The Clog

Tuesday and Wednesday this week were a comedy of errors. Journal excerpts tell it best:

Tuesday, December 2nd: I am snuggled on the couch underneath two blankets, in the glow of a Netflix fire and our Christmas tree. The house is quiet; Rose and Amber are in their bedroom talking and playing, and Jay is doing French homework by playing a computer game with the language set to French. Jeff just left for a track coaches' meeting in Ellensburg. I just ate a bowl of homemade soup with a piece of homemade toast on the side, and a cup of apple cider to drink. I am freshly showered and cozy. This moment feels like the reward for my trying day.

This morning during the hour before I took Amber to school, I was incredibly productive, and also incredibly persistent in the face of mishaps and barriers:

I stripped the sheets off two beds. Just as I was about to put them in the washer, Amber cut in front of me and started a load of her laundry.

I cleaned two bathrooms. While I had the Windex out, I also cleaned the big window behind our kitchen sink, which had gotten quite splattered over the past few weeks.

I vacuumed the bathroom floors, then ended up vacuuming the entire main floor of our house AND the basement stairs, which were coated in dust bunnies. Once I made it all the way down the basement stairs, my rechargeable vacuum still had some battery power left, so I started vacuuming the rug by the basement couch. About halfway across the rug, just as I was approaching a popcorn kernel, the vacuum died.

So I took the vacuum upstairs and emptied the cannister into the kitchen trash. The dirt and debris I had vacuumed up took on life of its own and sprang forth out of the cannister, scattering across my freshly vacuumed kitchen floor. But the vacuum was dead so I couldn't vacuum it up again. So I used a wet dishrag to wipe up the debris.

After all that, my hands were dusty so I went to wash them in the kitchen sink...only to discover that the drain was clogged. I got out a small shower drain snake and a toilet plunger, but had no luck. The drain stayed stubbornly clogged. Google told me to dump a cup of baking soda down the drain and then pour a cup of vinegar down, then quickly cover the drain to force the bubbly reaction into pipes. It said to leave it there for 15 minutes.

"Want to see some science?" I asked Amber. She came over to the sink with her ears perked.

I dumped the baking soda down the drain, then poured the vinegar down the drain. As fast as I could, I covered the drain with the plug. But I didn't get it on straight, and the vinegar and baking soda sprayed and spewed out of the tilted drain cover, coating the entire front of my sweatshirt and the freshly washed window in a vinegar-y splatter pattern. Science was happening. All over my clothes.

I finally got the plug onto the drain right, and went to change my shirt before driving Amber to school. On my way out the door, I saw the pile of sheets and towels and quickly threw them into the washer. I like to add a few shakes of baking soda and a small shot of bleach to wash my sheets and towels. It makes the towels and bedding smell the freshest and feel the cleanest! But I was in a hurry to take Amber to school. In my rush, I accidentally splashed bleach onto my merino wool pants!

"AHHHHH!!!! NOOOOO!!!!" I yelled. I dashed across the room and wiped my pants with a dirty old towel that had been used to dry up spilled Christmas tree water when our tree tipped over on Sunday. Then I stripped my pants off and dashed to the bathroom sink to rinse them out. But I couldn't find the bleach spot on my pants, no matter how much I felt around and smelled them. I was saying "Noooo!!! No!" loudly the whole time. Amber came in from waiting for me in the car to find me standing in my undies holding my pants in the sink, and groaning/muttering incoherently.

Low point.

I put on a different pair of pants and drove Amber to school, and she wasn't late. Later, I did a second load of laundry to wash my pants and sweatshirt. Thankfully they both came out of the wash clean and unscathed by my morning of mishaps.

After dropping Amber off at school, I called my Mom to commiserate over my rocky morning. She stayed on the phone with me while I tinkered with the kitchen sink. I gave it the baking soda and vinegar treatment two other times (both far less explosive than the first). I used the plunger on both drains. I used my little 24 inch drain snake in many different angles. I stuck my rubber gloved hand down the drain and felt around. Nothing.

After I got off the phone, I got onto Google again. This led me to completely disassembling the pipes under the sink, all the way to the U-bend. I looked inside the pipes. Nada. They were completely empty--no clogs at all! But the sink was still not draining. I was totally baffled, so I texted our plumber. He confirmed that it was probably a professional problem, and gave me the number of his "go-to rooter guy," who was based in the tri cities (45 minutes away).

I tried finding someone more local, but the only option I could find in Sunnyside was SunnyMex Septic and Drain, and when I called there seemed to be a slightly thicker language barrier than I was prepared to handle. I don't know the word for pipes and drains in Spanish! And the guy didn't really sound to interested in the job. Meanwhile, the tri cities rooter guy was so nice and told me his prices up front and said he could come tomorrow.

So I booked him, and swallowed the $85 out-of-town travel fee on top of the $250 per hour service fee. Tomorrow is the day. They will tell me when they leave the tri cities so I can be ready for them. All of this was scheduled by 11:45am today. I wanted to be done for the day, but the sheets were dry and needed to be put back on the beds. Including wrestling the queen sized duvet cover back onto the duvet. One of my least favorite chores! Whew, I did so much but accomplished so little during the first five hours of the day!

