Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree…

….How naked are your branches.

In fact, I don’t even have my Christmas tree down from the attic. Christmas is my most FAVORITE time of year and I don’t even have my tree up yet. That’s right—not a single decoration is out at my house except for my Mary Englebright Christmas magnets holding the schedule for ABC Family’s 25 Days of Christmas.

Of course there’s an explanation why. I’ll wait while you grab your cup of coffee. This is a good one and you won’t want to miss a single moment of the story.

It all started Saturday morning. I woke up early with full day planned--head to the gym, finish my Christmas shopping, put out the decorations, wrap the presents, listen to Christmas music, watch a few Christmas movies…you get the idea. I’m sure your Saturday and Sunday were filled with similar activities. (I’m a little jealous.)

So, after waking up and getting ready for the gym, I went out the front door to see if I would need a jacket before heading out for a day full of errands. And that’s when I saw it. A little spring of water bubbling from my front yard. The sidewalk was wet and there was a steady stream of water flowing down the street. Weird, I thought. It hasn’t rained. No one else’s lawn was wet. We don’t have a sprinkler system—so WHY on earth is my lawn bubbling over with water?

I hot footed it to my garage to get a shovel and see if I could locate the problem. I dug a small hole where I saw the water bubbling and it filled right up. I dug a few more holes and they filled up as well. Then I knew. We had a leak in the plumbing.

Why? Why today? Why now? Oh please not today! Didn’t our house know we reached our plumbing quota with the water pipe disaster?

There was nothing more I could do on my own, so I headed to the gym to find Kelly and tell him of the recently discovered DISASTER waiting for us in the front yard. I finished working out while he headed home to assess the situation. He called me when I was leaving the gym and said we would have to call my Dad because there was nothing more he could do.

So, I called Dad. He’s saved our lives more than a few times this year. One being the water pip disaster. Another being the air conditioning unit rescue (which I’ve yet to blog about, but I will.) He was on his way out of town, but he gave me strict instruction on what to do to troubleshoot (a.k.a. find out if the leak was coming from the plumbing or from underneath the house. Oh please, Lord, don’t let it be from under the house!) I quickly called Kelly to relay the message, only to hear him tell me he’s locked himself out of the house, and I would need to come home to let him back in. (How did my husband manage to lock himself out of the house? I have no idea, but he did.)

Once I arrived, we did what Dad suggested and were able to find that the leak was in the pluming (PTL (Praise the Lord) it wasn’t under the house!!) It was now time to dig, dig, and dig some more until we found where the leak was coming from. This wasn’t an easy task as our soil is clay and can become VERY heavy after hours shoveling. So, I did what any normal female would do—I set out to run my errands and left Kelly to dig the hole. Three and a half hours later (it’s now 7:00 p.m. and dark outside) I return home to find Kelly and two of our neighbors still going strong out front. Our neighbors, providing moral support more than anything, helped Kelly pinpoint the problem and successfully (or so we thought) find the source of the water leak. Kelly cut out several HUGE roots, dug through the clay soil, and was covered from head to toe in mud when I arrived. Because the clay soil was so slippery he was sliding down the front yard in his mud soaked sneakers, and wasn’t able to get leverage to dig the hole any further—so we called it a night. Poor thing was EXHAUSTED! We could finally rest easy knowing all of his efforts would soon be rewarded on Sunday morning when my Dad could come help us locate and repair the cracked PVC pipe. Until then, we had to live with the water shut off to the house. Do you realize how often you use running water? Well, you sure don’t realize it until you don’t have it any more.

8:00 am came all too early on Sunday morning. My Dad come over early because the forecast said it was going to rain, and we definitely didn’t need any more water to deal with. Once he arrived we were able to dig deeper into the hole, use his electric tree cutter, plunger, and all the necessary tools to FINALLY find the hairline crack in the 20 year old PVC pipe! Hallelujah! In an hour and a half we had that thing repaired and were on our way piecing our front yard back together. In her true “supporter, encourager, I’m here to cheer you on” fashion, my Mom arrived just in time with reinforcements (a.k.a. sausage balls) and my brother (not wanting to miss out on the action) wasn’t too far behind her. By noon we had everything washed off, cleaned up and put away. I was too exhausted after that to tackle another project, so I passed on putting up the tree.

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for:

• A husband who is strong, calm, and patient. (As they say—opposites attract!!)
• A father who is willing to drop everything to come over and help this young couple as they learn how to deal with the joys of home ownership.
• A mother who always knows your biggest need is support (and food!)
• A brother who is willing to help.
• Nosey neighbors who stand by your side for hours on end to help you see a project to completion.
• Indoor plumbing and running water!!
• (And a puppy who, no matter what you're dealing with, will love you and just wants to play!)

Next up, Mr. Cooper turns 1 and has a birthday party!

On a completely different note, I’m about 90% finished with my Christmas shopping and plan to start wrapping the gifts tonight! I can’t believe it’s already December 1. 24 days until Christmas!