week in review

life is busy. lots of things are going on, but the last seven to ten days have been especially busy and eventful. 

my parents came in to spend some time with us last weekend ( 4 nights / 3 days to be exact). we haven’t had that kind of quality time in quite a while, and the visit was wonderful. they stayed with us at our new-to-us old farmhouse (circa 1910).  though this is the smallest house my Joe and I have had, we were never running over each other, and we somehow coordinated 4 grown adults in and out of one bathroom. 

it was lovely being tourists in our new hometown. there were a few must-do’s on the list, and we successfully hit about 3 major sights / activities a day, including Smoky Mountain National Park (and Cades Cove), Gatlinburg, getting fried apple pies & cider at The Apple Barn, and the permanent Titanic exhibit in Pigeon Forge. we also had a bit of downtime and just enjoyed hanging out at the house. 

while my parents were here, our washer appeared to start leaking. so once mom and dad got on their way, we had a repairman get on his way to the house. turns out the washer was not leaking. always be careful how you pray... we prayed it wasn’t leaking... it wasn’t.. but the culprit was much bigger than we could have anticipated. 

the drain that the washer drained into was backing up. we don’t know why all of a sudden this became an issue, but it did. and we then found out that we had antique plumbing. it was pretty common back in the day to not route your washer to the septic/sewer system, but to route the pipe underground and have it dump out somewhere in the yard. nice. so after three and a half hours of being befuddled, the plumber finally figured out what was going on. and he had to come back the next day to repipe the line into the septic/sewer. an expense we definitely didn’t plan on. 

the day before mom and dad got here, our cantankerous curmudgeon of a beagle/basset mix had to have surgery to take a tumor off of his paw. he was bandaged up and seemed to do well for the first few days. until the plumber showed up. while he was here, and immediately after my Joe got home from work, Bailey decided to chew through his bandage and pull his stitches out. so off to the vet we went! we came home and thought all was well for a while.... then on Friday, in a fit of boredom / itchiness / temper mismanagement, he ate the bandage. as in ingested. as in couldn’t be found anywhere in the house and had to be in his belly. that revelation was discovered at two o’clock in the morning. praying that he wouldn’t need surgery (because i was close to making the call of just not bringing him home period -- it was 2am, i was exhausted and not thrilled about any part of the situation), we watched him closely and waited it out. (probably not the smartest call in hindsight, but we’re all okay.) sunday, as my Joe and I are getting ready for church, I saw Bailey in a posture that meant something was up. and it was. all over my carpet. a one to one and a half pound sausage roll of vomit. the bandage encased everything he had eaten the last two days. (at least it was easy to dispose of). so thankful it came out that end and not get tied up in his intestines, which it easily could have. (and he is fine, we’ve watched and he has passed all traces of bandage stuff.)

and we’re officially in fourth quarter of the retail world. veteran’s day weekend is a wildly popular and heavily attended event here in the sevierville/pigeon forge/gatlinburg area. and working 45 hours in 5 days (as a part-timer) -- many of those hours at the cashwrap talking to and helping customers non-stop --  are great at the moment, but zaps all energy out of this introvert-acting-like-an-extrovert. at least it was a good warm-up for the thanksgiving weekend chaos that is to come. i’m thankful for some great customers that indulged me by laughing at my jokes and returning the smiles. 

all in all, it’s actually been a great week. 

oh... if you have a hankering for an 8 year old curmudgeony canine, we can ship him COD. :-)