It All Evens Out

We had two interesting stories happen to us the other day. Rebecca and I were out shopping for supplies for our work weekend. As we were walking into Home Depot, I noticed a leather container on the ground by the pansies. I picked it up and sure enough it was a ladies wallet. We took it in the store and gave it to customer service. They paged the owner over the intercom to come to the desk. Seeing that no one was coming and the fact that it was outside, Rebecca and I figured she had already left. We asked if we could look at it closer to see if we could find a phone number knowing she was probably frantically searching for it and canceling her credit cards. We couldn't find a direct number for her, but after making a couple calls based on some other information, we were able to get in touch with her. She was ecstatic that it was found and said she was on her way to where we were. She pulled up and appeared to be on the verge of tears. She thanked us many times and shook my hand. I didn't catch it as it was happening, but when she let go I realized she had put something in my hand. A glance at my hand confirmed what it was. I looked back up and she was already getting back in her car. I told her I couldn't take it, but she would not listen and was adamant that I have it. The meeting probably didn't last longer than a minute as she got back in her car and dove off. We went back in the store to continue our shopping and I looked at my hand a little more closely. Instead of one $20 that I originally thought, there were two $20. When we were trying to return the wallet I never envisioned getting a tip for it, but in the end who doesn't like getting $40?

The second story occurred about 8 hours later. That afternoon/evening we went to Lowes to get the other portion of our supply list for the weekend. We had one 10% off coupon so we were trying to get as much in one purchase as possible. Also the store was running a deal where if you spent so much on bath items you got $25 off. We met the criteria and one of the associates had told us it should show up on our receipt. After we checked out we looked at our receipt and didn't see any indication of it so we asked the cashier. Our inquiry resulted in a 15 minute wait as she and the manager tried to figure out the reason the register didn't ring up the discount. In the end, she had not scanned one of our bath items at all, so it failed to show on the register, thus failing to meet the minimum amount spent to get the discount. So the manager rang up the item and gave us $25 off of that. Had we not asked we would have gotten out of there 15 minutes earlier and $50 more in our pockets.

Looking back there are couple lessons learned.

1. You make money when you go to Home Depot and lose money when you go to Lowes.

2. More importantly, I learned more about my own flawed nature. While the thank you money that morning was unexpected, it immediately became mine and I thought of ways I could use it on myself. If for some reason it got taken away from me 10 seconds after I got it, I would put up a fight and claim it was mine. While she did give it to me, we certainly would be fine without it. That very night at Lowes, an error on their part ended up costing us $50 more than thought 15 minutes prior. It was their merchandise and we wanted to buy it, so of course we needed to pay for it. That's the right thing to do. However, as I walked out of the store, I somehow felt I had been wronged, even though we paid exactly what we should have. A few minutes later it hit me that after the morning and evening events, we had just about evened out by receiving an unsuspected $40 and then paying an unsuspected $50. Even though I didn't realize it at the time the Lord was taking care of us through it all. He provides for all of our needs and now I understand that this whole episode was just a way of showing me that it is all his anyways, and that I get way too caught up in what is 'mine.'

The day reminded me of the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant from Matthew 18:23-35. Where basically the servant is forgiven of a large debt from the King, but later fails to show the same mercy to the people under him who owe him a much smaller sum than what he was forgiven. When God gives me something unexpected I often take it for granted and act like I deserved it, much like the money from the wallet. Then, in the very same day, I get bothered about paying a sum that I rightfully owed.

The Lord took care of me and taught me a lesson even though it took me a while to realize it.

Condo Makeover

When we bought our condo back in October, we knew some updates would be in store in the near future. Before Christmas we decided to set aside MLK weekend as Condo Work Weekend. Rebecca's parents came for the weekend, my parents helped, and Matt and Loren came for Saturday. We came up with quite the list of projects to tackle this past weekend. Our work crew did a great job and the only thing we didn't get much of was sleep.

Friday Rebecca and I went to Lowes and Home Depot to purchase all the supplies and products. The plan was to let the Ladies do all the painting and the guys to do everything else on the list. Our place was a rental the prior 25 years, so everything was done for cost and efficiency. All the walls were the same color so Rebecca picked new colors for each room and bathroom.

Her parents arrived on Saturday and we got going. We worked til about 2 in the morning. Sunday we went to church and then got back at it. The most memorable thing happened late Sunday night and well into Monday morning. One of the projects on our list was to replace the shower valve and shower head in our bathroom. It was leaking and the original handles, so we wanted to update it. Dad and I opened it up to look at it and decided "we didn't have the tools to pull this off" during the work weekend amidst all the other projects. So we decided to just change the shower head, which is simple. Changing the handle involved changing the valve, which meant we would have to cut the copper pipes and solder the new valve on. Another big issue with plumbing projects involved cutting off the water. To our knowledge and our neighbors there is no water cut-off for individual units or even buildings (which have 4 units a piece). The only known water valve is at the street which cuts off the water to about 32 units. So making that many people inconvenienced is not a good way to make friends with our new neighbors.

