Rolling With The Rollercoaster

Well, peeps.

It’s common knowledge that if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.

So...that’s why I’ve been a bit quiet on this here blog for the past week-ish. :(

Life has just been A LOT. 

And it’s been a constant battle to reinforce my mental and physical shields enough to just weather it all, let alone find a way to condense it all for a coherent post that’s not all doom and whining gloom.

So...yeah.

Before we get into all of that, let’s start with the one wonderful bit of forward momentum.

Today, on Day 1 of Week 5, post-winter storm disaster, we had our first step toward putting things back together.

And yeah, sure, it wasn’t an exciting or sexy step, but it was a necessary one, and I’ll take it. 

Insulation.

Now, please, please don’t judge the batting size or type, or ask me why we didn’t upgrade to fancy foam in order to insulate and regulate at the highest level, because the answer is that we discussed and debated and estimated until I turned blue, and in the end, we got what the insulation specialist, the general contractor and the insurance company dictated.

The end.





So...yay, for something—anything—to move the ball forward.

Tomorrow is the final (hopefully) meeting to get cabinets on order.

Dumpster and drywall arrive on site Friday.

And Monday, we launch into a pretty lengthy (apparently, 2-3 weeks) stage of drywall, texturing and painting fun.

Lovely.

I keep telling myself that we’re only about 4-5 weeks from a major leap forward in returning this casa to a much more livable state.

Because after the drywall/texturizing/painting fun will be fireplace rebuilding and then hardwood flooring, baseboards and crown moulding.

And then, at that point, we can move our furniture back in the house and exist downstairs. Woohoo.

So approximately 10 weeks from the initial disaster, life might be far better. And then we’ll be looking at another 4-6 weeks to finalize the kitchen. Because cabinets just take a long time. 

So...if all goes according to plan, by the launch of summer, we could be back to normal. Oye.

I’m going to try, try, try to keep my eye on that prize, but it’s been a very real battle to seemingly swim upstream these past few days. Everything just continues to pile up on us. If it wasn’t all so stressful and depressing, it might be a bit funny.

But it’s NOT.

Like, for example, our major pool expense that I don’t think I’ve really discussed yet on this here blog. Let’s start a separate section for this doozy.

POOL PROBLEM

You might recall that, the day after our burst interior pipe, the pool pump also broke, the water started gushing out, and we lost a decent chunk of the pool water before a very kind and accommodating pool technician was able to come help us fix the broken part in the snow and ice and dark.

Well.

Later that evening, we lost all water service within our area of the city, and remained without access to water for days. So forget about filling back up our pool. We were just scrambling to secure usable drinking water.

Meanwhile, because the water level of the pool was so low, the pump couldn’t circulate, so the pool froze over. And it stayed like that for another few days—during which, a decent bit of the pool plaster was exposed to the extreme elements and began cracking.

This was the plaster cracking in the early stages when it didn’t even look so bad. Fun, yes?

Well.

Anyone with a pool knows that you have to replaster eventually. And we knew our years were numbered with our particular pool (neighbors of similarly-aged pools have faced this issue when recently selling homes).

But the time was certainly NOT NOW.

And if all is normal and the plaster is under water, you don’t typically have these crumbling problems arise, so you can buy yourself some time and save for such a major expense.

But luck was just NOT ON OUR SIDE.

Fast forward to many bids and visits with pool restoration companies (as well as our pool builder) and...yeah. We have to replaster our pool.

And lemme tell you how NOT CHEAP that process is.

If we’d been lucky, and the crumbling area was a bit smaller, they might have been able to repair it. But two things worked against us. 

First: the damaged surface area was just too large to repair, apparently. And it’s just been growing and growing.

And, second: that lovely (not) heinous tint of our pool turns out to be Mountain Stream Green. Fitting, yes? A color that was apparently all the rage when this pool was built by the leading builder in the city back in the day.

But someone should have told them it was not a smart color choice. And just looks like algae (as many visiting contractors and well-intentioned individuals to our home have erroneously pointed out).

Apparently, someone did eventually tell this pool builder it was a poor color choice, and that lovely (not) Mountain Stream Green has long been discontinued. So we couldn’t even repair it to color match if we wanted to.

So.

In addition to EVERYTHING going on in the interior of the house, we are now full steam ahead with a pool restoration process that is so costly—and NOT covered by home owner’s insurance, or the specific pool warranty we continue to carry through the pool builder—that it just makes me nauseous.

I’m trying, trying, trying to look at the positive of a gorgeously restored—and normal tinted!—pool on the near horizon. But it’s hard to swallow such significant costs with that positivity and a smile.

WINDOW PROBLEM

Already, we were lined up to have a few windows replaced on the rear-facing side of the house that withstands the brunt of our significant wind. These windows are so badly sealed and warped from general wear and tear that our curtains move with great gusts of wind, and certain areas of the upstairs could stand in for eerily perfect haunted house soundtracks.

Have I mentioned windows aren’t cheap??

Luckily (please note the massive sarcasm here) Chica noticed a random front-facing window of ours two days ago that had a massive crack down the front that WASN’T there last week.

Joy.

Add that to the list.

GARAGE DOOR PROBLEM

And if all of the above wasn’t enough...let’s add some garage door fun into the mix.

Imagine my delight yesterday in having a garage technician out to see if we might be able to straighten a slightly dented section of the bottom corner of our garage door.

And the answer would have been yes.

If the door didn’t already have a COMPRESSION FRACTURE down the center that will eventually result in a collapse of the door inward and the hinges on either side to no longer be able to sync up and raise the door.

I mean...ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

People.

I’m really not kidding.

And I could go on and on with other fun additions to our stress (like our beverage fridge that malfunctioned and leaked all over our...cement slab last weekend. Ha. Joke’s on the fridge. Could have ruined our flooring. If we had any. But now we have the cost of another appliance to definitely replace when we were hoping, despite the insurance company totaling it, we might be able to keep it around and save the money. 

It’s just A LOT to wade through these days.

And I’m typically only able to boost my morale for a day and then I sink again for a day. Or I make it through the daylight hours in tact, then my mood tanks after dark when the hubby and I have to reconvene and haggle out a million details.

So...it’s just a constant loop of exerting a lot of effort just to keep myself even keel.

God Bless my babies, who were totally game to be my watchful “assistants” on Monday, when I just needed to HACK AWAY at something to work out some anger.

So I got out my shears and started dismantling the giant shrubs by our garage that died during the storm. Until I’d cut them completely back (to hopefully regenerate).

I felt a little insane-in-the-membrane doing it. But it also got some angst out. And saved me a freaking dollar from having to bring my lovely yard guy out to do it for me!

Here are some poor pics of the shrubs before the hacking...

And here’s the pile of debris (that was taller and wider than all three of my kiddos, times two)...

And here are the stumps after, ha. Along with the A/C units that are no longer hidden. Boooo. My fresh mulch that I put down. Yay. And my new Manny the Mandevilla plant. Welcome, friend.



Tomorrow, I hope to post about more positive vibes, like my really solid and lovely day with my boy.



Until then...

Stay healthy, STAY SANE, peeps.

And I’ll try to do the same.

Over and out. 

Oh—and happy St. Patrick’s Day. Ha.