Leaking Again!

The weather has been above freezing and slowly melting, so the roads are nice and clear, except what's piled up on the sides. I noticed a wet spot at the bottom of the fireplace bricks near the front door. I got lower to see up close and the floor was wet also. I looked up at the ceiling but didn't see anything that looked wet. I called Curtis and while on the phone I checked Jack's room and the family room to see if there was any water leaking through the foundation. There was a lot of water melted from the snow in the front yard the day before, but it had soaked into the dirt. I also checked under the stairs but didn't really see anything that looked for sure wet. After going back upstairs again I looked at the ceiling above the wet spot and then I saw a drip come down about 5-6 inches away from the corner. We thought we had gotten this fixed last year. Ugh! Curtis had to come home from work and cut a small piece of ceiling out to air it out and check how much had gotten wet. He also got on the roof outside to check it and it looks like it might be coming from the North end of the fireplace by a valley. I don't think anything was done in that area when it got fixed last year. Fortunately, we caught it early and we didn't have to cut out a huge piece. It's weird because it's fine when it rains. It only leaks when we have a bunch of snow.

The spot on the bricks. I was so confused as to how it got wet before I saw the dripping.

Made a little mess.

He pulled out the wet insulation and broke off wet sheetrock. It was piled on top of a towel. 

And now we have a hole in our ceiling again, but at least it's small.

There isn't much else we can do until the weather warms up but at least it can air out and dry now. I haven't seen any drips since Curtis cut the ceiling. The snow on the roof is pretty much all gone today and Curtis had cleared it away from the chimney while he was up there yesterday.

After I cleaned up the floor, I decided to use the rag I used for the floor to go finally wipe off the speckles of texture that were still on our bedroom door and bathroom door in our master bedroom. There's still some on the closet door as well but my arms and fingers were tired of doing that after the other two doors and doorways. One reason I thought to do that was because Curtis keeps talking about needing to paint those doors. I haven't quite got in the mode of wanting to paint again yet, but wiping it down is a step in the that direction. February seems to be the month to start painting the last two years in a row. Painting our house in Idaho and then painting our basement here a year ago. I'm looking forward to relaxing a little more this year.

Curtis had mentioned his concerns about the weight of the heavy snow damaging the pool canvas cover by stretching it and that the pool has too much water in it already. So, I decided, even after doing my morning workout (before Curtis came home to check the leak), and then wiping the doors, that I was going to go scoop as much of the snow away from the pool as I could. I was able to scrape some of it off of the cover as well, carefully. That snow (or should I say slush) was so wet and heavy and it made me pretty tired, but not as tired as I thought I would have been. It took about 1-1 1/2 hours. I think my exercising might be helping, even if it's not that much. I made sure to stretch a lot after shoveling as well. It felt good to get that done. These pictures were taken yesterday and today it's nice to see the cement around the pool starting to look dry. The pool is still very full and maybe after the snow finishes melting, Curtis will drain some with a hose. He had to do it once already. To think, last year when we opened our pool, there wasn't enough water in the pool for the pool guy to vacuum it up in one go. This year we have way too much water. There's been a lot of rain and snow this year. We don't want to leave it too full because we're already worried about the liner in the pool that is peeling up in a couple of places. Hopefully it won't cause too much damage. We can't afford a new liner this year.

I was almost halfway done when I took a break and got a picture.

All done and cleared away.

Our next activity days is on Monday and Sister Gale had said the girls wanted to do some sewing. The problem is trying to do something simple enough that we'll have time in our 1-hour slot for so many girls to finish the project. I looked up ideas for simple sewing projects for kids and found a cute heart shaped hand warmer project that uses fabric and rice. There's also a little tag that comes with it that says "Hand Warmers, warm hands, warm heart (Heat in the microwave 30 seconds)." Sister Gale liked the idea and so we're going with it. She texted me this afternoon to see if I could come help cut out the hearts. I was over there for a couple of hours. It feels good to be helping more since I'm one of the leaders now. It's getting me excited to try more crafty things with my girls here at home also.