It's always something

Came home yesterday to the sound of running water in the house. That’s never a good sound. After a frantic search (was a toilet overflowing? Did the hose pop off the washing machine? Is the dishwasher leaking?) I discovered a nice little ice skating rink in the backyard and the outside facet flowing freely. Tried turning it off but it was apparent the issue was bigger than that. It did slow the water some but it was still coming out at a pretty steady flow.

Crap.

Called Tom, he was already on his way home. Told him to hurry, it didn’t look good. All I could do was wait and hope that we didn’t have a flood in the crawlspace or worse.

After he got home, turned off the water and evaluated the situation he confirmed my fear; a busted pipe. Frick. It’s been pretty cold here the last few days (single digits) and yesterday was the first day it got above freezing. That’s all it took. Tom said it appears that the facet wasn’t closed all the way the last time it was used. Grrrrr. Today he is home replacing the pipe. Fan-freaking-tastic.

This comes on the heels of a not so great moment for me. I’ve been diving head first into this house stuff for so long (like years, long before I had/put anything on this blog) and it all caught up with me over the weekend. The doubt starts to creep in. The what if’s start getting a little too loud. I’m trying to stay positive but I am already bracing myself for the letdown if we can’t list. Silly I know, we haven’t even talked to a realtor yet.

Sunday night I start to put my novice real estate skills to the test. A short trip to realtor.com and Zillow and the brain starts going crazy (why do I do this?). A quick check of our savings, an estimation of what our tax refund will be and some calculating of what it will take to get out (make up the shortfall of what we owe/list, realtor fee’s, what if they ask us to pay closing?) and what it will take to get into somewhere new (if we purchase something for $XX and we put down 5%...). Add all that to the laundry list of things I want to fix/update before we list and an implosion is imminent.

I didn’t fall asleep until 4am, Monday morning. Ka-boom.

After some talking it through with Tom, some tears (mine) and a four hour nap I feel more at peace with it all. We are going to stay the course but the pipe situation yesterday felt like a little salt in the wound (really? One more thing?). I am trying to take it in stride.

It may very well be possible that we won’t be able to list. It may very well be possible we will. But I can’t obsess about it anymore.

Whatever happens, happens. And it all happens for a reason, right?