SEPTIC UPDATE

Ok, first I haved to correct my mistake in my last post.  I think it was wishful thinking that I posted that the septic tank had gone down to 9".  It hadn't.  It had only gone down to 12".  But then of course as soon as it went down, my husband had to go put yet more bacteria stuff down it.  He didn't put a whole bucket this time, but he did put several packets.  So of course it went back up to 15 1/2.  So back to Amber's I went to shower. 

I think I have finally convinced my husband to NOT put any more bacteria down it when it goes down next time.  He has agreed to wait at least a month before putting any more down, providing the level continues to go down. 

On the plus side, I only went to Amber's twice this week.  My husband has been showering at night here at our house.  He says it's okay for him to shower here, because he doesn't "take forever like I do."  :0)  I also did get to do a big batch of dishes this week. 

Another plus:  I got my steam mop and used it last weekend.  I thought it worked pretty good.  I got the one that has 3 steam levels:  dust, mop, and scrub.  Supposedly you can use the "dust" or "mop" setting on hardwood.  I think I'm going to google that and see if it's really ok for your wood floors.  I'm wondering though, if over time it will gradually clean my grout better on my tile floor.  I think the floor I most like using it on is the bathroom.  Makes you feel like it's sanitized.  :0)

STARTING TO DRAIN!

I got to shower at home today!  Usually we shower all week at Amber's so we can "save up" to shower on Sunday morning at our house.  Every morning, my husband goes to check the septic tank to see if it's gone down.  It is never down, so we go to Amber's to shower.  This morning, (Monday) he checked it and it was down to 9"!  That is the lowest it's been in a long time.  The highest was 16 1/2".  On Friday it was down to 13".  Twist, his wife, daughter, and her fiance came to visit us this weekend.  They came on Friday and left Saturday afternoon.  I had told them that if they needed to shower while they were here, they'd have to go to one of my kids' houses, but since they were just staying overnight, they opted not to shower on Saturday. Now I feel bad that they couldn't shower while they were here.  Sometimes the tank has started to go down and then has gone back up, so we weren't sure if that was the case, or if it was actually going down.  My husband said that for a normal level it needs to be at least at 6" before I can wash clothes and dishes in the dishwasher again.  BTW, he made a big stick to use as a "dip stick" with markings on it so he can stick it down in the tank to see what the level is.  That way he's not just guessing.  Wow, maybe this stuff is finally working! 

FORTUNE COOKIES

My husband and I went by Panda Express tonight to pick up dinner to take home.  I always get the same thing:  A Panda bowl with Kung Pao chicken.  He usually gets the 2 entree plate and varies the entrees.  I love the fortune cookies.  One day I got a fortune in my fortune cookie that was really applicable to what was going on in my life at the time, so I stuck it on my bulletin board with all my family pictures.  Since then I have put up all fortunes from our fortune cookies up there. 

We've been waiting and waiting for our septic tank to start draining, and even though it really hasn't been as bad on us as everyone thinks it has, we have been hoping and praying that it will start to drain right.  I think my husband has been more stressed out about it than I have, mainly because he wonders if he made the right choice to try to clean up the ground, instead of digging a new leech field. 

So tonight when I opened my fortune cookie, I noticed that my husband wasn't paying attention to what I was doing.  I hurriedly grabbed the pen beside me, turned my fortune paper over, and wrote: "Your septic tank will drain soon".  Then I turned to my husband and said, "Do you want to read my fortune?"  I handed it to him and he got a chuckle reading it.  Then he opened his fortune cookie.  His fortune was, "If your desires are not extravagant, they will be granted."  :0)

Fingers crossed! 

WAITIN' FOR THE DRAININ'

More on the Septic Saga:
It's gotten so bad this week, we are now showering over at Amber's every morning.  Thanks Amber, for the use of your apartment!  Frankie and Miss Meow aren't even scared of us anymore!  :0) 
We think we've figured out that when we put a 5 gallon bucket of stuff in the septic tank, it temporarily clogs it up until the stuff has had time to liquefy.  That usually takes at least a week.  Yesterday and today it went down a couple of inches, so maybe, maybe, maybe....

In the meantime, I went to the laundromat again today - 6 washers!  Multiply that times 17 quarters.  That's how much it costs. Of course I'm using the maxi-washers.  A lady came in to use one of the triple-washers.  She turned to me and said, "How much are these washers?"  I said, "What does the number on the panel in red say?"  She said, "13."  I said, "Then it's 13 quarters."  She got a shocked look on her face and said, "I guess it's been way too long since I've been to the laundromat.  I thought it'd be like $1.75."  She left to go get more money.  I wanted to say, "Yeah, that's what I thought too. " :0+

My dishwasher is completely full of dirty dishes and now the sink is filling up.  I can't use the dishwasher, but I put them there until I had time to do them.  And really, I just don't want to catch the water and throw it all out the back door anymore. 

