Too Many Things To Even Know Where To Begin...

So it's been a while again since I really blogged about anything and now I have a back log of stuff to cover and I'm just not sure if I'm going to make it or remember any of it. So many of the things that I've wanted to blog about recently, and just haven't sat down to actually do, were funny in the moment or I had some great little story to go along with it and well, now I've forgotten most of them. But I'll do my best to at least make this somewhat entertaining and I'll totally understand if you've made it this far but read no further. So here goes, a hopefully fun and interesting wrap up of that last few weeks in our life....
Laughing Because I'd Be Crying Otherwise...

A couple weeks ago a tropical storm or something like that passed through our area. Basically all it did was rain and rain some more. The day after the storm passed we noticed a small brown spot starting to appear on the ceiling in our living room. We freaked out, forgetting that our air conditioner was right above that spot and thought that our roof was leaking. Well, it wasn't. Our air conditioner was just leaking everywhere. Ever since we bought this house we knew that the a/c needed to be replaced, at least the handler section of it. When it was installed they did it way more wrong than right and it was a major problem waiting to happen. Well, we decided that we were going to just wait it out, it was working after all and we didn't and still don't have the couple of grand necessary to replace it, and fix the major problems when the handler died (hopefully quite a few years down the road). So last year (after another tropical storm coincidentally) it started leaking everywhere and we called our friend the a/c repair man. He came out and vacuumed the emergency drip pan out (which was where the water was coming from) with a wet/dry vac and then cleared the block in the drain pipe which is where the water is supposed to go. So this year, rather than paying someone about $100 we decided to go and buy a wet/dry vac and clean it up ourselves. It worked great and only cost us about $35 and we even were able to use a gift card that someone had given us, so it really didn't cost us anything. Anyways, we sucked all the crap out (what a horrible job that was, climbing on my hands and knees on 2x4s turned so that the thin end was up in sauna like conditions with roofing nails sticking through the roof just waiting for me to put my head up just enough to gouge me) and thought we were done. I guess we kind of forgot the major part of the whole "fixing the problem thing". We fixed the affects of the problem, but we kind of forgot to fix the problem - we never unclogged the drain so water basically began building up all over again instantly. Well, we thought we solved all our problems and went on our merry way. We turned the power back on (which we turned off thinking electricity and water and me sucking it out didn't match all that well) and waited for the a/c unit to start cooling the house down again. Nothing happened! Jeff freaked out. Okay, we both freaked out. I figured that it wouldn't hurt anything to go back up and try and see if I could figure out why in the world it wasn't working after I cleaned out the water, even though it was working before. So up and I went and messed around for what seemed like hours but was probably closer to 15 minutes. Finally after exhausting all of my ideas and then a few more I remembered moving some wires that were in my way when I was vacuuming the water out. It ends up that they were connected to the kill switch which is supposed to shut the unit down if the level of water gets to high in the emergency drain pan. Obviously it wasn't working before or we wouldn't have had the whole water stain stuff. So I fixed the level on the kill switch and the a/c unit turned back on. That lead to much rejoicing and excitement knowing that we weren't going to be sleeping in 90 degree and crazy humidity conditions. By this time it was late (somewhere after 10 and the whole thing started in the early afternoon) so thinking that all our problems were solved I went for a shower and off to bed.

The next day I was checking the ceiling, thinking about trying to paint it to cover up the water stain and noticed it was still wet. I figured that there was just a lot of water that needed to dry and thought nothing more of it.

Stupid, stupid me.....

So all this happened Sunday and Monday. Along comes Tuesday. Jeff and I are just packing up and getting ready to head off to the grocery store to buy food when Jeff looks up at the ceiling and notices a small bow. Yup, it starting to sag. Not a good thing is regards to ceilings, or pretty much anything. So we start freaking out, put the kids in high chairs and playpens with snacks to keep them out of the way and run for the ladder and wet/dry vac to see what we can do. I crawl back up into the attic and discover that the a/c is leaking again and that all the insulation is soaking wet in a huge area under and around the unit. We (forgetting that the solution to our problem is unblocking the drain pipe) freak out and think that this is the end of our a/c and here we go, having to spend way more money that we have to fix it. As Jeff is on the phone with our friend the a/c repair man I notice that the ceiling is now starting to crack and that it's coming down any second. I try and get Jeff's attention, but he waves me off not understand what I'm trying to say. I grab a plastic drop cloth that thankfully we have in a closet near by and start trying to spread it out under where I think the roof is about to cave in. I try again to get Jeff's attention and just then a 3x3 foot square chuck of the ceiling comes crashing down. Jeff hangs up on the guy and runs over trying to help in whatever way he can. There really wasn't all that much that he could do, other than laugh just so he wouldn't cry, which I was doing the same thing. As the waterfall continued down into our living room we just laughed and laughed, trying to catch as much of the water as possible on our drop cloth. After probably 15 minutes or more, the water started to slow and we started the clean up process. Wow, what a mess or dry wall, soaking we insulation and water. About half an hour later I noticed another chunk of drywall getting ready to fall and then moments later, down it came. We now had a 3x6 foot section of ceiling missing with more ready to come at any time. It was pretty crazy and a huge mess. Thankfully Jeff thought of taking pictures along the way so that we could continue to laugh at it later. After the kids went to bed we decided that it would probably be better for me to go up into the attic again and start pulling out the wet insulation and throwing it down to Jeff bellow and then pull down the sections of drywall that we going to be falling on their own at some point during the night rather than leaving them and being awakened by a huge crashing sound. So by the end of the night we had a 6x6 foot sections of our ceiling missing and a black garbage bag stapled to the ceiling so we could at least have some a/c. We couldn't stop laughing and we needed to laugh because we were so frustrated by the whole situation. Thankfully one of the guys who does sound for Jeff at the church is a drywaller and he came and fixed the hole for us. So we have no learned an important lesson in a/c repair... don't just clean up the mess, solve the problem that caused the mess. I guess that's not just a lesson for a/c stuff, but life in general. Wow I bet you never thought you were going to get a life lesson out of this blog, eh.

Rather than make this the longest post known to man kind I have decided to stop here for now and continue in another post. So, that's it for now. It will seem kind of backward though because the next post that I'll write will end up being before this one, rather than after it, so don't get freaked out when you scroll down the screen following this post and notice that it doesn't seem to continue or anything, you've probably just already read the post that's supposed to follow this one before you read it. Wow, that was really confusing to type and probably even more confusing to read, so if you don't understand a thing that I just wrote, don't worry, I don't either.