I hate plumbing.

Let me be more clear, I REALLY hate plumbing. Plumbing sucks. Plumbing is evil.

At least with electrical the wires are flexible and can be moved. And the circuit box is usually located in a relatively accessible position.

But plumbing? Moving plumbing requires hundreds of dollars of work (under the best of circumstances). And the shut-off valves are normally located in irritating places underneath the house that can only be reached by crawling through a hundred years of dirt (that cats have used as their litter box) on your hands and knees. Yes, plumbing sucks.

I have spent the last week trying to finish painting the bathroom and kitchen. Sadly, the bathroom plumbing became the major delaying factor as I tried to figure out how to make all the shower plumbing connections work right after adding an inch to the wall thickness with concrete backer board and tile.

This exercise is futility involved approximately five trips to the plumbing supply store (they almost know me by name), ten trips to Ace Hardward, three trips to Lowe's, three trips underneath the house (ick), hacksawing through three lengths of pipe, and hours with a nail file on said pipe and other components to get them to fit someplace they aren't made to fit.

Yes, plumbing sucks.

weekend accomplishments

put my uniforms together so I'll be ready to deploy for the next hurricane (a strong likelihood)
finished spackling the bathroom
cleaned up the bathroom after sanding (an accomplishment in and of itself)
cursed at the gods of plumbing (multiple times) for not making plumbing fixtures fit
folded laundry
talked to my friend B
biked 80 miles

I'm particularly proud of the last one. Until Saturday, the longest I had ever biked was probably 15-20 miles. But thanks to strong encouragement from some biking friends at work (and finally having a real road bike), I signed up for the Little Red Riding Hood Ride (a woman's only bike ride). We were planning on doing a metric century (68 miles), but had an unexpected detour and added on 12 miles.

It was a lot of fun. There are a couple of moments (mainly on one long hill), where I was thinking "this sucks." But generally, I had a great time. And I'm not even sore today! I was definitely tired last night, but I think I'm basically recovered already. Although, we'll see how I feel when I get back on my bike tomorrow. :)