How I know what polybutylene means

Thank goodness my husband loves me so much, because I have been a drama queen this week. No, not in a girly way complaining about how he is ditching me for two weeks for Kenya (which he is, but since he has to do emergency comms training in the middle of Africa, I’m not going to bewail too much), but about PIPES. Yeh, polybutylene piping, which is all over our prospective new house and I have worked myself into a tizzy over it.

Apparently, polybutylene was the “pipe of the future… future…. future” when they installed it in the house, but in the last 20 years they have discovered that it has a delightful habit of spontaneously combusting. And the plumbing in the house runs through the attic, which given said spontaneous behavior could mean a big mess in a big hurry. So naturally I want it replaced before it spontaneously combusts over my brand new dining hutch, and so far its not looking favorable. I’m usually pretty level-headed, but this has honest to the plumbing gods gotten me so stressed out that I am just plain pathetic, and I need it to be over- fixed or not- so that I can stop having heart palpitations every 10 minutes. Bottom line is today (while at work no less) we have to decide whether or not to spend the cash to fix or walk away from the whole thing. New arch enemy in life: polybutylene. Good news is John & Kate are now off the hook.

Headed for the burbs?

God is a comedian. A week ago, I was ready to throw in the proverbial real estate towel and hibernate for the winter in my cozy apartment. There were no houses out there. I checked Redfin incessantly and annoyingly often. Before our tour last weekend, I turned to Casey and said, “This could be a real stinker. I’m scratching the bottom of the barrel with these listings.”

A week later, pending paperwork and inspection, we’ve almost bought a house. And one I didn’t even see in all my real estate stalking and one that was just so inexplicably cute and homey that, even though it’s not the type of house I thought I wanted, it’s not in the area we started looking, I turned to Casey and said, “Done.” See? God definitely likes to throw curve balls.

That’s not to say I don’t have some trepidation about moving out of the area I’ve lived in (and loved) for the past 6 years, it will be weird. (Expect a few last minute posts on that as I bewail the loss of Caffe Ladro 2 minutes away and downtown a whopping 10. But we have a YARD people, and 2 FULL baths that I might actually feel are clean enough to soak in, so…) Getting to work will be tougher and when something breaks I can’t call the landlord and my gosh, we will have practically no fun money for a while. But more than that, I’m excited to start this phase of our lives, to have space to make our own and to continue to try and figure out what God has in store for us (Who I’m not convinced is finished with his punch line yet.) For now, just perhaps it’s a cute green house in Kent.