All’s Well that Ends Well!

It’s been an aggravating 2 days, but I think hope we are headed back in the right direction.  You know, I try to be an optimistic person and I don’t usually want to bore you with the crap that goes on in my life.  But yesterday and today just got on my last nerve and I need to vent.

When we took the pontoon boat off the trailer last week, one of the main support boards on the trailer snapped in half.  We went and got new boards but we haven’t had time to install them yet.  Yesterday when Chablis and I were out on the boat, it started sputtering and made a funny noise.  I know that’s not a very technical term, but that’s what it did.  It sounded like something blew and it whined and I thought something got caught up in the motor.  We checked the propeller and it looked ok, so we took off, but all the way home it kept trying to stall. 

Later in the afternoon Tony wanted to try skiing, so we went out and the boat immediately started acting up again.  We sputtered over to the marina and got fresh gas, put some gas treatment in, added oil, checked the gas vent and took off.  It was worse.  We chugged back to our dock and Louie pulled the cover off the motor and water was spewing from 2 of the sparks plugs.  Even I knew that wasn’t a good sign.

Before we could do anything, the guys had to install the new boards on the trailer because we couldn’t even pull the boat out of the water until the trailer was fixed.  So Darryl whipped out his tape measure and they got down to work...

Once we got the boat out, they started looking at the motor and it appeared that the head gasket was blown.  Does that sound right?  I don’t know anything about motors.  They did as much work to the motor as they could, but since it was 4^th of July we had to wait until this morning to drive in to Paducah to pick up a part.

In the meantime, as if that was not enough to trip my triggers, a piece of the ceiling in Chablis’ room fell down for no good reason.  Just fell – huge crack down the ceiling.  Nice.  Not!

Then a pipe broke underneath the sink in the kids’ bathroom and flooded the entire cabinet.  I cleaned it all up and patched the pipe, but it still needs to be properly fixed. 

Am I done yet?  No, I have more good news.  The faucet in my bathroom just started dripping about 3 gallons of water a day.  We took the whole faucet apart and can’t get the frickin’ leak to stop.  The on/off valves under the sink are so old and rusty that they are frozen in place and we can’t shut the water off.  So now I have a cup under the faucet and I am collecting the water to re-use elsewhere because the thought of water drip, drip, dripping for no good reason down the stinking drain is driving me crazy.  

This morning the guys got up and drove into Paducah and we were extremely lucky that the marina supply store had this part.  Within an hour they had the new gasket installed, the boat back in the water and the kids were out skiing.  Tony has never been able to get up on skis and that was the one thing he wanted to accomplish this summer and he did it on his FIRST try.  Got up and STAYED up!  He was just grinning from ear to ear and I am so proud of him. 

Tonight we did a little fishing for white bass….

Abby caught her very first white bass all by herself....

Watched the sun set on the day….

Had a campfire and made s’mores…

And took a late night swim in our neighbors pool. 

So except for a couple of leaky pipes and faucets, all is right with the world in our little universe at the end of the day.  I thank God for small favors, for friends who are there when we need them and I'm thrilled that I was finally able to teach my son to water ski!