Messy Messy

Yikes. It seems these days that all kinds of things are "going wrong" Now, if our life was "normal" right now these things would be annoying but really, not that big of a deal. Because our life is all out of place right now it magnifies these little things into bigger frustrations.
Please note that I'm not saying any of the following as a complaint - it's just all kind of funny really.
Several weeks ago our kitchen faucet started making a high pitched sound. And there was no water pressure there. Jared and his dad fixed the sound but still no water pressure. The faucet was broken as it turned out and in order to effectively wash dishes we had to get a new one :( No fun to do when you are unemployed but we bought the cheapest one that would work with our sink and do what we needed and a friend came to help us install. I'm thankful that it's fixed.
We have small faucet dedicated to hot water on our kitchen sink and the other night the handle randomly snapped off. Completely broken. who knows if that's a cheap or expensive fix - but for now we're just using a screwdriver :)
My vacuum is still not working right - but the temporary fix definitely makes it good enough!
My cat got worms (from eating mice when he escapes out back). We didn't take him into the vet but they went ahead and sold us a pill. He was still puking everywhere for almost a week. But now he seems to be better. He still has other issues he'll deal with his whole life that aren't a big deal but can create a mess - hoping to get something figured out with that.
My dog is getting older and older. He always goes "number one" every night on our living room floor. He also does this every time we leave the house. EVERY time. Our shampooer (which I'm SOOOOO thankful for) is now permanently living in our kitchen. It's the first thing I do in the morning and when we get home from somewhere. I'm tired of feeling like I'm constantly cleaning the floor, yet not wanting my baby to crawl on it (we still put a big blanket down for her to play on) We are also going to figure out some way to confine Bob when we leave and sleep so he can be comfortable but no longer ruining our carpet. Now he has started going "number 2" in the house on a more regular basis. Even occasionally when we're only a few feet away from him. Not good. He's hobbling a bit too. Noone wants to loose a pet, especially at Christmas, and especially when the rest of life is crazy too. Sigh.
We are not buying Christmas gifts this year for obvious reasons. I may spend a few bucks at the dollar store for kids stockings but that's it. This isn't a big deal at all. All the grandparents spoil the kids rotten so they won't know the difference. ANYWAY, Jared's parents offered to let us use an old fake tree they had, which was nice and we considered. But I think the lights were a mess and so we just decided to go ahead and get a real one and that would be our one Christmas activity/purchase. When we left we didn't know if we'd go chop one down or pick one up at the store. The boys immediately started getting excited about chopping it down so we decided to go to that (and to be honest after seeing some prices at some stores I dont' think we would have saved much money). So off we went. It was so worth it. The kids had a great time. It was challenging because it was SO muddy, Kylie isn't walking but is heavy and you always forget how hard it is to chop the tree down. We brought it home and put it in the stand and watered it. I forgot to check the water that night and when I got up in the morning it was dry. I was frustrated because I was hoping the tree wouldn't stop drinking. I filled it again and left the house. We came back several hours later and it was dry again. I was shocked it would drink that fast but it's a good sized tree and was JUST cut so I knew it would drink alot in the beginning. Throughout the rest of the day every few hours it would be dry and I'd fill it up again. This brings us to today. Jaden got up at 6 with a stuffy nose and hopped in our bed (which never happens) I got really uncomfortable so came down to rest on the couch (and of course discovered a pile of dog mess I had to clean up when I came down). something did not seem right as I walked across the floor but I was too tired to investigate. I got up later and thought I should water the tree. As I bent down to check if it was empty the floor in an area probably 3 feet around it felt slightly damp. But not really. Kindof like when we shampoo the floor and it's drying. But we hadn't shampooed there. Then it hit me. There must be a leak. NOT good. Why we didn't think of this before I have no idea. So I got Jared and he moved the tree and spent the next hour using our shampooer (which I am again SOOOO thankful for!) to suck the water out of the carpet (and hopefully out of the floor boards :( ) I know the tree was given 6-7 gallons of water and I believe he's sucked up somewhere around 5. There's a heater blowing on it now and we'll suck up some more later. I'm so glad we hadn't decorated it yet! Jared and the boys are now out looking for another one and while it's a bummer we have to spend more money on this thing right now they are less expensive than we feared.
Sigh. Good times :)
On a side note, if I haven't mentioned it here, Jared has allready started receiving unemployment which we're SO thankful for since we thought he might not get it at all. Some job discussions are in the works but nothing is certain on both ends. We may still have a long road ahead of us. God has been so faithful to us as have our friends and family!
I better go....the washer is making a strange noise......