Settling in and Questions for you

Now that I am going to be settled in at home for the next few months, I hope to finally catch the blog up with fun pictures and tales from my trips this year.
There are also some exciting changes on the home front, as we finally got our new carpet installed in the basement on Monday, after two months with one third of our home unusable. It will be great to get furniture out of the garage and into the new space (and to get my car into the garage again, finally!!....it really stunk to have to clean snow off my car last month; I'm out of practice since the car lived inside most of last year).
Currently, I also have high hopes of doing some painting. This week's new home based challenge is choosing a new water heater and who will install it. Not decorative, I know, but it's the reality of being a home owner and it does offer some interesting tax rebate opportunities as we become more energy efficient. Does anyone have experience with purchasing water heaters out there? Does an energy efficient heater = shorter showers because we will run out of hot water faster? And I'm debating hiring a plumber vs using Lowe's for istallation. The plumber was very nice but almost $400 more expensive. Lowe's has a couple of cons on the list but plenty of pros, as well.
And finally, I am also interested in merging my travel life into my home life. How do I aim to do this? I'm going to hang a hammock!!!!! It's so symbolic to me of relaxation (and I helped the hammock man in Costa Rica weave part of one, which was really cool). Not being the most spatially inclined person, I am a bit overwhelmed by the finding of studs in a condo basement to secure my hooks into. And if I am unable to hang the hammock in the basement as I dreamed of, where else can a hammock live inside? PS, Hubby told me to hang it in the garage. Really?? Am I really going to hang next to my car in the freezing cold reading a book? Now you probably understand why I take girl trips:)

A Crappy Story with a Happy Ending

I haven't written in far too long and I have lots of great excuses.
On Saturday September 17th, I had fun plans. I woke up and was getting ready for the lovely day ahead when I smelled something funky. The hunt to locate the cause began. My nose led me to the basement where I stepped onto the carpet. But it was wet. Not damp. Wet. (Pic 2)
My first thought was to blame it on a cat but another step revealed a wet spot much larger than a domestic house cat could produce. A few more steps, heading toward the laundry room, and I found a small pond. Stream might be a better word for it because, as my brother came over and showed me, it actually was running water, bubbling from the place where the wall and the floor met. Super.
Long story of a hard day made briefer, the town had to come out and shut off water to my whole building. The condo maintenance man had to ask neighbors if he could connect our building to their water sources. Fast forward to Monday. The rug is now getting really stinky. Men had to come back into my house to jackhammer a hole in the cement next to my washing machine. This began at 7:30 am, by the way. What a great start to the week.
I think I have neglected, to this point, to mention that this week was already very chaotic because work has been blowing up AND I had plans to go out of the country on Friday.
So I spent the week trying to call my home owner's insurance, the condo association, and an assessor to come figure out the mess, what to do with it and who would pay for it.
At the same time, mind you, I was trying to wrap up my cases at work to be away for a week and to launch a new cycle of support groups to start in my absence. That involves calling over 50 people, coordinating facilitators and helping to figure out childcare.
Oh, and I had to try to do laundry in the crazy yucky basement so I could pack for a week away. And we had to clear the basement of all its belongings: a couch, a tv, etc, as well as my entire food storage collection.
On the day I left on my trip, one person came in to rip out the carpet (top pic). Other people came to set up huge fans. On the day I got back, I finally met with the assessor, though it will take another week and half to get a quote of how much they will cover.
So now my job is to find a contractor to come look at my walls and give me an estimate of how much it will cost to fix them. I also have to price out new carpeting for the finished basement. Will they cover the stairs, too? Or will I be cursed with red stairs and tan carpet on the floor?
Here's the good news.....I went on a cruise to Bermuda with my hubby, my mother and father and a couple of my dad's friends. It was my first time in Bermuda and it was my parent's first cruise. Actually, it was my mother's first time out of the country. She had never even been to Florida. When we got off the boat, she was excited to see her first palm tree.

I will post more pictures of Bermuda, the cruise and all the other good stuff but the happy ending to the crappy story is that despite all the drama that kept me away from blogging and brought me to tears a couple times, I realized how spoiled I am. I have seen and experienced so much. More even than my parents have had the opportunity to see and do. Isn't that what parenthood is all about? Making sure your children have better options than you had? I'm so lucky that I have had the resources to go on the trips and do the home improvements and other fun things that I am able to write about in my blog. And I'm grateful that you read about all of it!!