Fall is Here!

Boy, have the months flown by.  I have been more busy than I ever have before.  Since I last posted here, we have sold our old house and bought a new (much bigger) one.  We went from a postage stamp yard to 2 acres to take care of.

I even changed my siggy for it

This even looks like my life!  We still have boxes all over and are trying to find room for things!  But we love the new house so much.

So, I scrapbooked some of the changes over the past few months.  To start, I will a little trepidicious.

Then, the excitement started to build and the waiting was so hard

I can see more layout about getting our keys

 But, one of the first big changes was all the fresh fruit and veggies

We worried about our kitty

But one of my favorite parts is when the sun comes up

So much change, but so wonderful!  I think that now that things have settled down, I can keep up better her! LOL
Meagan

Public Service Announcement - How to save your toilet from flooding the house

About a year ago, my dear friend came home from work to see water coming from her house.  She rushed inside to find water filling up her house and gushing from her bathroom.
What had happened, you say?  A little tiny plastic connector that goes from the back of the toilet to the wall broke.  Simple as that.  Every toilet has one.  This is what it looks like:

The thing that really is amazing is that EVERY house has one and they are only rated to last 5-10 years and they DO NOT make them in stainless steel like their connecting hose!

So, back to my friend.  She tells everyone she knows - "go now, learn from me and replace this simple connector before your house is flooded.  The most amazing thing; this little connector costs less than $10." 

She had tons of professional dryers going 24 hours a day trying to get the floors & walls dry.   In ruined almost every floor in her house.  All her carpets and hardwoods had to be replaced, some of the walls and some furniture.

Would you like to know how much it cost to replace all the damage done to her house?  Over $40,000

Did I rush out and buy said connector??  No!  

Why not?  I am sure there are reasons, got busy, didn't think it would happen to me, forgot, etc.  The reason doesn't matter, just that I never did.

So, fast forward 1 year.  

Fans going full blast

Chamois - I even had the 2 yo soaking up water

Shop Vac - not just for dirt!

Yep!  You got it!  It happened to me!
I do not have any pictures of the water gushing out or of the 2" of water that were in my bathroom, because I was too shocked and panicked to get a camera at that point.   The big difference between my friend's situation and mine is that I was home when it happened.
It was early on a Saturday morning and I was in my living room with all my kids asleep still.  I had gone in to tell them that it was time to start waking up and gone back to the living room.  I heard the water running about 5 minutes later.  Not just "running" . . .it was on full blast.  I thought that one of my kids had gotten up and was using the bathroom.  When the water didn't stop after about 5-8 minutes, I went to check.  The light was off in the bathroom, and as I stepped forward to push open the door and turn on the light, my foot squished in the carpet and I noticed that the sink was not gushing.  It was coming from my toilet!!
My husband had left for work about 20 minutes before.  I panicked and called him and made him turn around to help.  What followed was a morning and afternoon that I had not planned on.  Hours spent bailing water off the linoleum, sucking up the water from the carpet with the shop vac, soaking up water with towels, and chamois and trying to air dry with our fans.
Boy, were my muscles hurting that evening!
And my "flood" was nothing like my friend's.  I caught mine in under 15 minutes and it did all that damage. The water not only got into the carpet in my bathroom (why do contractors think carpet in a bathroom is a good idea anyway???), but it went under the wall, into my closet and into my hallway.

Have I scared you enough yet to make you go out and purchase this simple connector??

I hope so!  Please learn from our mistakes.  If you have not replaced your connector in more than 10 years or your house is older than 10 years - go down to your hardward supply store.  The best part - you can do this yourself.  You do not need a plummer, you only need a wrench.  I will show you how!

1 - See what kind of connector you have.  It is easier if you disconnect your current part and take it with you as there are many choices.  Mine is connected to the hose, so I had to buy this:

Stainless Steel 12" Toilet Connect with 3/8" x 7/8"  - It was under $7,  after tax

2. Turn off your water supply

It is connected to the wall behind your toilet.  Turn it until it cannot go anymore.

