cinnamon rolls before heading off to Pennsylvania. 

Ha. What a dream. 

Here's how our first Christmas is really going. 

We came home late Sunday night from a great weekend in Cincinnati with Rob's family celebrating Christmas with them. When we left on Friday morning Rob and I discussed leaving our faucets dripping because it was supposed to get pretty cold over the weekend. We ended up leaving just the kitchen sink dripping, and because we're trying to save money we turned the heat down pretty low. Bad idea. We came home to a cold house and no water anywhere except some cold in the kitchen. Frozen pipes. Remember, we live in a very old house too with strange vents on the ceiling that doesn't heat very well. 

What we should have done to all our faucets...

Here's what we tried first -- the handy hairdryer. Yea right.

I worked from home on Monday so the plumber could come over, but he didn't end up coming until 8 pm Monday night. We opened the door to a 71-year-old, stooped over man named Richard. Little did we know we were in for a very interesting night. 

First words out of his mouth: "I hear you got some frozen pipes." Oh yes, we do. Richard proceeded to put his very large kerosene heater down into our crawl space (note: we didn't even know we had a crawl space until Monday. Creepy.) Richard, Rob, and I sat at the table for about an hour drinking coffee and eating cookies while listening to Richard talk about everything from the economy, to the Big Three and their unions, to Obama, to Richard's druggy stepsons, to his two failed marriages....etc., etc. Most of the time he just looked to us for agreement on most things, ending his sentences with, "Huh, you know, huh?" We nodded, even though half the time we couldn't understand what he was saying. 

Richard poking around under our sink fixing a separate leak

Finally, around 11 pm (note again: this is a work night and as most of you know I am NOT a late night person, but anything for the pipes right?) Richard called it a night and said he'd come back in the morning. Still no water. Rob and I showered at a friend's house Tuesday morning and headed off to work. By the time we left for work we finally had hot and cold water flowing in the bathroom sink, but still no shower water. We rejoiced a lot. :) 

Around 1:15 our landlord called us and when I answered the phone he said, "I have terrible news. The pipe to your shower burst and we'll have to dig under the house to fix it. We had to shut off all water to your house because it was flowing into the crawl space." Yea, that's not good news. 

We talked about driving to PA early, but didn't want to leave our landlord to deal with everything. We decided with no water in our house we had to leave, so we spent the night in a hotel in Gas City. Rough life right? It was a fun treat, but still not our own bed. 

So here we are to this morning as I type right now. Currently, the floor in our laundry room and part of the kitchen floor is pulled up for a man who is digging under our house. I kid you not. I do not know this man, I probably won't even recognize him as a man when he comes out because he will be so wet and muddy. Richard and Rob are hauling buckets of mud out from the hole into the backyard while the man digs. Hopefully, he will be able to dig enough around the burst pipe for Richard to go in there and fix it. It's very strange hearing this man's voice coming up through the kitchen floor. Frankly, this man is my new hero because there is NO way I would ever want to crawl down there and dig out someone else's pipes. 

Richard getting a bucket of mud from underneath our house from the man in the hole

Richard is still going full steam (I hope I'm as in good shape as he is at 71) talking a blue streak too. Here's the most recent conversation I heard: 

Man in hole to Rob: "So you from PA?"

Rob: "No, I'm from Cincinnati."

Man in hole: "You must be a Reds fan."

Rob: "Not really, I don't follow baseball anymore."

Man in hole: "Yea me either."

Richard: "I tell you what, baseball, basketball, doesn't matter, it's all big money, drugs, and scandals. Look at OJ Simpson. They finally got him. You got enough money you can buy yourself out of murder."

Oh my. 

So here's what I've come to learn through all this. It's not worth stressing about, although it has been a stressful situation. I've kept saying this whole time I'm grateful we still had heat, power, and each other because water isn't as important as those three in my opinion. I'm sure someday we will look back and really laugh at our first married Christmas together. These are the kind of stories your kids think are funny I suppose. "Remember that time our pipes froze at Christmas Rob?" I'll say. I'm also so grateful for people like Richard, and the man in the hole, and Troy, our landlord. We would haven't even known where to start without them. And I suppose this is all part of being an adult. Learning lessons the hard way sometimes. Perhaps it's a good reminder too that sometimes in America we're spoiled by the things we take for granted so often. I was thinking yesterday of women around the world who walk for miles for dirty water and I have clean water coming out of my faucets at an instant whenever I want it. I know, this is America after all and we don't have things like outhouses as alternative options, but how did I get to be so lucky? I will definitely try to remember this in the future when I'm tempted to take water for granted. 

(PS. the man is coming out of the hole and here's what Rob just said, "The monster is coming out from the deep.") And he does look like a man, not a monster although he is quite muddy. 

Whew. Looks like we're on our way to having unfrozen pipes, unburst pipes, and running water again. After all, it is Christmas. I know bigger miracles have happened, but for us, getting everything back to normal will be a miracle in itself. I'll keep you posted....