There's always a silver lining

So, the past week has been very trying and that is putting it mildly!

It all started a week ago.   Lately, our dishwasher hadn't been cleaning the dishes very well, and we always had to make sure they were CLEAN(as in spotless) when we put them in.  We attributed it to the hard water out here in Arizona.  But the last week or so it didn't seem that things were getting dry, so the ever handy hubby decided to look inside at the heating element at which point he noticed the dishwasher was also filled with water.

*Sidenote*  My son, who usually does the dishes had apparently been telling us about the water for a number of days, but I'll be darned if I remember that....But, I believe he did as he has been stating what a bad job the dishwasher had been doing....which as stated above, we thought was due to hard water.....ANYWAY.......

So the hubs and son baled the water out of the dishwasher and pulled the unit out so he could see what was going on and to find out about the heating element.  Only when he pulled the machine away from the wall what did we find?  Mold, it had also apparently been leaking due to the water not pumping out.  He ordered some parts, including a new pump, hoping this would solve the problem but not sure it would.

No sooner did he get the dishwasher fixed(thank you Amazon Prime and 2 day shipping) we ran into another snag.  I went out to put chlorine in the pool duck and decided to check the skimmer baskets to get rid of any debris that had been picked up due the Monsoons we have been having.  Got all that taken care of when I noticed the pool vac wasn't moving so I decided to check the hoses and accidentally broke it in the process, no big deal we have spares.   Called the hubby and he brought a spare out, only to find that the pool vac still wasn't moving.  Long story, short(or is it too late for that??) after about an hour in the hot sun of monkeying around it was determined that the pool pump and filter had bit the dust.   Now, that wasn't too big of a surprise as we had been band-aiding it for the past 5 years, just not very good timing and it was going to cost some money to get that situation fixed.  It is also a situation we can't wait to take care of, it has to be addressed fairly quickly.

We go inside to cool off as we are both overheated only to get a text from our oldest who rents a house from us state that their pool pump/filter kept tripping the breaker whenever it turned on.  They had just left for a week's long vacation and noticed it that night before they left.   So, off hubby goes over to that house to see what is going on with their pool and he figures out what is causing the breaker to trip and takes care of that, but they had also been having other problems with the pool and it was not something the hubby could figure out on his own and he was concerned it would need new filters and possibly a pump as well!!!!

So before the weekend is over, we are thinking we are going to have to replace a dishwasher and two pool pumps.  CHA-CHING!!!   Thankfully, my husband is not too proud to ask for help so he touched base with a friend whose job it is to maintain, and apparently, fix pools.  So, while it may cost some money, at least someone else will be doing the work and that is two less things we have to worry about finding time to do.

Cue Monday........

By this time, we figured we had gotten everything under control.  The dishwasher parts had come in and been installed.  The dishwasher was up and running again, without having to buy a replacement.  The pools, while not yet fixed, were in process...we could at least breathe again.

Then, Monday night came along.  I came in from taking the dog out and hear water running.....loudly.  I follow the noise to find our laundry room flooded and not just a little bit.  I find the leak under the sink, but can't turn the water off.  So I'm screaming bloody murder trying to get my husband's attention, but he is too far away to hear me.  So I have to leave Niagara Falls in my laundry room to find him and yell for him.  He finally gets the water shut off and it turns out that a valve popped off our reverse osmosis system.  Now comes the fun part of trying to move everything out of the room, which if your laundry room is like ours, it's the catchall for everything.  It's also where our pantry is.  I think we went through every single towel we owned cleaning up the water.

But the best part, or I guess I should say the worst part, was we were trying to push the water to the floor drain under the washing machine....which normally would work wonderfully.    But this week hasn't been normal has it?!?!  As the hubby is clearing things from around the washer he notices that there is water under the washing machine......it wasn't going down the drain like it was supposed to.  So, now we are moving the washer and dryer to get to the drain.  After an unsuccessful 45 minutes of trying to get the clog to move, we resort to a hose with a nozzle attached to see if we can flush the clog out with pressure.   But instead of doing that it blows the water out the overflow pipe that is under our air conditioning unit that is housed in the laundry room.  Again, thankful for my handy hubby, he just happens to have some pvc pipe out in the garage and he rigs something together so that the water that comes off the AC unit drains into a bowl we put down until he has time to actually fix it and find the clog.  Because you see by this time it is almost 10pm( and I still have to help my mother-in-law get ready for bed, which this evening was it's own separate mess to clean up).

