What a Week: Part 2

Greetings from the frozen tundra of the South!  Hahaha.  What a week indeed!  Like so many others, we were blasted over the last few days with a polar vortex.  While we are safe and warm and well -- and VERY grateful -- we did not escape completely unscathed from the insanely freezing temperatures.

When Monday dawned cold and bright, we soon discovered it was a little TOO cold in the house.  Upon coming downstairs that morning, we noticed that the thermostat was struggling to keep up.  The temperature in the house -- both upstairs and down -- continued to drop throughout the morning and into the afternoon as we tried to figure out what the issue was.  Thankfully -- after Scott fiddled around with turning everything off and then on again -- the thermostat finally started going back up, and by later that afternoon, we had almost completely rebounded from our 50 degree inside weather. 

Yes -- I wore that headband all morning, along with a sweatshirt, wrapped up in blankets, and using my electric foot warmer.  It was COLD!!

Tuesday, however, brought a new surprise!  Hahaha.  While I was in the kitchen making a King Cake in honor of Mardi Gras, Scott discovered that our piano room was flooding.  The culprit?  A burst pipe.  Yay!  I mean, doh!  THANKFULLY, we caught it early enough that we were able to move everything out of the room and out of harm's way before any more water came spilling down.  While Scott and Ethan tried to figure out where to turn off the main waterline, the rest of us were able to get buckets placed and towels laid just in the nick of time to deal with the water that was now streaming through our overhead light fixture.  And I do mean we got there in the nick of time!!  We were able to unhook the giant glass "bowl" surrounding the light bulbs almost immediately after it began to fill with water, and I'm sure we saved it from getting so heavy that it would have ripped the whole fixture out of the ceiling! 

I've finally given up trying to find the perfect copy cat recipe for my childhood favorite McKenzie's Bakery King Cake and tried a different one this year.  It was a hit!  I think we'll be using this one each time in the future.  I found the winning recipe HERE.

Unfortunately, this afternoon brought another burst pipe -- this time with water flooding into the opposite corner of the same room!  While driving Alex home from OT this afternoon, I got a call from Ethan saying that water was seeping up through the floor and also leaking on the outside of the wall where we have a spigot on our front porch.  Womp womp.  Despite having all the other faucets on throughout the house for the last few days, we still ended up with another burst pipe.  Double DOH!  Haha.  Again -- thankfully -- it was caught early enough that I don't think there will be too much damage.  

We have this floor drying vacuum suction mat thing-y going on in the piano room and it is so loud I feel like I'm losing my hearing.  And it's giving me a giant headache.  We'll all be glad when it's done doing its job.

Kind of a fun shot from the top of the stairs.  It certainly is strange having the piano in the front hall!

Meanwhile, the kids have had snow days for pretty much the whole week, and I for one am GLAD that the schools didn't turn them into virtual learning days!  If a kid doesn't have a snow day to look forward to on the rare occasion that it snows in the South, what are we even doing???  Amiright?  Hahahahaha.  We're all pretty good at being lazy around these parts (except for maybe Ethan), so the freezing temps and burst pipes were nicely tempered with the luxury of sleeping in, watching lots of television, playing video games, and generally doing nothing.  What a time to be alive!  Hahaha.

So, there you have it -- what a week, part 2!  Hopefully NEXT week will prove less eventful.  Hahahaha.  Until next time...