The Perils of Bath Rugs

So, this might come as a shock to y'all, but it turns out we have old plumbing.

The Mr. and I got back from a trip, started some laundry, and sat down for a we-just-spent-six-hours-in-the-car meal of pb&js. At some point we became aware of the (not-so-tranquil) sound of falling water coming from the guest bath.  There, we find:

Awesome.  We realize (with relief) that instead of all the nasty things it could be... (I shall allow you time to imagine) .. it appeared, instead, to be "gray water" from the washing machine. It smelled great, actually. "Spring Meadow" Gain, I believe.

Our fears of spilling sewage were then replaced with fears of exploding washing machines, so we went skidding into the laundry room, sure that there was going to be a mess.  Nope again, but the utility sink appeared to be burping suds:

We just stood there for awhile, watching it gurgle. Though the suds eventually disappeared, the contents of the tub did not.  Turns out the pipe that leads away from the washing machine is a smidge too small/not vented well enough for the giant capacity of our washing machine, so if something starts to accumulate (the culprit: a shaggy bath rug was losing pounds of lint, apparently) things in our house start spewing drain water.

Ah, the things you learn.  Also, we had to pay somebody $150 for the 10 minutes it took to stick what looked like a GIANT roto-rooter down the tub drain.

So... what do you do?

• Pay somebody $150 every time this happens
• Widen the drain and add a vent
• Throw out the bath rug

Oops (I guess?)

So we had some excitement yesterday afternoon. The Mr. was out in the backyard eating weeds (or weed-eating, to make him sound less like a goat), and I was making potato salad in the kitchen. Cue sudden and loud WHAP noise, which caused me to look toward the back yard, the Mr. to put down the weed-eater and stare at the house, and the Dog to leave the vicinity. We watched, mouths agape, as large spidery cracks spread in spokes across one of the plate-glass doors in the family room. We both went through a few stages of "Whoa, what?," followed by "Aaaigh! Keep the dog out!", to "Hey, that's kind of cool-looking" once we figured out it was the outside pane of two and that it wouldn't be exploding into shards inside the house. What actually did it, though, is still kind of a mystery. The Mr. thinks the weed-eater may have kicked something up, which is a definite possibility, but he was pretty far away; we've also had a couple of birds smack into these windows, so I guess there's that, though you'd think if a bird hit the window that hard he'd be lying there on the patio seeing stars. Some pictures:

I took those yesterday evening, a couple of hours after it happened. It's actually still cracking this morning--every couple of minutes I hear another little "pop." The Mr. criss-crossed the outer side with packing tape in the hopes of keeping it in bigger pieces, should it fall out of the frame. We read somewhere online that some kinds of safety glass can withstand storm winds without falling out of their frames if they're cracked like this--here's hoping that's the kind we have. Anyway. The glass guys are coming today to see what it is they'll need to do. As long as it doesn't fall out, it's kind of neat-looking--we had some friends by yesterday who hadn't seen the house and actually thought it was crackled on purpose. We were like, "of course it is."

We Bought A House (and a Lizard)

Yep. Came right along with it. Freebie. To best illustrate how we came to know this, imagine the following scenario: THE MR.: "Where did that bill go?" THE MRS.: "Oh, it's in the office. I'll get it--"

LIZARD: "Hey." THE MRS.: (freeze) THE MR.: "Oh, look, a little [insert colloquial term for lizards that I've already forgotten]." LIZARD: "Got any cheetos?"* THE MRS.: (pointing) THE MR.: "... I'll get it." It was deposited on the patio, after which it most surely scampered back inside to wherever it came from in the first place. Before it got a chance:

("'Sup.")

The Captain never noticed. Which was probably a good thing. *As in, "I heard you fed a slug one once."

We Have a House

So, last Thursday, we bought a house. It was a little surreal; there were words, a lot of signing things, some large numbers, more words... and then there were keys. Sitting in the empty house for the first time, knowing it was ours, was pretty exciting. Or scary. Or both. So what do you do with an empty house you can't move into just yet? (The Mr. has a business trip in a few days and we'll move after that.) You start making plans. And going to Lowe's. Now, after spending a bunch of money on stuff we didn't need when we could make 'maintenance requests' of our landlord (and have a glass of wine while we waited for them to show up)... we have begun. Read on--our hope is to document with this blog our first foray into the world of property ownership.