Life Goes On

Yesterday was a great example of how one momentary lapse in judgement can really cause a lot of heartache. When you last heard from us we were celebrating the accomplishment of finishing our sprinklers. But, as my friend, Colin, included in the comments, we may have won the installation battle, but the war with the sprinklers had only just begun.

His profound observation came to fruition much sooner than anticipated. Last week, Amber had some random guy knock on the door letting her know that he just shut off our water in the front yard because it was spraying every where. Judging by the wetness of the dirt surrounding the leak, it must of been quite a bit of water.

Our PVC cracked vertically down the piece that connected the rest of the PVC pipe system to the metal Backflow Preventer. To give you a shortened clean version of a long messy story, I spent all day Saturday sawing, measuring, and gluing. After two trips to the sprinkler store and having to rework my thinking as many times, I triumphantly slid the last two pieces of PVC in place just as the sun dropped behind the western mountains.

Everything fit perfectly. My measurements were exact. My cuts were precise. It all came together so nicely. In my moment of self-congratulatory relief I stood from my work and pulled the lever to bring all the water pressure back into the sprinkler system.

I stood over my accomplishment and felt pride swell inside me as I heard the water rush in to the pipes. Then, in a moment of explosive release I watched as my last two pieces I glued burst apart, showering me with a rush of wetness.

The moral of the story: wait for glue to dry before testing its strength.

The Summer of Sprinklers is coming to a close, and so is the project of setting up irrigation to our yard.

It all started back in July when Amber went in to have her septum worked on. In case you are not aware, the septum is the bone in the back of your nose that divides your nostrils. When your septum is damaged it may close off one of the air passages, making it difficult to breath. This is what led to the operation. For a long time Amber had been laboring to breath through one side of her nose.

But, rather than explain each detail, it is only important to know that she had surgery to correct the problem and I took a week off work to help with things at home while she recovered.

It was during this time that we thought it would be good to start putting in sprinklers, as I would have a bit of free time while Ashley and Amber both slept through out the days.

We started by having someone else dig our trenches. The decision to hire out for such a task was really a no-brainer. Armed with a shovel and load of determination, it would have taken me days - if not weeks - to clear all the dirt. This man with his back-hoe (or skid loader, as my Caterpillar employed father informed me) took all of an hour to do the work. I had no problems writing that man a check.

Under the direction of Amber's boss, Steve, who was a skilled sprinkler-man, I began sawing, priming, and gluing PVC pipes. Slowly, the open trenches were filled with white pipe - sealed irrigation canals, if you will. Power was strung from the control box in the garage out to the two stations of valves. Some digging was still required. Around the buried cable and phone lines in the front yard I had to remove the dirt by hand, careful to not damage the hidden wires.

Due to her condition, Amber was not able to assist with much of the physical labor during the early stages. However, her role would become vital at the end.

In the grand scheme of the whole process, laying pipe and connecting the heads was probably the easiest part. The task that nearly beat me was hooking up the sprinkler system to the water line that poked out from underneath our foundation. I went rounds with that part alone for nearly two weeks.

The first test of pushing water through it resulted in several leaks spraying fluid. At one point I actually dismantled every metal piece and then reassembled the whole ensemble only to discover more leaks. This the lowest of my low points I reached this summer.

In a frustrated rage I rumbled into the house and told Amber that we were calling a professional to hook up the water properly. While I vented and moaned my wonderful wife just smiled and nodded. Before I realized it, we were both back outside tightening some pipe and other pieces, and before long water passed seamlessly from the house through our Stop and Waste, up to our Backflow Preventer, and spewed out the other side. This was a good thing, the Backflow Preventer wasn't attached to anything, yet.

With the water properly hooked up, we quickly laid the rest of the pipe for the front yard and extended pipe to connect the Blackflow Preventer to the main set of valves. If you're confused, please ask questions now as there will be an exam at the end of this.

The glorious moment of truth came yesterday. Everything was connected. All the heads were attached in the proper location. I turned the lever to unleash the water and .... the unfiltered heads gushed with high powered wetness!

We spent Saturday evening heaping dirt back onto the pipes, and with the holiday tomorrow, we should be done and done before I return to work on Tuesday morning.

It has been possibly the most challenging household task, but the rewards of seeing it work - know that we did it - made it all worth it.

We've been home dwellers for just over two weeks now and the house is slowly taking form. In place of piles of boxes we have some furniture placed and even have a few rooms completed. The vast majority of the work has been accomplished by Amber while I've been at work. I've done a few key things, but not enough to claim any credit. It's a good thing that Amber is so organized and efficient or we'd still be living out of boxes if thins were left up to me.

Spending our first dweller weekend in Orem for Stacy's (Amber's sister) baby shower we came home on Labor Day to utilize the holiday for some much needed unpacking.

At least, that was the idea. We didn't actually get out of Utah Valley until around 2pm, getting us back to Cache Valley at around 4pm, so I did the most important task I could think of - get the Internet connection working.

I had connected all the necessary devices together - incoming cable to the modem; modem to the router/switch; switch to where i wanted to use the Internet - but I was having troubles getting the Internet service from Comcast working.

After exhausting all other options the dread of calling technical support was eminent. The numbers were dialed and after the mandatory waiting "while they were working on getting me connected to the next available representative" I had the most amazing experience. The tech support person on the other end of the line was actually helpful. Not only did he resolve my issue he was entertaining to speak with. He shot the breeze while waiting for the process to complete and never once made me feel inferior or stupid. Well done, Mr. Comcast Customer Serviceperson.

