*GAAAHH!! I never posted this! better late then never....
V for velocity virus vistaster VALENTINE'S DAY!!! Yeah! Let's start with Valentine's Day. We decided to go easy this year, no big dinner out and no prezzies, since we'd rather save the money for fun over in Italy! Plus, we rigged our trip so that we're there in wine country for our 12th wedding anniversary! Romantic enough, yes?! And an important milestone anniversary. What better place to celebrate this beautiful thing we have...that impossibly continues to grow more deep with each passing year? So, we opted to stay home for a family evening with Willa and get a nice pizza delivered. And of course we got each other prezzies. Miles sent a lovely bouquet of roses to my work and gave me a pair of unique copper earrings. I splurged on a sensational bottle of Barbaresco...the female to Barolo's male. Grapes from the Peimonte region in Italy. The most gorgeous wine to ever cross my lips. The pizza came in handy since we had no heat or hot water.
Let's back-track a day. Thursday night, Willa and I get home from school. I head straight to the bathroom with a full bladder. The toilet seat was FREEZING. Wait a sec....I still have my down coat on. It's CHILLY in here.... Uh, oh. Sure enough, I give the baseboards a feel, check the thermometer. Ooo! 58 degrees! I give Miles a heads up and call Karl with a K, our handy handyman. Our boiler set up is in our crawl space/basement and only accessed though a trap door in the floor of our CLOSET(eye roll). I get in there to remove the door and turn the light on for Karl's arrival. Oh, My Fucking GOD. There is a WATERFALL cascading from our Quietside heater. There is a foot of water in the crawl space. Things.....are floating everywhere. I frantically call back Karl to let him know things are REALLY SNAFU and hurry up!!!! Willa is in tears thinking the water is going to flood the WHOLE upstairs as well and is frightened when I put on my Xtra-tuffs to get down there and salvage what I can. Fast forward a few hours, Karl has come and gone, the water shut off and now draining, a part will be ordered, wood stove is blazing, several space-heaters are set up around the house to keep things warm enough to not have pipes freeze and plants die, and Miles and I are hauling up nasty wet trash from the crawl space. I tell myself it's just junk, a lot of it was going to be given to the Salvation Army anyway, too bad it got ruined. All our important beloved stuff is upstairs anyway.... Then Miles upends a plastic bin that had tipped over and took on water. It contained most of my photo albums. Pictures from my childhood up until about age 30....most of which I had taken.....DESTROYED. Out of hundreds I saved maybe 40-50. A decent cross-section of years.....but, MAN, it was still a blow. And what.a.mess. This vistaster was not taken well by all.
Our little family pizza and wine snuggle fest in our chilly house eased the pain on Valentines day.
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| Beauty in destruction? |
The next morning we escaped headed into Eagle River early to drop Willa off at the Ski bus that would take her and a ton of other very happy kids to Alyeska for the day to have a downhill ski lesson. Miles and I followed in the car. We had beautiful clear weather for our day of skiing. As soon as I got off the lift onto the slope, I killed it! I skied the BEST I have skied in my LIFE! I think it's from all the skate skiing I've been doing...they seem to compliment each other. I even took on a great deal of speed that I usually would have been freaked out about. I seem to have entered a "less fear" zone when it comes to velocity! Willa enjoyed her morning lesson and skied with us for the rest of the day.
We took a break to make the chocolate dipped strawberries we had promised Willa we could have for Valentines day. Can't wait until they have cooled and solidified!
And as I have been sitting here, I've begun to feel a "pressure" slowly build in my chest. That itchy solid feeling that usually signifies a chest cold coming on.
Yay for viruses? That's all I need. But the strawberries....that will make it all GOOD. Right?
Continuing with my All Things Italy as well! ;)
Brings me joy.
