Love Letters from the City

Nobody enjoys love letters from the city.  We happen to have received 2 this past month.  The first one was about our tree, it needs trimmed some more.  Okay fine, annoying but no big deal.  The second love letter from the city was that we had a leak in our water pipes that run underground to our house and we were given a deadline of fixing it in 2 weeks or else they were shutting our water off.  That is always great mail to receive!  NOT!

After taking in all facts and consideration, we decided we aren't going to find and fix the leak, we were going to put in a whole new water line.  We didn't like the 'what ifs' of patching a leak(s).  It would be one thing if we weren't going to be in this house for awhile but we really like it here and at this time we have a 5+ year plan to stay in this house.  So might as well just put in a new line and then we never have to deal with the situation again.

It was a little crazy the day it all happened.  We had probably 10 guys in and out of our house all day,  heavy machinery in the front yard, a huge hole in our yard and a smaller hole in our basement,  lots of rain to contend with that day (which then made for mud getting tracked inside), forgetting to close the air vents upstairs so lots of dust made it's way over everything on the main floor, lots of deep cleaning, and oh ya our old water line got struck before the water got shut off so we had a water burst in our basement.  :)  Overall though, I think it went really well despite all those small things.  (With the water being shut off for most of the day it also meant no flushing #1's and you just hope a #2 doesn't hit you unexpectedly -- a little added humor for your reading pleasure).

Aaron's friend, Jason, is such an awesome friend.  He has helped out tremendously with cordinating everything, jumping right in to work and getting us the best deal as he has lots of resources since he owns his own construction company.  Aaron met him thru a class at church earlier this year and then they joined the same small group.  Such a great guy who goes out of his way to help a friend.  Blessed to have such great friends!  

One thing that was surprising was I really wasn't stressed out thru all of this.  Normally something that is costing us thousands of dollars would have me in a tizy. Of course I thought it was annoying and I was far from ecstatic about it all but I just didn't let it get to me.  And really not letting it get to me was not something I had to control really, it just happened naturally.  It is what it is and you realize that thru other experiences that this is not a big deal and getting worked up about something such as this is a waste of time.  Sometimes you have to find the positives in everything that seems to be negative.  The positives I defined were everyone completed the job safely, the guys seem to be working together really well, everyone who entered our house was kind and friendly, Aaron was with the guys all day watching and helping where needed so I think he got some good insight on the project.  But in the end, we made it thru it all and the city signed off on it yesterday.  YEAH!  Another unique life experience under our belt!