Swirl sat like this for over an hour, staring at me. I'm sure he was plotting how to kill me.

If you think I'm joking, you should read this book: How to Tell If Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You

Here is my new toilet...in all its glory. I never thought I'd be so happy with something so basic as a toilet but I do.  It is my new thrown.  Pope Francis has his, now I have mine.

If something this easy makes me happy, I wonder...hum...what should I replace next?  Maybe the hideous 1990's green diamond linoleum in the bathroom...yuck!

Wouldn’t the title of this blog be an awesome name for bar? I think so. 

Well this whole week has been consumed by the leaky toilet in our downstairs bathroom.  I noticed a week or so ago that there was water on the floor.  I tried to figure out where it was coming from but I was stumped.  Then the floor was dry for a few days and then on Sunday water again, this time a nice big puddle.  Where the heck is it coming from?? 

So I was tinkering around the toilet trying to figure it out (and my goodness Swirl is a messy kitty litter cat…how does he get so much litter behind the toilet?).  I tried turning the shut off valve and it started to leak. Ah-ha!  I found the problem...or so I thought. Eric turned it to the “off” position and I put a pot under there.  We decided we must have a leaky shut off valve.  Well I couldn’t sleep that night, I had visions of water gushing out of the pipe, flooding our downstairs and frying our furnace when it is 5 degrees outside (the furnace room is adjacent to this bathroom).  I kept my ear out for the furnace turning on and off all night.  Monday morning, the pot was dry, not a single drop. Huh? Ok so it wasn’t the shut off valve.

Monday night we came home from work and I went to check out the toilet. I flushed it to clear the tank because as you remember, Eric turned “off” the water.  WRONG!  I flushed the toilet and the water came flowing into the tank, so much for turning off the water. LOL! That was the point I realized that neither one of us are handy mans. And we should never do home improvement project by ourselves. So now that the shut off valve is ruled out, I took my investigation further.   After flushing the toilet I noticed that water was dripping on the floor. It was the handle! I figured it out, the water level was as high as the handle and it was leaking!  So I lowered the water level so it is no longer that high. I flushed the toilet again and made sure the water stop well below the handle.  Problem solved!

...20 minutes later…water on the floor. WTF!!!!  Now I’m getting really pissed at this toilet.  Where the heck is the water coming from?  I still don’t have a clue and I don’t want to bother with it any more. Time to get the professionals and to make easy on me I’m just going to get a new toilet. 

So while other people spend their tax refunds on spring break vacations. I get to spend my tax refund, and take a day off of work, to get a shiny, new…TOILET! 

Edinborough Park Concert
March 10, 2013

March Madness has already set in.  March really is madness for me.  My work and home life have been busy.  I always complain about January and February at work because I work Saturdays and there is the stress of getting the stuff ready in 2 months.  I have a lot of work those months but March is the worst of them all.  Part of the problems is I get the 10-K Annual report filed and the Statutory Annual filings done so my mind says hurray I am done. It plays this trick on me every year.  But I’m not even close to done.  We have 3 subsidiaries left to prepare and a Stat audit and the MDA. I know that means nothing to you but essential I am working on 5 different things simultaneously.  It is amazing that I don’t get so confused and make changes to one document that was intended for a different one…ok now I have freaked myself out…have I done that?  Now right now is crunch time for these 5 documents so I work my tail off from start to finish everyday with really no break.  At least in January and February there are days were I’m not too busy. And then April hits and we get to add first quarter reporting of the 10-Q and Statutory filings on top of it so It becomes a major mess.  I really hate March.

Also this past week…

My VP’s last day was on Wednesday. We went out for lunch on Monday with her. It was a sad day.  And to make it even worse they forgot her order.  We all got our food except for her.  About 20 minutes later they brought out her burger and it was rare.  Of all people this could have happened to it had to be her, the guest of honor.  She finally settled on soup because we all were done eating by that point. After that we had a happy hour for her.  It was nice.

Wednesday brought another swim night. I really love swimming and I look forward to it on swim days.  The thought of jumping into the pool after work really helps to get me through these long days at work.  The only bad thing is we usually hit Arby’s afterwards so all that workout I did went to waste on a Beef N’ Cheddar.

Thursday was a shorten band night. We started an hour later because the school had conferences.  Normally we would just take the night off but we had a concert to prepare for so we had to practice.

Friday, Eric and I ventured to Wisconsin for the weekend.  If we had to drive I-94 between Minneapolis and St. Paul everyday we would be divorced in no time...boy that road sucks! It took us over an hour to get the border from Minneapolis.  That is like 25 miles! The weekend was great so it was worth it. I worked on my mom’s “honey-do” list until Midnight and even did more than she expected.  But I like doing it so it was ok. I designed her program for her next Deanery meeting so once I get started on something like that I go all out and can’t sleep until I’m done.  Saturday we had lunch with Nancy, Greg and Dylan.  After that we went to Mike’s dart tournament and shopping for shoes in Winona.   Yesterday after church it started to snow so we left early to avoid the major snow.  The snowflakes were huge.  The really splat on the windshield when the hit!

We got home around 1pm.  I didn’t feel so good so I laid down. After a 4 hour nap, Eric woke me up.  I still didn’t feel the best but I had to get ready for my concert. The concert was a success.  I’ll post a video of it later.  I also have a request for Monster Cookies so I need to make those as well.  I’m going to have to bless the M&Ms as fish so I can eat the batter. LOL!

Welcome March!  It came in like a lamb…Easter is the last weekend. Does that mean snow for Easter?  Gosh I hope not!

This week was good.  We got all the stuff filed that need to be. That is a huge relief. Now we move on to the other year end things.  So the work isn’t done yet.   I’m still not sure what is going on with me yet. I’ve heard rumors, I hate rumors. Hopefully I’ll find out soon. Tomorrow is last day for my VP. We are taking her out to lunch and then a happy hour afterwards.  It will be a sad day.

Besides work, nothing much is going on.  Yesterday we went to the Mall of America with Greg, Celeste and Evelyn.  Today Eric has his soccer clinic in St. Paul and I have a clothing party at my co-worker house in Maplewood. It works out great because we can carpool.

So we are officially Pope-less. He retired on Thursday.  So you all better watch out! The entire flock is out wandering around without guidance, who knows what we will get up to? Since it is March and they are voting for a new Pope, somebody came up with a tournament line up like the NCAA Sweet Sixteen, except it is the Sweet Sistine.