Friday, January 07, 2005

Drippy Faucets and Debit Cards

Today, finally, the girls went to school, and I got to get out of the house. Yippee! I had the whole day planned: first- get the girls off to school, second - go get my hair cut, and third - go shopping. I hadn't been to the stores since before New Year's, and we were out of alot of stuff. However, about an hour before the girls were set to leave, I got a call from our wonderful church secretary Kathy (and I'm not kidding, she really is a wonderful, neat person) telling me that we got another notice from the City that we were using three times the normal amount of water. We'd had this problem before, and I thought we'd fixed it. Also, she said, no one had been to the building to shovel the snow (our snow removal contractor only does the parking lot) and did I know how to start the snow blower so she could go out and clear the sidewalks? No, I told her, I didn't know anything about the snow blower, but I'd come up and look around to see if I could find the source of our water loss. So I packed up my snow gear and shovel and headed up to the church building after my haircut. When I got there, she told me that Chuck (another really nice member of our congregation) was coming over on his lunch break to blow the snow, and she hadn't been able to find anything leaking. So I did a room by room search, looking for any areas of wet carpet that would indicate a broken waterline in our slab foundation. Fortunately, I didn't find that, nor did I find any water line breaks outside. What I did find was a dripping drinking water faucet in the youth wing, so I had Kathy call our in-house plumber Steve (yet another really nice member of our congregation) and we arranged for him to come and put a shut off valve on the water line until we could get the faucet replaced or removed. While I was out scouting the property for waterline breaks, Chuck showed up and tried unsuccessfully to start the snowblower. He's going to consult with Kelli (another guy who is also really nice) and they'll try to get it fixed.

So with all that done I left to go shopping. First stop, Theisen's, which was having their annual coupon-style stock up sale. I love those sales. I'm a pack rat and a buy-in-bulk-aholic, a trait that I got from my Dad. My Dad used to buy lots of things, especially automotive maintenance fluids, by the case, sometimes multiple cases. I remember several instances of standing in line at Farm and Fleet with two cases of motor oil in my cart and cash in my hand, because their sale limited each customer to just two cases of oil, and that was never enough for Dad. He had all of us kids (and Mom too) in line, and we usually walked away with six to eight cases of oil. I think we even still have some in the loft of their garage. Anyway, off to Theisen's I went, and came away with two carts full of stuff: four cases of soda, a case of windshield washer fluid (hi, Dad!) a bag of oil absorber (ie glorified kitty litter) two bags of dog biscuits, two 50 pound bags of ice melting salt (for the church) two 40 pound bags of solar salt (for my water softener) plus a bunch of little stuff that I kind of tucked in around the big bags and boxes. After loading that in the SUV, I went to Wal-Mart and Fareway (the grocery store) and hurried through them because I was running out of time and had to beat the school bus home. But I still kept up with the theme of bulk buying: a 12 pack of toilet paper (double rolls, of course) three boxes of Kleenex, three boxes of Uncrustables for the girls, plus the other usual groceries. Candy (the SUV) was stuffed with stuff, but I managed to get home and unload the truck before the bus came. All in all, a successful day, with only one minor hitch. In the chaos of the morning, trying to add the church run to my schedule, I forgot to grab the checkbook, so I owe my beautician still for my haircut. Luckily, Joan is a good friend and neighbor who said not to worry about it and to pay her the next time I came. Now I think I'd better end this blog, because it's really long.

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