I'm looking hard for the, would you say, perks of all of this.  Here's what I've come up with:
- We get to eat breakfast at McDonald's on the way to Amber's every morning.  (Of course, we may die of a heart-attack before too long..)
- Since I can't use water to clean the bathrooms, I just use Clorox Wipes!  Easy!  I'm using baking soda in the toliet.  Don't think I'll recommend that for marketing...
- Eating on paper plates, using plastic cups, less dishes.  But then, I'm not doing them everyday anyway.
- We're making friends with Frankie and Miss Meow.  :0)
- Got a new front-loading washer and dryer.
- Going out to buy a steam mop so I can mop my floors.  
- We had the sister missionaries over for dinner last night and served them Dion's pizza, cantaloupe, and lemon pie (in a throw-away pie pan).  No slaving over a hot stove!
- Developing more patience. :0)
- We're hanging in there.....

WHO YOU ARE

I've been thinking alot about this lately and let me first just flat out say that this has nothing to do with any of my children or their spouses.  Ok, now that that is out of the way, on with my musings.

Have you ever looked at yourself and said, "This is not who I want to be"?  I think we all have good aspirations of wanting to be good people.  And who knows, maybe there are people out there who aspire to be bad people.  But basically, I at least, have a desire to be a good person.

 I do have some habits that I need to work on.  One bad habit that I quite enjoy, is saying the word, "hell".  I usually say in in the context: "What the hell?"  Amber said she even saw a tee-shirt one time that said that.  I told her if she ever saw it in my size to buy it and I'd at least wear it for a lounge shirt.  See how bad I am?  In fact, I'm so bad, that I sincerely doubt if I can ever take that word out of my personal language.  But rest assured that I am trying to take other words out.  Oh wait, except for the word, "crap".   I really do need to work on that one.  If I take "crap" out of my language, can I keep, "hell"? 

Another thing that I have tried to work on and continue to work on is patience.  One time I was a Young Women's counselor and was working on my Young Women's Medallion as a leader.  One of the goals I chose to do was to pick a virtue (I picked patience), look it up in the Topical Guide and read all the scriptures on it, then pick one of the scriptures, memorize it, and then work on it in your life.  The scripture I picked was in the Doctrine and Covenants:  "Have patience in afflictions, for thou shalt have many; but endure them, for, lo, I am with thee, even unto the end of thy days." (D&C 24:8)  I thought a lot about it before I picked a patience.  I finally decided on patience, because I figured that patience really encompassed the rest of the virtures, if you were patient enough.  Sometimes I find myself not being so patient.  I say to myself, "Wait, is this the person you want to be?  Didn't you want to be a patient person?"  And then I try to get back to that  patient person that I want to be.

One thing that has been bothering me recently is gossip.  And see, here again I can make excuses and say that family gossip is one thing and gossiping about friends and acquaintances is another. I guess what I'm really saying is, I'll work on one thing at a time. :0)  More than a few times recently, I have found myself with a group of women who start gossiping about someone.  And more than a few times I join right in with them. And then I have to stop and ask myself, "Is this who you want to be?"  I think there is a fine line between just talking about someone, such as, "Did you hear about so-and-so" and gossip.  A lot of times we are passing information to each other.  In my opinion, that is not gossiping.  I think it is gossiping, when it turns malicious or ugly, or maybe even when you're complaining about that person, and enjoying it a bit too much. This is one thing that I am thinking a lot about lately, and it is something I have decided to work a bit harder on, because I do know that I do not want to be this kind of person.  I've kind of adopted this saying as my motto in this subject:  “Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you - not because they are nice, but because you are.” – Author Unknown.  Maybe it should read, "Treat everyone with kindness, even with those who are rude - not because they are nice, but because you want to be. " 

Just know, I'm working on it.......

Who are you?  Who do you want to be?

SEPTIC SAGA

On a recent post, Dee Ice asked how my septic tank was doing.  Every day my husband was checking it and it still wasn't going down.  Thursday afternoon I went to the laundromat to finish up the mountain of laundry I still had (and I still haven't stripped the beds in the 2 guest rooms and washed those sheets!).  That day we were talking and decided that we needed to call Amber and ask her if we could get a key to her apartment so we could come over every morning after she went to work so we could start showering over at her apartment.  After we talked about this, my husband decided to go check the septic tank for that day.  It had gone down 4"!!  That is the most it has gone down in one day!  So maybe this is finally the turn-around we have been waiting for.  When he came in and told me, he said I could shower the next day (which I'm sure everyone around me was thankful for).  So now we are wondering if it really is taking effect, or was it just down because neither of us showered that day?  Time will tell.  We will continue to shower every day and see if it stays down.  You know it's getting desperate when you are actually praying for your septic tank.