3. Flush the toilet, until there is no more water in the back of the tank.  (You do need to take off the led from the back of the toilet to see if it is empty.)
4. Unscrew the plastic connector from the toilet.  You should do this with a bucket underneath - just in case there is water.  You should be able to disconnect it with your hand.

5.  Unscrew the other end with a wrench.

I loosen mine with my wrench and then unscrewed the rest of the way with my hand.    Once you do that, you can remove the whole thing.

6.  Take your connector to the store and buy a new one.
7.  Reattach the connector to the water inlet, first with your hand and then tighten with your wrench.

8. Reattach the plastic connector to the back of the toilet by hand

9.  Turn the water back on.

You're done!  It really is that easy.  Now remember to that again in 5-10 years!

If you replace this simple connector, I hope that you never have to deal with a flooded house.

Getting Stuff Done

I was up so late last night with my sick 5 year old.  Since she was feeling a little better, I was able to make my first blog entry and get it set up, so that was cool.  Here it is 8 am and my other 2 are on their way to school, my baby is playing with his toys and my poor sick girl is sleeping soundly.  Such is the life of someone with 4 kids.  It is never boring, and there is always something going on that you have to do multiple things at the same time. 

So, that brings me to something that I am asked all the time - “How do you do that?”  How do you get anything done with 4 kids?  The answer:  you find ways to accomplish things in all the little pieces of time that you can find.  You have to become good at multitasking.  So, right now, I have a load of laundry washing, watching my baby and the news for the day, having my coffee, listening for my sleeping 5 yo and here I am writing to this new blog (and checking e-mail, Facebook, checking my favorite websites and researching the Project 365 thing).

Laundry (aka the job that never gets done)

I though that I would share my laundry process.  Some of that is easy, put in laundry when you first wake up so that it is going while you "get going".  By the time that you are awake and ready to go out the door, your clothes should be ready to put in the dryer.  In my case, I drive my kids to school normally (today, I had the luxury of a hubby still off from Christmas and he took my older 2).  When I get home from dropping off, I put in a second load and the clothes should be close to dry.  The laundry never seems to get done with 6 of us.  Part of my process is to lay out the clean clothes from the dryer on my bed.  There, I sort by person, lay flat the ones that will need to be  hung, and fold the clothes that will go in a drawer.  Later, I have my older 3 kids put their own clothes away.  They are even in charge of hanging up the ones for the closet.  I have found that if kids are responsible for their own clothes, they are less likely to make extra laundry.  

How do you get your kids to put away their own?  I start having them help with their clothes around 3.  They each will help with the sorting and washing.  At 1, they can sit with you and throw clothes in a pile that you tell them.  You can also have them walk with you to their drawer and lay the clothes in their drawer as you hand it to them.  As they get older, they can do more and more of this process.  One thing that you need to be okay with - their drawers will not be "neat".  You just have to accept that mostly, they will cram everything in their.  Every once in a while, my 5 yo will still just take her clothes to her room and dump them on the floor by the dresser and I have to check on her.

I still am working on improving my system, so if you have a trick, please share!  Right now, the job just never gets all the way done, while still having time to spend with my kids and do all the other stuff that has to get done. 

On an ironic side not:  Here I was blogging about laundry and in my second load, I tried to wash one of my couch pillows since my sick little girl had been on it and we were trying to save the rest of us from getting sick.  Murphy's Law strikes - The washer overflowed!  I even checked on it 3 times, but it slipped up and got stuck under the water sprayer and water was EVERY WHERE!!  Ugg!  

Good chance for hubby to use his new shop vac, though.  He keeps asking if I did it on purpose to get him to clean the floors.  Boy, are they sparkling clean now :)

Anyway, talk to you later,

Meagan

on a side note, I found this pic.
See, you can get kids started REAL early helping with laundry!