Up to My Eyeballs in Crap

I have been metaphorically and almost literally, up to my eyeballs in crap.

The house in which my mother and mother-in-law live, had a backed up sewer pipe, which, caused sewage to back up into the laundry tub, and over on the floor.  A few times.  

We hired a plumber who was trying to save us some money by attempting several ways to clean out the pipe before determining that it had actually collapsed.

While he was playing at Bill Nye The Plumbing Guy, we had to keep bailing out the laundry tub into empty paint drums and Rubbermaid storage containers.  At one point, my fiancé, drilled a hole into the laundry tub so it would self-bail into another tub.  Is this how an episode of Hoarders starts?

Imagine this ... but with sewage.

Picture courtesy of http://www.grinningplanet.com/2005/05-10/joke-plumber-cartoon.htm

Well two weeks, a four man excavating team, severed internet/tv cables, and a destroyed drive way later - we have a brand spanking new sewer pipe and water line!  Hurray!  

My mom texted me once it was completed proclaiming "I'm so excited I could poop ... and actually flush!"  That's word-for-word.

Despite all of this, I did manage to keep up with my Get Started Write Challenge with Robert Lee Brewer over at Writer's Market.  And by keep up I mean I only skipped three out of he thirty-one challenges.  And yes, all three had to do with submitting work.  What's it to ya?

I just don't feel like I have enough behind me to submit yet.

Speaking of which:  while I was conducting research into my novel, I found out that museum docents are volunteers.  Since it is not a paid occupation I have some rewriting to do.  Talk about crappy.

I'm just glad that I discovered that little gem now rather than after I finished.

My fiancé the eternal optimist, or as I like to call him, "Pollyanna", said to me that this provides me with an opportunity to make it that much more interesting.  And me being the eternal realist, or as he likes to call me, "Polly Pessimist", I was upset.  For a while.  

But then I thought, ok self, if museum docents have to go through all of this training (which is more than you think), and they are expected to do all of this work for free (a ridiculous amount of work actually), what kinds of conflicts could this cause and what sort of tension could be found?  It got my wheels-a-turnin', my friends.

I am pretty sure that I can make it work, but, now I have to find my character a day job.  So if you will excuse me, I need to go spend some quality time with my character to find out where she works and what she does.