About this "Cloud" that follows me?

Does anyone know how to call off the cloud?

Cuz I've had just about enough of its presence in my life!

As you know, we were having a family BBQ at our home yesterday. You will recall that back in mid-June I posted about my step-son having "eloped" with his lovely bride -- who just happens to be a year older than I? The BBQ was actually an excuse to welcome the new members of our ever-expanding blended family.

We toasted the happy couple with champagne/orange juice before having "brats on the barbie" with salads and corn on the cob. Then of course there were three desserts to choose from along with coffee.

John and I got to meet our new "grandson" and his wife and children (our "great grandsons.") This "grandson" is the same age as my daughter; the great grandsons are three and one -- and they are some cuties!!!!!! The baby sat and cuddled with me for some great length of time (which of course I just lapped up!) The three year old was a little more cautious; he took his time warming up to us but once he came around ....

As the afternoon wore on, the three-year-old walked up to me and said, "I like you." Which of course, just melted my heart. So I lowered myself to his level, gave him a hug and told him I liked him too. And then I said, "Thank you very much." To which he replied, "You're welcome!" as he sauntered away. My daughter heard him saying, "Thank you for giving me dinner," as he was walking around the house. She has no idea to whom the courtesy was being addressed. Cutest little thing ever.

I was delighted that our resident pileated woodpeckers came in to feed at our suet feeder. He and his mom are daily visitors and it's always fun when they come in when we have guests. On this occasion, only the son actually came in but his mom was in a tree just a little way off, watching him. (John actually caught these photos last week.) It's remarkable that her son is actually larger than she is!

Anyway, a good time was had by all and everyone went home very well fed (even the woodpeckers!)

The cloud, you ask?

Well, on Saturday, I needed to get into the back storage room for something. OK, I decided to pull something out of the storage area; a task that very well could have waited until today. Anyway, in pulling that item out of the storage area, I discovered water -- of course it shouldn't have been there!

Now, this was at about 4:00pm on Saturday you realize.

We have a houseful of people arriving by 10:00am on Sunday you realize.

And we've got water in the basement coming from an unknown source!

Great!

I do know that the water was not there prior to our Toronto trip when last I had this item out of the storage area. So whatever is leaking has only been leaking since August 6th!

Guess what we did?

We removed everything from the storage area to the adjoining laundry room and we closed the door. Off limits. Sorry. We'll deal with the problem on Monday.

So today, the day I'm supposed to be on R&R to recover from yesterday's BBQ, I'm pulling everything out of both rooms so John could get up at the spot to find the source of the leak (I wanted to control the ensuing chaos that will prevail until the job is completed.)

Didn't take long to find the cause. Condensation on the cold water pipe! Would you believe it?

The humidity has been such that, in spite of having two -- count them, two -- dehumidifiers going full time, our cold water pipe is still dripping like a leaky faucet! When the house was built back in 1976 John didn't know about ABS water pipes (no condensation) so he put in all copper pipes (some have since been replaced as we've "updated" some installations around here.)

John tells me that this phenomena has happened only once before in all the years since he built the house (obviously, prior to 1995 when I arrived on the scene.) In any case, it's being fixed now so it won't happen again.

Now some clouds do have silver linings, you realize.

Having had to undergo this exercise, that part of the storage room is now nice and clean! And we found stuff we can "dispense with" and other stuff we can repackage and perhaps protect a little better. So my cleaning and organizing bug will be happy.

And we've been wanting to pull out the dryer and clean out back there and check its exhaust pipe ...

But I'd better pace myself or I'll be in big do do again ...