Foundation Fitbit

The last few weeks Jordan and I have just been enjoying life.  The Fall/Winter is always a busy time for us, but we've had a nice little lull lately.  The scheduling lull has come at a convenient time with my job and has allowed me to focus on my new role and learn the ropes.  Still, we've had some interesting things happening around our household!

When we got back to town after our Christmas break, we realized that something was wrong with the pipes in our master bathtub.  I always worry about the house when we aren't home, but my imagination was going wild.  Jordan found some time to investigate, and it turns out that my worry was unnecessary.  It seems that we needed a new posi-temp valve because the old one was just too brittle and aged.  A posi-temp valve is the thing that regulates the temperature of the water when other faucets are in use, or so I'm told.  In other words, it's the little thing that prevents someone from being scalded with hot water when someone else flushes a toilet.

Score 1 for Jordan's fix to the posi-temp valve, the house, 0.  

But, it seems the "game" isn't quite over yet.  After the new year, the Dallas area received a lot of rain.  It's a wonderful gift for our region because we really needed the rain, but so much rain at one time is rough.  Last week, Jordan noticed that some tiles in our kitchen made a strange noise when he walked on him.  After further inspection, he noticed that our tile was "teepeeing".  (Serrrrriousllly....could we have a burst pipe under our tile/foundation?)  Naturally, I did what most girls would do, text Dad.  On his recommendation we turned off the water to the house and tested whether or not we had a leak.  Thankfully, we do NOT have a water leak!

The latest theory is that all the rain must have caused a small foundation shift in our home.  Consequently, the tile is suffering the ramifications of that shift.  It's possible that the previous homeowners who laid our tile, might have grouted the space under the baseboards against the wall, preventing the tile from having any space to shift over time.  So for now, we are staying off the tile so we don't accidentally crack it.  Stay tuned as we figure out who wins this game point.

Left: My handy Jordan with his fixed posi-temp!  Impressive work!

Right: Our tile is like a mini-seesaw in the kitchen.  At least the bright orange level reminds me not to walk on it!

Last weekend we visited with Mom and Dad for Sunday dinner and to celebrate Jordan's birthday. 

Jordan opening his present after dinner!

Mom made an amazing dinner set on a beautiful table!!!

I guess you could say our family regularly uses china, when we're not at the lake, of course.  Mom set the table with her double Phoenix dishes.  This set is just like the set that my Grandpa bought for my grandmother when he was in the Korean war (mom's side).

Mom even made pretty flowers from the napkins, courtesy of her napkin folding class on her last cruise!  Such a cool skill!!  She topped it off with a gold coin at every place setting!

After dinner, all of us hung out and visited before Jordan and I had to head back home.  I think there may have been an important football game on or something?  I always hate leaving.

Top: Use girls visting! (Elizabeth, me, Mom)

Bottom: One of Jordan's Christmas presents was a Fitbit Surge, fitness watch.  This thing is really pretty cool.  It counts your steps, flights of stairs, monitors your heart rate, and measures all kinds of things.  It links to an app on his phone so he can log foods he's eaten and even challenge friends in active games.  Now that I've seen his, I kind of what one myself!

Among other things, the Fitbit measures the quality of sleep he is getting.  It graphs his restlessness throughout the night and gives you a cool picture of how well he is sleeping!  

If you imagine the green lines as "restlessness", red lines as "awake" and dark blue as "asleep", you can see how well a person is resting.  It turns out that Jordan moves a lot at night (not surprising) and I'm kind of a heavy sleeper.  The top graph is an average night for Jordan since he's been wearing the Fitbit and the bottom graph is from a night that I wore it.  Whoa, big difference.  Again, I might have to get me one. Maybe Jordan needs to defrag his hard drive at night.

Well, that's all I've got for y'all this week!  Hope everyone is starting off the new year well!