My Man the Plumber

This guy is awesome. Not only is he an aspiring urban farmer, self-taught carpenter, electrician, tiler, fence builder/installer, and all other things construction, he also is a husband, dad to two kids and ten chickens and dog, and finally, a plumber. 

I've been doing dishes in my bathtub for a few days now. 

It's not a thrill, let me tell you. For some reason, seeing noodle remnants and chunks of spaghetti sauce floating around in my bathtub just makes me never want to shower in there again. 

Anyway somehow or another, the kitchen sink drain clogged a few days ago. I, wanting to be the heroic DYI wife who can take care of man problems like this, gave forth my best efforts. Drain-o and a plunger. 

No luck. Still clogged. 

Eric got back from work, assessed the situation, and started removing pipes. Now realize, our house was built in 1914. That's 99 years ago. Crazy, right? So neither of us were really surprised when he removed the main pipes and they kind of crumbled in his hands....

Two evenings, a few trips to the hardware store, a pipe router and some new pvc piping later, he found the clog. EIGHTEEN FEET INTO THE PIPES. It turned out that there was a huge mass of hair/yarn/fur/weird gunk that had built up and finally plugged the piping. And who knows how long it had been building up in there! Eric broke through it with the router and the mass finally broke up and washed through. Gross, right? 

The bad news is that I still have a lot of dishes to wash. The good news is that Eric is now installing a food disposer in the sink, so a future clog can never be my fault. :-)

My man is mister multi-talented. And he has great hair. Or as he says, "How can you resist me with my luscious locks?" Yup. Glad to have him around. 

On another note, my family is finally back in the good ol' USA for six months and I have their dog. More on this soon. And on even another note, Chicago is completely flooded from all the crazy storms we have had the last two days. Our basement is dry (whew), but boy, is the city wet! I kind of wish we had a canoe about now... Needless to say we are staying away from the river (the fire department is sand bagging) for a while and are staying dry in the house and thanking our lucky stars that I covered the box gardens when I did. 

More on on these topics at a later time. I have a date with this quiet house and this comfy couch.