As mentioned earlier, I spent much of the rest of that week at work while Amber juggled unpacking, enhancing her motherly relationship with Ashley, and completing her professional duties as accountant for Campus Housing.

My first major responsibility was to hang blinds on each of the 10 windows through out the house. The task sounded simple enough, but that's because I had never hung blinds before.

The first round began Saturday morning. After distributing the boxes of blinds to each window location I started with the smallest window in the house, the master bathroom.

I was surprised at how uneventful the process was. With my budding confidence I attacked the master bedroom. That one was a little tougher - width nearly twice the width - but it went in fairly well.

The directions that came with the blinds were very wrong about one thing, and that is the estimated time it took to hang the blinds. There is no way it takes someone less than 30 minutes. Or, I could be slow. Nah.

I had time to do Ashley's room before calling it a day. Surprisingly, it turned out to be the most crooked job out of the three. I must have been rushing it.

During the week I figured that I could get some more hung by taking advantage of some time in the evenings. At Amber's request I moved to the basement bedroom where she spends most of her days. It was there that I learned that basement windows are made a little differently than other windows.

After several man hours, taken over multiple nights, and drilling over 20 holes in my wall, I came to the conclusion that the blinds as they were currently shaped were not going into that window.

The following Saturday (16 Sep) I set out to finish the task, this time with Ashley as Amber was attending a Relief Society activity with the other women at church. I now have a greater appreciation for how Amber can accomplish what she does during the day.

I enjoyed the time with my daughter, although my blind hanging productivity was affected greatly. I successfully covered the family room window and fixed something I messed up on the master bedroom. Then as I was drilling the holes for the upstairs office I learned that drill bits aren't indestructible.

While burrowing into some dry wall I hit the point where the drill was cutting into wood. As you can imagine, the drill bit was pretty deep into the wall. Something jerked and I shifted - moving the drill sideways - and the bit couldn't take it. With a loud snap three-fourths of the bid stayed in the wall while the rest came out still attached to the drill.

After my attempts of excavating the broken bit from the wall I decided that it can stay where it is. But, if anyone has suggestions on how to retrieve the metal spiral piece I am all ears.

Needless to say, the blinds are winning at this point. Our main floor, with the kitchen and living room is still a fishbowl.

Until next week, enjoy your privacy.

This past week was completely and totally consumed by our very first real move as a family.

I clarify "real" move because our last move three years ago was over two buildings and across a couple parking lots. During that relocation we didn't box a single item, nor did we get a moving truck. Our possessions were carried by hand from one place to the other. A charitable neighbor offered their mini-SUV to cart the furniture and that was it.

This move was a completely different beast.

Fresh off returning from our adventure in Iowa/Illinois we greeted our friends and former neighbors the Billman's (Eric, Betsey, and their son Sam) to stay at our house for a few days. They had just barely relocated themselves to Provo a week earlier but were back so that Eric could tie up some loose ends at his work.

Betsy helped Amber begin the arduous task of collecting our belongings into boxes and wrapping the fragiles to protect them during transit. This task encompassed the entire week, but it was done right as I did very little. Amber smartly labeled each box with a destination as to allow for easy placement once at the house. We found that this also led to easier retrieval of things when unpacking.

Wednesday morning, while I was attaching face plates to all the network outlets I had installed a few months earlier, we received the news that the house was ready for occupancy. With 24 hours to prepare, Amber reserved a truck and we planned on loading up after work on Thursday.

With the help from a few of our neighbors I began to pack the truck around 5pm. It didn't take long to realize we would need to be taking more than one load. When the first load was pilled in one of the neighbors, Richard, said that he would ride in the back to make sure nothing would fall. We all laughed and prepared to make the drive over, but as we waited for him to jump out of the back of the truck so that I could close the door he reiterated that he wanted to ride with all the stuff. Seeing that he was serious I went ahead and pulled the door down and latched it shut with Richard inside.

Arriving at the house, following the 1.5 mile drive, we opened the back door and found Richard smiling and explaining how the truck road differently from the back as opposed to the cab. We unloaded, meeting some nice new neighbors who jumped in to lend a hand, and were back at the old apartment for the second load before we knew it.

When the second load was finally inside the house it was well after 9pm. I called in some pizza as Amber started on unpacking the kitchen and I put our bed together - with the help of our friend Joe Little - so that we would have a place to sleep. Our windows had no coverings, as far as blinds or curtains, but we were too tired to care. We slept in a fish bowl that night and were just glad to get the needed rest.

We awoke to the familiar sounds of Ashley making her morning noises and to the sun beaming through our naked windows. I put in a half day's work before returning to the old apartment to help Amber clean. I also took another truck load of random items - such as barbecue grills and bikes - to the house.

With Joe's help, I returned the truck and went back to the apartment to finish the cleaning. With even more smaller random items we filled our four door sedan which we carted to the house once the cleaning was complete. All that was left in the apartment was the vacuum and a rug that wouldn't fit in the car.

After unloading the car, and dropping Amber and Ashley off at the house, I went back to retrieve the vacuum and rug. Even though I knew the place was clear of evidence that we had lived their I found myself walking through each room one final time briefly thinking about the previous three years.

Shutting the door behind me one last time at the apartment brought the thought of a life chapter - a section of life that can be characterized by sitting between two major events - was definitively ending.

It's now time to turn the page and begin writing a new chapter in a new town, in a new neighborhood, inside our new house.