Oh my goodness, oh my goodness! What a week this has been. You may have noticed that I haven't been blogging or commenting on your blogs. Well, last Friday I tried to connect to the net and received a message that the computer was not connected to the internet. I tried a new ethernet cable, had Jayson mess with everything he could think of, and nothing resolved the problem. I hauled Katy's iBook out of storage and hooked it up to the net and it worked fine except that I couldn't log on to blogger. I could read, but not create or comment (and I hate the touch pad mouse). So it was a computer problem. I had been thinking that it would be nice to have a newer computer and Anna had said a while ago, "Why don't you get a new computer and give us your old one?" So Kris and I talked it over and decided to get a new iMac, which is spectacular.

They say bad luck comes in threes. Number one was a defective computer.
Number two was losing my wallet. Sunday I went to grab my wallet, which isn't a proper wallet at all, but rather an Oyster-Card holder from London. It is just right for carrying about 6 cards. It was missing and nowhere to be found. I envisioned a nighmarish week of canceling and replacing cards.

We drove off to church without a drivers license and I kept trying to think where the wallet might be. The last place I remembered having it was at Costco, so after church I called them and they didn't have it.
Number three was a flat tire with a large screw in it that we discoverd when we came out of church. We drove home ever so carefully and parked in the driveway, hoping to be in time to call Emily for a ride to Anna's for Sunday dinner. We had already seen Phillip and Meagan heading to SLC on our way home, so Emily was the last hope. But, as luck would have it, Emily was already half way to SLC. Stehpen was kind enough to lend us his Jeep. We loaded up and checked the fuel gauge which was on empty. The Jeep takes biodiesel fuel which is hard to find on a regular day, and this was Sunday. Fortunately, we learned that it also takes diesel which we found fairly easily at Crest. We were in such a dither that we forgot Kris's wallet so we raced back to the house. She couldn't find hers, but she DID find mine. So now we were back down to two pieces of bad luck.

Monday Costco brought four lovely new Michelins into our life, but we were still waiting for the new number three.

On Tuesday, Debra Sue Darling Gibbs came into town and she and Alison spent the night. The next morning as Kris and I were ready to leave for work, the toilet went "glub, glub" and the new number three made its entrance. Kris called me back in and told me the toilet was clogged. I plunged the heck out it and nothing happened -- except that everything came up in the shower; I mean everything! I sent the Gibbs to Stephens for their toilet/shower needs and called Rescue Rooter.

They came quickly, but after removing both upstairs toilets, trying to clear the line, and making an enormous mess, they were stumped. They called in the big guys who scoped the line and discovered that the sewer line had settled where it connected to the house and was blocked at that point.

They dug up the connection and determined that it would cost $5,650 to rework the line. I picked myself up and said, "We need a sewer so I guess you'd better do it." They were to come back the next morning. Before totally abandoning hope, however, we called our contractor who put us in touch with our excavator who came by at 5:30 and said he could fix it the next day for about $700. Done deal! It was fixed by noon the next day and we are free-running, sweet-smelling, and very happy.
So that's why we have been absent.
OXO
D.