The moving process proceeds, but not without some speed bumps.
Screen
Today has been a non-stop affair. As soon as I was up this morning, I
went to the Jubilee grocery/hardware store in Hyrum and bought a screen
installation tool and a length of screen. I came home and fixed the screen
on the kitchen sliding door.
I had never installed or repaired a screen before. It's actually a lot
easier than I thought it would be. I think it would have been easier if I
hadn't chosen to reuse the rubber strip around the screen frame. I'm sure
a new strip would have been a lot softer and easier to work with. But, it
worked and now nobody can complain it's not done.
Plumbing... not for me
Part of finishing our downstairs bathroom, of course, is plumbing.
Months ago (maybe years ago), my dad and I roughed in the plumbing for the
hot and cold water to go to vanity sink, toilet (cold only, of course), and
tub/shower. Since then, I've attached valves for the vanity sink and the
toilet. To hook up the tub/shower, however, was a more complicated
process — far more complicated than anything I've ever tackled
before.
On Tuesday, I was hoping to get the bathroom done. It
wasn't long before I realized I was being way too optimistic. At the end of
the day, I vowed never to finish another bathroom during the rest of my
life. There are places that advertise a complete new bathroom installation
or remodel in three days or less. I'm probably closing in on three years
here.
Anyway, I managed to get the copper pipes over to the valve assembly
(some cheap single-handle valve) and the pipes up to the shower head and
down to the faucet. But I was having trouble soldering the hot water line
because there was still water in the line. The pipe won't get hot enough
with a torch to melt the solder and it won't seal. I resoldered one piece
of the pipe between two elbows a couple times trying to get it to seal, but
every time I'd turn the water back on after, water would spray out of one
of the elbow joints.
It was getting late — probably around 10 p.m. or so — so I
called my parents' and asked if someone could come up and help me. I didn't
really expect anyone to come up, but I was SO frustrated at that point. My
brother was there and he talked to me. He told me about a trick he knew
about where you shove some bread up into the pipe and it stops the water
long enough for you to complete the solder weld.
I tried resoldering the piece again with the bread trick. It didn't
work. I called my brother back. He told me I needed to clean the pipes real
good. He suggested sandpaper. By this point, I had about three inches of
solder left, so I called Chadd and begged him to go buy me some solder. While I
waited for Chadd, I cleaned the ends of all the pipes and the insides of
all the elbow connections. When Chadd arrived, I put everything together,
inserted more bread, soldered it all up, let it cool, and turned on the
water...
Steaming hot water sprayed out of the bottom of the bottom of the elbow.
Ooooh. I was pissed.
I had a job interview the next morning in Utah Valley and had almost
forgotten about it. Once I remembered it, I was really freaking out. How
was I going to get this stupid hot water line fixed before I left? How was
I going to take a (warm) shower before I left?! How was Christine going to
do anything without hot water?!
So, I decided to e-mail my interview contact and ask him if we could
reschedule the interview. Christine was not happy about
that. She said it was too important — more important than hot water.
I then argued that I just didn't feel up to the stress of a job interview
after the stress I'd dealt with working on the bathroom. This was
frustrating for Christine and she said some not-nice things to me.
I didn't know what to do. Christine suggested she could call a plumber
in the morning to finish the project. I thought about this for a while and
decided it was a good idea.
So, I got up early Wednesday morning (with only 3-4 hours of sleep) and
drove to my parents' house. There, I showered and changed into some nice
clothes for my interview. Christine called a plumber who came around noon
and fixed everything. Everyone came out okay in the end, I guess.
Packing in the packages we packed
Last night around 1 a.m., my brother brought his large horse trailer up
and parked it in our driveway so we could fill it up with stuff.
Today, Christine's dad came up with his truck. Then, my parents came up
pulling a flatbed trailer behind their Explorer. We put our couches on the
flatbed and Christine's dad took the couches to Brigham City where they
were going to be stored in Christine's sister's basement.
Meanwhile, we started filling the horse trailer with stuff.
