What a week, what a week

This was probably one of the crazier weeks we've ever had...and most of the craziness managed to pack itself into the weekend and Monday...

Saturday morning I was hosting a surprised baby shower at 11. It was around 9:30 when Martin and I were cleaning up breakfast and I decided to wipe down the counters in the kitchen. I thought I could smell natural gas, which was a little odd because we had not cooked anything on the stove that morning. But I've had a more acute sense of smell being pregnant, so I was not too worried. Martin came over and sniffed and thought I might be smelling the (recently cleaned) cast iron skillet that cooked out fish tacos the night before. We determined that was it and moved on.

Martin went outside for something, and when he came back in the house told me that it smelled like gas as soon as he came in. I tested it too and agreed. Crap. And so the whirlwind began...

We ended up calling the gas emergency number, and they were able to have someone at our house within half an hour. Meanwhile, Martin had me and Emma stay in the front yard and out of the house, while I tried to figure out what I was going to do about the shower. We ended up moving it to our friends' house just a few houses down, which was huge. Martin called the husband of the new mommy to tell him to head to their house because of our gas leak, which covered the surprise part well. And my other neighbor offered me her oven to bake my cinnamon rolls for the shower.

The guy from the gas company said it seemed like our stove was leaking even when it was off, which would mean contacting the appliance company directly, but that we needed to have a high pressure test done first to rule out a pipe leak. Our friend's father is a heating and air conditioning guy, and he told us he could come and look at it Monday morning. That just meant no cooking on the stove or hot water for the rest of the weekend, which really was not too terrible. I planned 'no oven meals' for the whole week, and we took a shower at a neighbor's house.

Monday morning we had the pressure test done and got the bad news...the pressure was not holding, which meant there was a leak somewhere. Meanwhile....Martin stayed worked from home Monday and the guy he was carpooling with drove our car. We got a call when he was halfway to Wilmington that the car would not shift to 4th, which probably meant a transmission issue. Martin had noticed it driving a little funny Sunday on the way home from church too. We were able to drop the car off in town on Monday, hoping they could just verify if it was transmission (which they did; it shifted from 1st to 3rd for them, totally skipping 2nd). But when Martin drove it home from the shop it seemed completely normal again. Tricky, nasty hobbitses car.

So that brings us to Tuesday morning. They found the leak in less than 30 minutes. A pipe in our maintenance room was not screwed on tightly, and had probably been like that since we moved in! We are so thankful that it has never been something more serious! The pressure test held this time, so our gas was turned back on Tuesday afternoon.

Our plan for the weekend is to sell Martin's car. We've been talking about it for months now, so it makes the decision a little easier. Martin will carpool (I guess its more carmooch if you don't have a car to share) somedays, and take the bus somedays. Its a little bit of a walk for the bus, but since its summer, that is not really a problem. Now we just need to hope that we'll actually get something for a 1993 car that probably needs a new transmission...at least its a Honda!

And to top all of that off, Emma came down with a bit of a cold. Really, that isn't hardly worth mentioning, except that she had no voice on Monday, which made her sound completely pitiful. Actually her cold has been a bit of a blessing, because she's been sleeping a lot more, including sleeping in until 9 some mornings!

We're hoping for a much more relaxing weekend over the next few days!