We Have Water Pressure

Very tired. But not as tired as my uncle must be right now. He greatly improved our water pressure this weekend and modernized about half of our plumbing system.

My uncle arrived between 5:30 and 6 a.m. Saturday morning and got right to work. Twelve hours later he sat down to dinner with us (and my inlaws who are here to visit and help). Then he was back to work as we packed up the kids and headed back to Chicago. He slept on our air mattress and then got right back at it this morning, finishing up in the afternoon and driving back to Kenosha.

But not before trying to get out of getting paid.

Seriously.

I knew that my uncle was known to resist accepting money for plumbing within the family, and is known to be generous. I remember that he once slipped hundreds of dollars in cash to one of my cousins when she was going through a terrible time.

But this is ridiculous. The man drove a hundred miles each way, spent a night away from his family, and worked longer and harder than I have seen anyone (except maybe me) work. At a skilled and highly financially valued trade, no less. Epu explained that we had budgeted for this work and were ready and able to pay him.

He finally accepted a check for half the amount he admitted the job was worth at his usual rate, and said if it bothered us so much we could send along the difference. Which of course we will. My mom warned me of the possibility that he might not cash the other check. Which would put us in the position of finding something else we could do for him, like maybe some computer setting up or something.

It's touching that my uncle is so kind and willing to help us out. But besides the obvious fairness issue, I have a selfish reason for making sure he gets paid, too. It would be nice to be able to call him again when we are ready to have the rest of the system fixed and remodel our nasty bathroom. If he doesn't get paid, I can't exactly ask him again. Even with his pay, he did us a huge favor by coming so far from home, overnight no less, to do the work.

So thanks, Uncle Bob. You rock!

Other updates: The closet door in our guest/media room has been widened and roughly trimmed, Epu spent part of today adding more trim so it approximately matches other doorways. The electrician has redone a bunch of switches and outlets, and last I spoke to him didn't seem to think he would need to do more than the already expensive work. Sadly, he replaced our ancient button-push lights with switches, which we didn't realize he was going to do. The kitchen has accent colors only, since I'm sort of on a painting hiatus until the electrician finishes tomorrow.

And we have six or seven boxes of books packed. Movers are scheduled for Saturday, when my mother and Epu could both be here. Will the windows be installed by Saturday? Well, it's on the Polish window guy's schedule that way. Let's see if the window company delivers on time or within four days of on time.

Tomorrow: Drive to OP at 6 a.m., electrician at 7 a.m., Nutmeg's first swimming lesson at 10:20. We were planning to stop in OP tonight but when we realized we needed to stop home for something after leaving Ribfest at 9 p.m., we kind just stumbled upstairs to bed instead of driving to the western suburbs. We're kinda tired. But, like I said, not as tired as Uncle Bob, who I am sure is sleeping right now.