A Cheerful Post.

I need to make a confession: I’m a whiner. This tendency to whine and complain comes so naturally to me. Can it be considered a forte? If so, consider it my #1 forte. I knew as soon as I started this blog that it would be a strong temptation for me to use it as a tool for venting and so this is something I’ve been aware of from the beginning. I would love to be like my friend Angie who has probably never complained in her life. She somehow manages to be open and honest when she is facing challenges in her life, yet she does so in a non-complaining way. How does she do it? (I know you’re reading Angie but since you can’t figure out how to comment you can’t try to convince us that you do complain every once-in-a-while!) I say all of this to let you know (for those who don’t know me well or who haven’t noticed the whiney posts on here) that this post may appear to be whiney but because it contains events from the past it is merely presenting the facts. Surely it’s not considered whining at this point, is it? If I’m happy, content and have no complaints at the present moment? Either way, if you begin to feel sorry for me (us)...please don’t...even I don’t feel sorry for myself right now and that is saying something!

It would be marvelous to be able to tell all of you that we are settled into our comfy/cute little house, however that is not the case (I am saying that in a cheery voice. Just picture the smile on my face and the non-whiney voice). One problem is that I can’t convince myself that we’re settled ‘til we have a toilet seat. And that’s not a complaint as I’ve become rather accustomed to not having one (really). It just doesn't seem right to say we’re settled if we’re missing that particular apparatus. I don’t know why, that’s just how I feel. The reason we don’t have a toilet seat is because at some point in time somebody decided that square toilet bowls are fancier/nicer than round toilet bowls. And our fancy (and very black) toilet is one of those fancy ones. Maybe that’s why I don’t mind not having a seat yet, because it just feels fancy:-) Anyway, because our toilet is a fancy one and at the same time an old one, the brand of toilet is rather rare this day and age and hardly anybody carries seats for them. We still don’t have a plan of action but one possibility may be to have a wooden one made and then polished. A few friends who had the same problem were able to find round seats that fit just fine...maybe that’s the easiest answer. Either way I knew that there were many readers out there checking my blog every day just to see if I posted something more about our non-existent toilet seat and so I felt compelled to explain:-)

Actually the above wasn’t planned. What I really wanted to not complain about were the events below. This is what happened…

As Jonathan worked on important things and I only had non-important things to work on I thought, “gee, how nice would it be to hang up these two pictures.”

Being that these frames are black and no room in our house has black in it except our bathroom (with this very black, fancy toilet)…

I decided this would be the perfect spot, just above the fancy toilet! I was partly convinced because there was already a nail in the wall which could hold one frame and one tile underneath would be a perfect spot for another nail, to hold the other picture. I shared my non-important but recent idea with Jonathan who was willing to set aside his important tasks for this one non-important task. He had doubts, yet I guess decided to not voice them to me in order to do something that he knew would make me happy (is he great or what?). So he began drilling what would soon be the hole for the second nail, underneath the already existent nail. “Tudo bem” (everything was good at this point). But then the common sense thought came to him to take out the bent, rusted nail and replace it with a shorter, nicer nail. Seconds later the cry of desperation could be heard clearly on the other side of the house. Apparently the already-existent nail was plugging up a hole in the water pipe which Jonathan thought must have been installed to the side of the already-existent nail since it apparently hadn’t punctured the pipe. We had about 5 or 6 places in the tile wall that were squirting out water as the entire wall filled with water (unfortunately I wasn’t thinking about my blog at this moment and didn’t take a picture of the water spewing wall. Wish I had.)

Since this bathroom didn’t have a shut-off valve in the bathroom (or anywhere else in the house) we had to call a friend to have his son crawl through the tiny opening in the attic to shut off the water valve to our bathroom. Thank you Lord, no more wall-fountains in the bathroom! Even better, the friend we called felt sorry for us so we got a dinner invitation out of the whole thing! And if you think it doesn’t get any better than this (am I trying too hard to be cheery?) Jonathan heard of a way to perhaps fix the pipe without busting out the entire wall and replacing the pipe, so we’re trying that now. This is what our wall above the toilet looks like at the moment…

You can tell by the smile on his face that this picture was taken after the fact.

We’ll find out today or tomorrow if it worked. In the meantime we have water everywhere except the bathroom, which is still functional with one bucket of water next to the toilet and a big bucket of water in the shower. Ah, life is good.

And here's a picture for you, Meg (since you say it's always good to end with a picture of the munchkin). Here she is with one of her many friends (who happen to be boys:-)