Just a 48-year-old mom of 2 in Northern California. My kids are Monkey Monkey(MM) and Drama Llama (DL). I am married to Monkey Hubby (MH). The Latest Emergency
April 19th, 2026 at 03:21 pm
It wasn't until I cropped this photo that I noticed his little white patch showed up in this picture. I was looking through photos (with his white patch) and had given up.
He's still got some wild kitten energy. I found him the other day making a game out of the toilet bowl. He would drop his toys into the toilet and then fish them out. *sigh*
I'd say that we had a couple of weeks of peace on the home/emergency front. Not on the work/emergency front. My assistant was out on bereavement leave. Which happens, but it's like the millionth time. I suppose I haven't had any peace, but at least it was a couple of weeks of reprieve from big emergency spending.
But last weekend was quite dramatic. We had a roof leak. Which maybe we wouldn't even know! But the water was funneling into one of our smoke alarms. So this set off all (7) of our smoke alarms (wired). It's been panic inducing at times when they all chirp re: low batteries. The sound is so loud and piercing. But this was Level 11, with all of them blaring.
When all was said and done, I feel quite lucky that we were home. I wouldn't be surprised if no one was home (for a long period of time) and my cat had a heart attack, or was irreversibly pyshcologically scarred. Also, it was a spare room in our house (mostly unused), so I have no idea when we ever would have noticed the leak otherwise.
While the roofer was kind of *shrugs*, roof tiles shift over time, or maybe the builder didn't do the best job securing all of the tiles... I did think back to that extreme wind storm a few years ago. That timeline makes sense. We weren't home, but a large amount of fences and trees blew down, and I guess the storm was pretty wild (heard about it secondhand). If it takes a few years for the water to seep through the other layers of the roof (that get damaged with constant exposure to sun and elements).
I have never given the roof a thought because we bought new. & probably our overall mild weather is a factor. I got the memo that at the least we should probably inspect the roof (or at least do a drone fly over) after more extreme storm events. & is probably more important as our roof is aging, though I don't think storms discriminate.
The fix was fast, and thankfully not a large emergency expense. I mean, don't get me wrong, I am adding thousands to the 'emergency spending' this year. But the amount seems to be dropping down, with each emergency. & that could have easily been a lot more expensive.
P.S. This is reason number 1,052 why I want to downsize our home, when the nest empties. (MM's room is a second room that is empty about 95% of the time. A leak in any of these rooms could have gone undetected for a long time. More rooms will empty...)
Done with everyone's taxes (relatives), so I should be getting some time back. I finished before last weekend, but there was nothing relaxing about last weekend. & work *should* settle down now, but it never seems to. At some point there has to be some payoff re: everything I have taken off my plate during the last year. The last 5 months have been a little extra.