Chateau V

A lot has been going on here at Chateau V.

As some of you may, or may not know, St. Louis has had the wettest spring on record. And strangely all of this rain started showing up in our basement, in very large amounts. Then last Friday we had a heavy storm and Andrew ran to the basement to see water gushing out of two drains in the basement floor. Gushing so hard that the water blew the grates off of both drains! Ankle deep water filled the basement and Andrew rushed to Home Depot to get a pump to help get the water out. Needless to say, it was a stressful event and we realized that this wasn't a home repair we could ignore. On Saturday morning a very nice man with a very large roto-rooter came and cleaned out our pipe. He said that phosphorous from our laundry detergent built up in the pipe and created a clogged artery of sorts. Such an easy fix for so much worry! Thank you, thank you universe for not being a broken pipe and just a clogged pipe!

The pipe cleaning inspired us to keep the home improvements going and this week we have had some men tuckpointing the front of our house. This is something that has been weighing on my mind a great deal because there were a lot of spots where there was NO MORTAR left between the bricks. These men grinded out the existing mortar and replaced it with new mortar. Despite the HUGE amounts of mortar dusk covering the front (and BACK!) yard I have to say that the front of the house looks much, much better. And now I don't have to lose any more sleep thinking about the front of the house falling down.

The contractor that we found to tuckpoint the house is also helping us get a carpenter and painter to finish some more repairs to the front of the house. We don't have a final bid yet, so I'm not sure how much we will get done but it feels so good to see things getting done.

Mom...the house is going to look beautiful when you come in July!!!

I've been SUPER busy at work the last two weeks, working late and on the weekends. I was also busy coordinating my team for the Relay for Life which was last Friday. We raised over $3500.00 for the American Cancer Society! WooHoo! It was a really fun event, although it was moved indoors and shortened to 6 hours due to severe weather (hello water in the basement!!).

But after so much work and fundraising I am fried. Andrew and I decided that next weekend (our one year wedding anniversary!) will be spent in Chicago. We really want to see the Smart House by Michelle Kaufman, we will also visit my dear friend Rachel, and I'm sure eat lots and lots of good food. Here is to working and playing hard!