Continuing Woes

We made it to the conclusion of a not-so-restful weekend and are now facing a new week.  The good news is- we are back to just our family.  (Hooray!)  The not-so-good news is our floor is as bad as we feared it was.

Saturday we bit the bullet and ripped out the kitchen flooring.  Pergo is supposed to be a "floating floor," meaning it should just clip in and clip out.  Imagine our surprise to find the boards glued to each other, although thankfully not to the sub floor beneath.  Getting the flooring out required a lot of tugging and hitting it to break the planks apart.

 This was 5 days after the leak.  The pad under the floor was still soaked, so out it came.

 We loaded all the flooring into Ryan's truck, and hauled the broken dishwasher to meet its fate at the dump.  You horrible, beastly machine.

 Well, that's certainly an attractive floor.  Those blue strips are extra layers of blue padding to fill in where there is no plywood.  That seems.... not quite right.

 As we are replacing the whole kitchen floor and the front room also has an area of the Pergo flooring, out it came too.  The color we picked out was not going to match, and we might as well just do it all.

But this hardwood floor was underneath the Pergo in the front room.  It's full of holes.  I want to find whoever was responsible for the holes, shake them and ask, "What on earth were you thinking??!?!"  It was probably a beautiful floor once.

 So, the dishwasher is gone, and with it my overpriced drying rack for when I washed dishes last week.  After much research, Ryan and I came to an agreement on what kind of dishwasher we wanted and had the color picked out for the new laminate flooring.  Oh, and I put the sample of the flooring into a bowl of water for 3 hours to see if it is as water resistant as they claimed.  I was impressed.  All we were waiting on were Simon and Charlotte's parents to come claim their children so we could go buy those things.

Ryan and I were both under the impression at the beginning of the week that Michael and Blair would be back mid-day Friday.  Simon and Charlotte were eagerly anticipating seeing their parents Friday.  Mid-day turned to landing at 9 pm ("After your bed time guys, sorry!"), and that turned into 11 pm or midnight, which then turned into noon on Saturday.  The hurricane on the east coast was responsible for most of the changes, but not the one that changed the time from mid-day Friday to Friday night. (I'm still not sure what was the cause for change there.) Mentally, I was prepared to make it to Friday afternoon as the ending to that part of my extra challenging week.  So were my kids.  They had been particularly helpful and uncomplaining of the extra work, and Ryan and I promised them a treat once their cousins left.  Looking back, that maybe was the wrong strategy to employ.  It was a blow to all of us; no Friday cousin removal, no Friday night treat.  Simon and Charlotte were also upset.  Every time we had to tell them their parents were going to be later (and later, and later), there was some emotional upheaval and meltdowns.  We were all counting the minutes.

After many flight plan changes, Michael left Blair and their baby at the Salt Lake airport (that's their home airport, and it had been a long trip for them already) and flew to Pasco by himself.  He finally drove in at 2:30 pm. 

Insert Halleluia Chorus here.

25 minutes later, Ryan and I were off in his truck to go buy the new dishwasher and floor.  Lowe's website said they had two of those particular dishwashers in stock and we were excited to start fixing the floor.  This is what we are looking at.  Isn't that old linoleum just lovely?  And it smells.  I don't know why, but old linoleum that has been hidden away smells terrible.  We experienced that at the house we bought before this one.  Gross, gross, gross.  The mold isn't helping matters either.

 I should have known it wouldn't be that easy.

For one, it was tough to get someone to help us.  Maybe it was because Ryan and I were wearing our very best I-just-ripped-out-flooring clothes, which were stained from previous house projects.  Maybe we had the air of people who drove an '88 Mazda pick-up 30 miles to get there.  No A/C + open windows = amazing hair, pony tail or not.  I'm sure we were looking a little white trash-y and therefore not enough money to spend on appliances?  I don't know.

Once we got help, the fellow went in the back to track down one of the two dishwashers.  And we waited.  And waited.  Finally Ryan told another employee that we were going to look at flooring and would be back.  We really did want to buy the dishwasher.

Once at the flooring section, we couldn't find the color we wanted in stock.  Oh, see that tag?  That means it's special order only.  It's going to be a couple of weeks before it comes in.  So we got the flooring ordered (after more waiting and hoping for some employee to take us seriously), and the fellow charged with finding the dishwasher found us.  (Yay!  Some initiative!)  Only, the two the computer said they had in stock wasn't, in fact, a fact.  So, we got the dishwasher ordered too, and it should probably arrive this week.

That outing was turning out less productive than we had hoped.

Before going home, we swung through Krispy Kreme to buy a dozen donuts.  We still owed the kids a treat.  But our luck held, and it was forever before we were helped (the drive through has priority), and even longer for the employee helping us to get his transaction register unlocked by another employee.  My stony expression must have been pretty fierce, because we got two free donuts for the wait.

Thank goodness for tender mercies.  And yes, free donuts are tender mercies.

We came home to our stinky house, and I was feeling so glum.  Nothing was going right.  (Except for the free donuts.)  My kitchen looks horrible, and I am now lacking even a drying rack for dishes with the dishwasher gone.  My front room looks like this:

We had to take the door off the pantry and empty a couple of shelves in there so we could pull out the flooring.  The fridge and wall moulding and tools are all out in the front room, and I was without the will and energy to do anything about it.  The whole house was a mess, and our company was still about.  (I'm not saying Michael didn't need a nap, but selfish me really wanted any tiny little bit of my sanity restored.)

At least there was this to cheer me up.  Donny Osmond has yet to fail making me laugh with what we like to refer to as "Dad Dance Moves" in this Weird Al outtake.

Sunday morning arrived, and with it Sunday morning meetings.  I was feeling emotionally wrung out from the weekend that wouldn't go right.  What I really wanted was to snuggle with my husband and family, and pretend that the rest of the world didn't exist for the day.  But there was church to attend, a lesson to teach, and a good example to set for the girls.  You go even when you really would rather not.  You support your husband doing his calling, even when you'd rather not.  My one rebellious move was to not attend Teacher Counsel.  Instead I watched the new Primary presidency try to get through their first practice of the Primary sacrament meeting program.  

Maybe others are having a worse day than I am.  That looked exhausting.

Ryan called his parents after church to see how their cross country trip is progressing.  When it was our turn for telling news, our kitchen fiasco earned one "Oh boy" and Michael driving his kids back to Utah alone all night earned a "Poor Michael!  That sounds like a miserable trip back from the east coast. I bet he's awfully tired.  I hope his wife lets him take a nap."

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Now that I've unloaded my many complaints, I'm feeling much better.  Yes, this kitchen situation stinks.  Yes, there is a lot more work to be done.  And yes, it's going to be a while before we get back to normal.  But is it the end of the world?  Nope.  Ryan and I merely have another project to do, and we have handled most things the house has thrown at us.  We make a good team.  And in the end, I think we are going to be so glad we finally replaced our floor.