Tender Mercy, Anyone?

About two weeks ago we had a bunch of Todd's family over for his brother Kyle's birthday. We had some yummy rotisserie chicken from Costco. While we were shopping for it, we stopped by the aisle where they were selling toilets. I know it sounds not that exciting, but Todd and I have watched these toilets go in and out of stock over at least a year and a half. We wanted one when we remodeled our upstairs bathroom, but when we went to buy it they weren't selling it anymore. We had to settle for a less-cool one at Home Depot for about the same price. So anyway, Todd has been talking a lot lately about finally tackling our downstairs bathroom. I had been doing a pretty good job at resisting until I saw the tile next to the toilets. It was beautiful! So I finally gave in and we went back the next week to pick up our new toilet and tile.

Back to the chicken. As we were getting some more chicken out for the table halfway through the meal, I slid the old plastic package from the first chicken onto the stove. Of course that wouldn't be story worthy if the burner hadn't been HOT. The plastic instantly melted in several places.

I was distraught! But, thanks to my new homemaker/mommy status, I took some time the next day to look online for some tips on how to get it off. There were several of course, but the one I felt like I was seeing the most was a razor blade and some WD40. I thought I would try it, but didn't really want to buy a whole bottle just for that, so I just shelved the idea for the time being.

The next Monday Lila and I went swimming at my mom's. After Lila's long bath with a little too much bubble bath in the jetted tub, I decided I should probably clean out the bathtub in return for the millions of favors my mom constantly does for me. Including letting me swim in her pool and bathe my daughter in her bathtub. Well, I don't really know where my mom keeps all her cleaning tools, so it took a while to find what I was looking for. And during my hunt, lo and behold I found some WD40! So I took another favor from Mom.

It worked pretty well on my stove. In fact, I finally finished cleaning off the ever present ring of blackness that I had spent several weeks at different times scrubbing like crazy with some baking soda. The slick stuff took the rest off with a few swipes of the blade. I was very pleased. And of course did not remember to give the WD40 back right away.

On Saturday we started preparing our tile for the bathroom. We had lucked out up to this point with minimal damage caused by the demo, a laminate floor that extended all the way under the vanity (thus making tiling MUCH easier), and only a very, very minimal occasional drip coming from the pipes the sink hooks up to- easily controlled with a hand towel.

Just getting the tile cut is taking forever because we are too cheap to buy or rent a tile saw and just take our tiles to the store and have the workers cut them for us. Like most projects, we have taken several more trips than we originally anticipated we would. This afternoon when we got home, Todd noticed the little leak seemed a little more, and tried to tighten the shut off valve a little more. You can probably guess that he only made it worse. So we made several calls and frantically looked in closets and behind vent cover thingies trying to find our main water shut off. Yes, we realize that we should have known where that was already since we have lived here for over two years.

When our goose chase finally ended we found the valve only to discover it was stuck. Completely, utterly stuck. And it is scary to put a lot of pressure on the spot where water comes into your house. We didn't really want a flood that insurance refused to pay for because we hadn't done proper "maintenance" on the pipe. (I sometimes wonder if our insurance would pay for anything....)

We again turned to the internet. We saw that several people recommended loosening the nut a bit and turning the handle the opposite direction. Our nut turned and started leaking but still no luck with the handle. Then we sprayed some of that WD40 on to see if it would loosen things up. Still tight. No movement whatsoever.

By now it was 7:00 pm. Time to pay plumbers after-hours premiums. We called the city safety line and they said the city people could come turn off the water to our house but it would cost us. So then I called a plumber that advertised 24/7 service with no extra fees for nights and weekends. I am pretty sure the secretary takes her phone home with her because she answered "hello" after about six rings and I could hear a bunch of people in the background. I was very confused and asked if I was calling a pluming service. She said yes. I told her we needed someone to come help us, and she told us to call back tomorrow. Not so 24/7.

I called another one. This time I was actually connected with the on-call plumber. He told me to get some specific type of pliers and turn the handle. He said I could twist pretty hard without being afraid of breaking it. If I still wanted him to come over or it didn't work, then I could call him back and he would come.

So I went downstairs, spread the pliers (hoping I had the right kind), and got ready to put my weight into it. Instead the handle turned easily as if it was never even stuck.

As we waited to see if the water would stop (and learned that it doesn't stop immediately), I couldn't believe we had figured it out. We attributed the miracle to a little WD40 sprayed on at least a half hour before.

Then as we watched the trickle turn to a slow drip and eventually stop, I suddenly became very, very grateful for a little bit of melted plastic on my stove.

Our main water shut off

See my friend WD40 in the corner

Just in case you didn't catch it, this post is implying that we are all children of a Heavenly Father who loves us and really takes care of us. His tender mercies are truly all around us. And he certainly knows our needs individually.