Meanwhile, we don't have a kitchen sink. I didn't want to get dishes dirty since they couldn't be rinsed, so I ate a pouch of tuna with crackers for lunch, and we used paper plates and bowls for our dinner of leftover soup. (I didn't want to cook something new without a working drain in the sink.)

I would love to stay cocooned in my double blanket nest on the couch, but there's our ward Christmas Relief Society activity tonight, and I signed up to bring ten chapsticks for the service project. We are going to fill 30 Christmas stockings for the Sunnyside police to hand out to people in need. 

[Later] The Relief Society Christmas activity was lovely. I was so glad I went, even though it was hard leaving my warm bright house to drive to the church in the cold dark fog and socialize after 6pm. 

Wednesday, December 3rd: This morning I went to seminary as the second adult. Early wake-up! After that it was a day of waiting around for workers to come. First a guy came to do the quarterly maintenance on the barn exercise equipment. A few hours later, the plumber came to unclog our pipes. In between, during, and around all of that, I was productive. 

I made granola, but accidentally baked it at 350 instead of 300 degrees, so it came out super dark and nearly burnt. I don't like it that dark, but Jeff said he likes it, so we kept it. I outlined my Sunday school lesson for this week. I labored for nearly two hours and finally succeeded in completing a mail merge and printed address labels for our Christmas cards, whenever they finally get here. It was hard and involved lots of frustrations and failed attempts. My breakthrough came when in my frustration I asked Google "Why do mail merges never work??" The number one reason it gave ended up being my solution.

Eventually the plumbers snaked our drain and removed a ball of grease that was likely a relic of past owners of this house. It's so easy to forget that our beautifully renovated house is 35 years old. One of the guys also fixed our temperamental powder room toilet! 

I didn't see Jeff last night for more than a few minutes thanks to his meeting in Ellensburg, and my RS activity. I didn't see him this morning before I left for seminary, and he was gone to work when I got home. I finally saw him at 5:30pm tonight when he got home from swim practice. Tomorrow he will be at a swim meet in Moses Lake till late. Oh, the burden of marrying someone I actually like--when we get busy, it's sad that we don't get to see each other very much!

[end journal entries]

On Thursday morning, I went to Amber's school to watch her be awarded Student of the Month. I also got to see her give the morning announcements in front of the whole school at the assembly. She was also named one of the "reading winners." Amber is impressively involved in school! She says she gets nervous to get up front and give the announcements with her friend Jesus, but she's been doing it for weeks now anyways! I love watching my kids overcome fears and find things they like to do.

Cute sisters in their new flannel pajamas.

I was impressed with myself for having the courage to take apart the pipes underneath my kitchen sink. It was disheartening when all of my courageous work did not remove the clog, but the plumber did say I did more than most people would do.

Proof that I put it all back together. Those dirty dishes piled around the sink drove me crazy for the 24+ hours our sink was clogged. It was such a relief to finally get them into the dishwasher and have clear counters once more.

The freezing fog at the end of our driveway was SO THICK as I was leaving for the Relief Society activity on Tuesday night. Yuck.

They seated parents on the side of the gym at the student of the month assembly, so I didn't get a very good picture of Amber up front.

Amber White: one of the 5th grade "Reading Winners." 

One more journal entry from Friday, December 5th: 

Before I drove Amber to school this morning, I played the piano for 30 minutes. I am so glad I got to do that then, because after school drop-off, I went on a walk-jog and I got SO COLD, my hands were stiff. Earlier this week, I texted Jaylene (ran XC on our team and graduated in 2023) about running together, which we had talked about earlier in the fall. She wanted to get back into running a few weeks ago, and we finally figured out when to make that work. We decided to jog/walk together on Friday mornings at 9:30am. Today!

I had an appointment set at the temple for noon today, but when I was about to meet Jaylene, I realized it was very unlikely that I would be able to shower and get to the temple on time after our jog. I didn't want to rush our time together, because Jaylene has gone through some hard things this year and I didn't want to be in a rush so I could be fully present to talk if she wanted to. So I rescheduled my temple session for another day. I felt a little bad about cancelling the temple today (it seems like all I do is cancel temple appointments), but while I was thinking about that, this thought came clearly into my mind: "Serve the living today." It was so comforting and clear, I know it was the Spirit. When I met Jaylene, I felt that I was in the right place doing the best thing with my time.

It was so good to reconnect with Jaylene. We had a good talk. I love her. It was a sweet jog/walk.

Ok, I have been achy and sore in my shoulders, pecs ever since my run today. My right calf/back of knee that's been bugging me lately is especially painfully sore. It felt pretty good this morning, so I have been baffled all afternoon and evening about this soreness. Just now I was telling Jeff that after my run, I hoisted several large rocks into the wheelbarrow and placed them along a curve of our driveway to deter teenagers from driving in the mud instead of taking the paved turn properly. I think I'm sore from lifting one particularly massive rock! Ouch! Here I was, protecting my poor damaged muscles all week long, but then I went and tweaked it while moving rocks today! Sigh.

Spending time with Jaylene was like having a ray of bright sunshine on a very cold wet foggy day.