On again, off again

So much for my plan of writing twice a week, huh? There's so much I want to remember about the past month, but I have been so busy living life, I haven't taken the time to write about it. I will try to play a bit of catch up...about Easter, our houseful of guests, etc. Though since I am so behind already, I'll just stick to telling you about our current adventure with water.
Anyone care to take a bath in this?? There are times the water is so orange the drain isn't even visible. Have no fear; we skip bath days when it's this bad. I quickly abandoned the idea of bathing the kids when I saw how discolored the water was that day. The problem has been going on for months, and we've been told that the old hot water pipes are to blame. So last week they started the process of replacing the hot water pipes in the entire building. Oh, the joys of hearing the workers drill through cement. Dust is everywhere. Because they are drilling through the floor, when they work on our upstairs neighbor's apartment, the debri lands in our bathroom, just as our downstairs neighbor gets ours.

For obvious reasons, when workers are replacing pipes, the water must be cut off occasionally. The first few days, it would go off (randomly) and come back on again within a short period of time. Then this week the "real" work began, and without warning, we had no water for two days. Well, I should clarify that the notice of the upcoming water cut was posted half-way through our first day of not having any water! Thankfully friends let us fill up a big jug of water so we could flush the toilet, etc. Wednesday the water was back, but our electricity came and went throughout the day (unrelated to the pipe replacing, and in fact, this slowed down their work. We got a break from the sound of the drills, and they ended up sweeping some of the debri in our bathroom because their work had come to a standstill).

At 7:00 on Wednesday night I bathed the kids as I usually do. With three kids reasonably clean, I was ready to rinse the shampoo out of Jenna's hair when, you guessed it, the workers cut off the hot water! She was aghast at the thought of being rinsed with icy cold water, and I agreed it would be torture. Thankfully there was a little (well used) water still in the bathtub, so I opted to rinse her with it instead. We'll call her clean.

By Thursday morning we had electricity, hot and cold water. But we were scheduled to visit friends that day. We spent the better part of the day with them (in spite of the fact that Nathan was still coughing quite a bit and poor Josh had a fever which had started in the middle of the night. But, hey, we got to eat Philipino spaghetti sauce with bits of hot dog in it...a first for us and a delight to the kids! ) Upon returning home, however, we discovered the cold water had been shut off. This means no dishwasher, washing machine, water for the toilets, etc. We pay a pretty penny for the quantity of water we use from the hot water pipes, so for Joe's sake we are using the water we do have sparingly. We've been told the water will be on again tomorrow night. For how long, I wonder...

I have to say I am frequently being reminded that water is something that should not be taken for granted. Rather than allowing myself to be frustrated that washing my hands isn't as simple as turning on the faucet right now, I am focusing on being grateful that most of the time we have a plentiful supply. It may be orange at times, but it's easily accessible! And I'm praying that the others in this building (my three sweet boys included) will be drawn to the One who offers each of us Living water.