So, we finally hit the hay at almost midnight done with what we could for the night, exhausted and not looking forward to getting up in a few hours to get ready for work, hoping that the patch job would hold and that the bowl catching the AC water wouldn't overflow during the night.

Tuesday morning comes and goes, everything seems to have calmed down.  As long as we remember to dump the bowl of water from the patch job every 4-6 hours it will be fine until the weekend when he has the time to actually fix it properly.  Life seems to be calming down once again, or as calm as it can be given the circumstances.  That is until I go to get ice cream out of the freezer for dessert and notice icicles on the inside of the door and that the water dispenser has been dripping water and there is a size-able puddle in front of the fridge.  At this point it is all I can do to keep from crying and curling up into a ball on the kitchen floor.

I reluctantly go downstairs to my hubby who is now days behind in what he needs to be getting done, to ask him if it's supposed to be doing that.  That was not the question he wanted and not the answer I wanted to hear.   You see that reverse osmosis water system filtered the water for the fridge.   He had apparently turned off the water housing tank, and we....okay, I, had forgotten to turn off the ice maker so that it wouldn't run any more water through the system while we were waiting for the parts to repair the osmosis system. 

I don't know if you realize, I know I didn't, that you have to keep a constant water pressure going to the ice maker/water dispenser otherwise you get.....you guessed it.....a leak.   So here it is 8pm and we are taking everything out of the freezer to clean up all the frozen water inside, the whole time my husband is worried that the water line has been damaged and soon water will be pouring out the back of the fridge.   We get everything cleaned up and food put back in the freezer, get the water line attached back to a water supply and hope for the best, hope that the ice maker will work which hubby says it looks like it is. 

Once again, it's time to get the mother-in-law ready for bed so that is what we set out to do, thankfully no surprises there, so we head up to bed ourselves.  Thankfully, the hubby decided to check the freezer one more time to make sure the ice maker was in fact working......it wasn't!  UGH!!!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!  At this point I was holding back my tears and screams.

Thankfully, again, I have a handy hubby.  He went and got some tool and took the ice maker housing out and ran it under hot water to melt any ice that had formed from all the leaking water.  He got that cleaned out and put it back in.  We have now done all that we can do without pulling the fridge all the way out to check the lines running behind it and we really don't want to do that.  I say a small prayer before going to bed hoping to see ice cubes in the morning.

So, what do you suppose we woke up to?  Well, given all that has happened you would be lead to believe that we would have water all over the kitchen floor when we woke up and you would be.......



WRONG!!  WE HAVE ICE CUBES!!!!!

It's still early, the day is young, but I do believe the storm of troubles has finally passed and with hindsight being 20/20 I can actually see the good in all that happened.  You read that right....good.

1) If the heating element hadn't gone out, we probably wouldn't have noticed that that drain pump wasn't working for quite awhile and the flooding could have been a lot worse!

2)  If I hadn't gone to put chlorine in the pool and clean the baskets, we probably wouldn't have noticed the pool wasn't working for who knows how long, causing even more damage.

3) Our sons pool, if he hadn't checked his pool before leaving he never would have known that it was tripping the breaker and then they would have come back to an even bigger mess and expense.

4)  If the valve hadn't broken on the osmosis system, we never would have known that the AC drain pipe was clogged for probably weeks, causing even more mold, possibly even black mold.

5) If I hadn't gone for ice cream we would have never known that the fridge was leaking until it was great big mess the next morning when we wouldn't have had time to do anything.


So you see even in the midst of all the troubles, there is always good to be found....you just have to look for it.

Sidenote conclusion:  A friend of mine texted me on Monday night after all the stuff that my hubby and I had been through to say that one of her kids was back in the hospital right after starting school and supposed to be starting a new job that now she doesn't know if she will still have.  So, for us, all these momentary problems don't look quite so bad anymore...........