In other news

Well the first and most important news to report is...

CHRIS PASSES HIS PROPOSAL DEFENSE!!!

can I please hear a 

HALLELUJAH!!

Now let's be real for a second, was I worried? No. Not one bit. I mean come on the man is brilliant. Was he worried? Yes. Yes, Yes, YES! He greatly underestimates his abilities. His defense was on the 13th, his birthday was on the 12th. One of the biggest reasons I didn't do anything big or fun for his birthday was because I knew he wouldn't enjoy a second of it. In fact I am pretty sure he was mentally in a room in front of a board of professors presenting and defending the entire day of the 12th so birthday festivities would have been pointless. He was a ball of nerves Wednesday morning and counting down the seconds til 10:30 arrived. I think we both were, every two minutes I would check the clock and think about what he was doing at that moment. A lot of his nerves probably stemmed from the fact that the last 3 students in his department to do their proposal defense failed and had to start over.

At 12:02 I got a call from a very happy man. He had passed. More than passed.  The entire board had nothing but positive feedback and compliments. And so just like that we are on to the last final months of this PhD journey. Hang on folks, we just might make it through this.

Next on the news feed is our floods... yes floodS with an S.

  

It started about a month ago. One Sunday we walked downstairs and found very wet squishy carpet. After much searching and wall bashing and grass cutting the plumber determined the flood was due to an old sprinkler line that was left open and somehow turned itself on (cross talk between wires) and flooded the entire backyard during the night which then ran down into the foundation and flooded the basement.  We did a little sprinkler work and problem solved. So with that my entire basement was unloaded into my garage, the carpet was ripped up walls torn down and 4 weeks of repair painting and cleaning took place. This Saturday everything was suppose to be moved back downstairs and I was going to get my basement and my garage back. 

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Yesterday I spent the day at my mom's house. When I got home late last night I smelled a familiar disgusting smell.... dirty flood water. I walked downstairs and sure enough same flood same area, problem  NOT solved. So I guess it might be another month before I get my garage and basement back. For now we will continue to park our cars in the driveway since the garage looks like this...

This make flood number 4 in 2 years.... I think we have reached our flood quota for a lifetime! :D

And that is the news for now.