Lucy's fall
Maya and Lucy thought the horse trailer was a neat thing. They ran in
and and out of it. They played “jail” in it. They ate nuts in
it. They drew on paper in it. It was like a big playhouse today before we
started putting stuff in it.
Lucy liked to sit on the wheel fender step of the trailer and swing her
feet back and forth. It was cute. I wish I had gotten video of her. She
looked so content just sitting there.
Tonight, while we were loading boxes into it, we had a piece of plywood
set up as a ramp so we could roll a dolly up into the trailer. The kids
started going up and down the ramp with the scooter and Lucy's pink sit-on
car.
They were having a lot of fun going up and down the ramp. They were
yelling and laughing a lot about it — a little too much, actually. I
told Maya I thought she was getting too excited and they needed to settle
down. “Why?!” she asked me... like she always does every time I
tell her just about anything.
Not two minutes after that, I heard Lucy crying. I turned around to see
her on her back on the driveway concrete with her sit-on car under her. It
looked like she had tipped back onto her back and probably hit her head.
She was crying pretty hard. She was about two or three feet from the ramp,
so either she fell off the back end of the trailer (which was about a 8-10
inches off the ground) or she was going down the ramp and veered off the
side and lost control. In any case, she was hurt and was crying.
I ran over to her and asked her if she was okay. She was crying too hard
to answer me. That told me it was more serious. I put my arms under her and
pulled her up. She quit crying but she felt like she was gearing up to
really wail hard. Then she leaned into me. I carried her up into the garage
to the kitchen door. When I got to the door, I reached out with one hand to
open the door and felt Lucy start to fall away from me. I caught her neck
and shoulders with my free hand and looked at her. She was unconcious. Her
eyes were half closed and her body was totally limp.
This was freaky.
I walked into the house. Christine and my parents were busy taping up
boxes and packing things into boxes.
“Help!” I said loudly. It was all I could think to say.
Noone responded. Either they didn't hear me or didn't think a call for
“help” was worth responding to.
“Help!” I said again. No change. The continued to talk and
work. I felt invisible.
“HELP!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. That caught their
attention... and Lucy's too. She started to come to, her eyes opened up,
and she started to move around. My mom took her and held her. There was a
quick conversation and it was decided we should take her to the hospital.
I asked my parents to watch Maya while we took Lucy to the hospital. My
dad followed me out to my car and said we should take Maya. “You
could be gone TWO HOURS!” he said like it was clearly too much to ask
to think he would watch Maya for up to two hours while we took care of
Lucy.
So, I told Maya to get in the car and we left. Christine got in the back
to keep Lucy awake and calm. Lucy seemed normal when we got to
the hospital. The doctors and nurses thought so too and discharged her
after an hour or so of observation. They also gave her a popsicle to see if
she would vomit (which is a common in children after they hit the head hard
enough to get a concussion). She didn't vomit.
The hospital nurse was impressed with Lucy and said she (and Maya) was
very well behaved. They gave us some tips on things to watch for and told
us to call if any unusual symptoms came up.
While Lucy was being examined and observed, I took Maya down to the
vending machines. We got some Reeces Pieces and a couple drinks. We did
some arithmetic with the candy on the table. She loves doing that and I
love teaching her math.
It was about 11 p.m. when we got back home from the hospital. Christine
put the girls in bed while I taped some garbage bags up around the horse
trailer to keep any rain out of it.
When I came back in, I went downstairs to my office to do some more
packing. As I was sitting there on the floor going through miscellaneous
stuff, I started getting a little choked up. Holding Lucy's unconcious body
in my arms was so weird... and scary. I just thought about how terrible it
was that she got hurt bad enough to black out like that. On our way home, I
thought it may have a been a bad move on my part to even move her after she
got hurt. Hopefully, I won't have to deal with that again... but if I do, I
hope I can be more safe.
Lucy has always seemed so fragile to me. Maya seems indestructable by
contrast. Lucy is so sensitive and so tender both emotionally and
physically, I can't help but worry more about her than Maya. So, it was
just a hard experience for me to go through - seeing her get hurt like
that.
