The Coldest Day of the Year

It all started with replacing the bath tub drain…grandma’s drain, that is. It went so well Ryan decided to replace ours. There’s an interesting phenomenon in a house that’s about 100 years old. Perhaps some of you have experienced it. It’s this: when you begin one simple project, it doesn’t stay simple. First, the drain was old and didn’t want to come out. Not to be daunted, Ryan consulted with the hardware store and came home with new tools and new resolve. At last, success! Now for the new…wait a minute…oh…the pipe beneath the drain was a little…rusted.. It fell apart when Ryan touched it. “Sorry, honey, no bathtub this week.” I taught my kids how to shower at the YMCA. (One cooperative child out of four isn’t bad, right? I had three showers too. They should consider sound-proofing the family restrooms.)

The weekend arrives and Ryan is ready. We don’t have a basement and access to the underside of the bathtub is through the back porch. That’s right, outside. So Ryan shoveled the snow away, and took up the plywood to reveal our small insulated crawlspace. After a couple hours of cold, cramped work, and several setbacks, including losing tools in the amount of snow accumulating on the porch, he emerged and decided to finish in the morning. He would later regret this decision, along with the decision of even being a home owner. (This is also the moment he realized he was going to have to crawl back under there one more time to locate his cell phone.)

The morning of February 11, 2008, dawned. It was Sunday, the coldest day of the year. It was five degrees with a negative 12 windchill, plus snow and 50 mile an hour winds. They cancelled our church. The boys and I were up first when we discovered the water in the bathroom (our only bathroom) was not working. This meant no flushing of the toilet (the only toilet). Maybe Ryan shut it off? But that wasn’t it. Remember it’s the coldest morning of the year? Yes, our pipes are frozen.

Did I mention we were going to have a little birthday party for the boys at 2:45? I already made cupcakes. I even vacuumed. “Should I cancel?” “Definitely”. So I called and cancelled. I also called my dear sweet grandmother and invaded her home for the day.

The roads were so bad I couldn’t tell where the lanes were. Plus the white outs. Tim says, “I’ll watch for the lights, mom, and you watch for the road.” We made it. Grandma has lots of room, running water, and working toilets, so it was a fun day for all of us, except for Ryan. He called me when we had running water. Only one heart stopping moment when he thought he set the house on fire. The toilet water rushed in warm. It was just from the heater he was using on the pipes. Later that day Ryan called again and praise the lord, the plumbing was fixed. He actually took a shower without water pooling to his ankles. He wasn’t exactly a happy homeowner, and he was certainly warmer and the situation was much improved. Just when all looks well… So I loaded up the van, put boots on the boys and decided to go start the van first. The van would not start. It would not even click. I called the exhausted husband and he faced the cold once more to come jumpstart the van. However, it would not hold a charge.

Grandma said we were welcome to stay the night, after all, the roads were bad. So we stayed. I used to spend nights at Grandma’s when I was a child so this was a treat for me. We put the kids to bed and sat around talking, crocheting our afghans, and watching some lifetime movie (Grandma’s favorite channel). The next morning we were up early and we all climbed into Grandma’s bed to say Good Morning. We had a big pancake breakfast, I did school with the kids, and we watched cartoons and played all day. After work, Ryan came to work on the van some more, and I am happy to report that we are all home again. Whew!