Late Sunday night we decided to attempt to fix the leaks in both our showers. You still have to turn the water off, but you don't have to cut the pipes to replace the valves. So we decided to wait until late that night to turn the water off hoping everyone was asleep. At about 12:30 I took my vice grips to the street and turned the water off. We worked on the guest shower first. It took us about 30 minutes, but we replaced the leaky gaskets and put it back together. I turned the water back on and no leaks. We then debated about doing our shower. We decided it was now or never so I went back outside and turned the water off again. Rebecca's dad began to turn the cap to access the valve. It was not breaking loose so he turned harder. I don't think he realizes his own strength sometimes. When it finally did begin to turn, he wasn't sure if it was just the cap or all the pipes behind it. If it was the pipes it was too late and you had to keep going to find out. The cap finally broke loose and our worst fears were realized. The pipes behind the valve looked like a twizzler. So it was now about 1:45 AM, we had leaky shower valves, and 32 apartments did not have water. If we turned the water back on, the pipes would leak into our walls causing lots of damage. My heart sank about the situation. The day had gone so well and now we were in quite a bind because now so many people did not have water. I went ahead and cut the sheet rock out behind the shower valve to see it from the other side since that would have to be done eventually to fix it. We attempted to rig some way of catching the water and diverting it to the shower drain, but there was no way I could sleep with that going on. We decided to call the 24 hour plumbing hot line. My biggest fear was that there would be a huge fee for after hours call on a holiday weekend. The number diverts you to a national call center which in turn gets a local guy to call you back about your problem. TJ from Evans Services called me back 2:30AM. I told him our situation and asked how much this would cost. He said an after hours service call is $90 if they don't do any work. If we get them to fix something they wave the fee and just charge for the fix. That wasn't nearly as bad as I expected, so I told him to come on. He said it would be an hour before he got there and it would take an hour and half to fix.  So that put us at being done at 5 AM, just in time for people to be waking up and needing water. At this point Rebecca and Mr. Chip went to sleep, leaving me to wait on TJ to arrive. I sat by the window watching for the van to pull up. TJ showed up and got to work. Because I was so tired the whole event seemed surreal. I took a picture of him working to document that it really happened. I took him up to our bathroom and showed him the damage. I then asked him about the damage to my wallet. He said normally a valve change cost $500. I thought great, this is definitely not a normal situation. But then he said, how about $300. I was shocked. This was much cheaper than what I was expecting, so I told him to get started. I'm not sure why he knocked off $200. Maybe because we already had the parts and I had already cut the hole in the wall. Or maybe he was just being nice. He definitely had the upper hand so I'm so thankful it was less than expected. I always enjoy watching somebody work who is good at what he does. TJ was definitely skilled and did the whole operation without making any mistakes. It took him an hour and half like he said. By 5 AM we had a leak free shower with the new valve, handle and shower head that we originally wanted and the neighborhood had their water back on. To celebrate I took a shower. I only got about 2.5 hours of sleep before it was time to work again. Surprisingly I was not that tired. The Lord took care of us and in the end the whole situation worked out very well.

We didn't get everything done, but I'm very happy with the things we did get done. Here are some pictures of the updates.

Before we started working.

Entire Downstairs.

Covering up the new furniture.

Old Chandelier

New Chandelier

1/2 Bath Before

Notice wallpaper and floors

The beginning of the new wood floors

Mr. Chip working in his corner

New wood floors

Our toilet on the front porch

Updated 1/2 bath with new floors, new paint, and new vanity

Old fan in our room

Old fan moved to the guest room

New fan in our room that has a remote

Dad reinforcing our counter

Mrs. Melanie painting

Dad's new scaffolding in our stairwell 

Mrs. Melanie on the 12 foot ladder on top of the scaffolding

Me holding the ladder

Rebecca asking for our scared faces, since in her mind we were all about to die on this rig to paint the stairwell

Dad's scared face

Old and new colors in living room.

Rebecca painting on the 6 foot ladder in the stairwell

The cause of my sleepless night

The leaky valve now the broken valve

Notice the twisting of the copper. Those are suppose to be straight.

Cutting the hole in the wall

The attempted basin to catch the leaky valve during the night

Examining the problem

Not going to cut it

Our nice hole

Rebecca posing at 2:30 AM

TJ hard at work with his torch

The note I had left at the street telling anyone who tried to turn the water back on to call me first. Its now going to be patched in the wall.

New shower!

DIY - Compost Bin Update

The compost bin is still getting settled into the back yard. Both sets of neighbors have come over to inquire about the new addition. Fortunately they both think its a good idea and mentioned wanting to do something similar themselves. I have almost filled up the 1st bin and have a good bit of material in the second. When I was 'turning' the pile the other day I noticed steam coming out of the pile. I first thought it was dust, but when I stuck my hand down I could feel the heat coming out. I knew it would generate heat as it decomposed, but was surprised at the amount with it being so cold outside. Today we took Mom's infrared thermometer to see just how hot it was. Just a few inches down we took readings well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit with the highest being 135 and the air temperature outside in the low 40s.  So if the heat ever goes out in the house, there's a free source outside.

Seeing this process first hand reminds me of the perfect design of creation. With relatively minimal inputs, plants grow providing a plethora of benefits to us. One not often mentioned is that the shedding of their leaves every fall, contribute to the soil. What we often consider waste, is really of great importance to the continuation of growth. Such an amazing design of balancing human life with plant life always reminds me of our creator. An amazing creation points to an amazing God.

New Look

Dad and I picked up Rebecca and my gift that I mentioned last post. The couch was a little challenging to get in the door, but we made it. We got them set up and I writing this as I sit on the couch. I might take a pre-bed nap to see how it handles me laying down. Our den is feeling more and more cozy.