Wait, it's FEBRUARY?

And the last time I posted was on January 21st??? WOW! That's some sort of record for me, and not in a good way! But I can explain, I swear!

The big thing that's happened over the past few weeks is a major shift in my photography business. I hadn't been working very much, mostly because of scheduling issues. And motivation issues. I got to talking with my buddy Miranda, who owns a custom cake business, and she had suggested we partner up to do cake smash sessions for one-year-olds. This got me thinking. I have this (small) home studio. It's really not big enough for family portraits or anything like that. But it's perfect for babies! And it's IN MY HOUSE, which solves a lot of scheduling/childcare issues. Best of all, my main competition here in town (who happens to be a friend's husband) absolutely hates photographing babies. So it all clicked! Focus on babies! But I've been hard at work completely changing my website, getting the studio set up even better, drumming up business, etc. It's been pretty exciting, actually! I feel like everything just magically fell into place. It's just been a lot of work (in a good way)!

But the kids are, in fact, still here, and we have been plenty busy with other things, too! Just yesterday, our town rec department hosted a Family Skate Day at a local ice rink. Free entry and skate rentals for all town residents! We went, and it was a lot of fun! A few of Nikos' buddies were there, along with their moms, so it ended up being a social event, too. My Zumba instructor was also there. Ah, small town life, haha! Here's one quick pic I snapped of Gus and the kids with my phone. Maya was not in the best mood, but Nikos ROCKED it! He was doing so well, and he was even going pretty fast! I was so proud! His confidence on the ice is amazing!

I actually just went through the photos on my phone to find that one, and was reminded of another event from the past two weeks. One that was rather unpleasant, actually, and I can't believe I forgot about it already!! Last week, we had a few days of negative temperatures. Even with the sun high in the sky, the temperatures were still hovering around zero. It was COLD. Suddenly, our dishwasher stopped working. I thought it was just a glitch or something, and went to bed. The next morning, the hot water in the kitchen sink wouldn't work. Same in the kids' bathroom, which is directly above the kitchen and must share a water line. Then we realized that three of our four heat zones were also not working (we have hot water baseboard heaters). Yup, the pipes were frozen. Great.

We ended up finding a plumber on CraigsList, and he was awesome. I think he will be our go-to guy if we ever need anything again! He was just so competent and rational. He let us borrow his construction-grade heater, which we set up in the basement aiming towards the crawl space where the frozen pipes had to be. A few hours later, we had hot water in the sinks/bathroom again-- HALLELUJAH!!! But still no heat. We weren't freezing to death or anything, since we have the pellet stove, but we didn't know if the pipes had actually burst. We found out the answer to that question later that evening, when we suddenly heard rushing water in the mudroom. Ack! Thankfully, the plumber had showed me exactly what to do in that situation. We got it cleaned up, and left the water shut off to that one zone. A few days later, after a few warm (almost 60-degree!) days, the heat suddenly kicked back on in another zone. And we still don't have heat in the final zone, but that one has most likely been frozen since November. We never use it. So we will see what happens in the spring.

Anyway, the plumber came back on Friday to fix the broken pipe, and then put antifreeze into our heating system so that this doesn't happen again. Smart!! Wish we had known about it before! Anyway, he fixed the broken spot in the pipe. The pipe actually looked like this. Amazing!

So then he tested the system, and it seemed to be working. He put the antifreeze in. And then we heard a bad noise. The same pipe had burst in a different spot! Oh my gosh!! We hustled to turn off the zone and clean up the mess, and then he fixed that part of the pipe. And, wouldn't you know it, the same thing happened AGAIN when we tested the system-- a third break in the same line. All were in different spots, about 8 feet apart, and they were all along the same north-facing wall that never gets sunlight. It was just too darn cold. In the end, the plumber ended up being here for over five hours. I was really nervous about how much he would charge us, but he was VERY reasonable. And I liked the guy! He's local, is a dad to two kids (a boy and a girl), a former firefighter, and he helps coach football at the high school. Most importantly, he did a good job and didn't rip us off. We lucked out! And now that we have the antifreeze in the system, this shouldn't ever happen again. *knock on wood*

Anyway, between our plumbing woes and my photo business, I don't really remember what else has been happening! We enjoyed those gloriously warm days, though they were very foggy because of all the evaporating snow. Now it's back to normal winter weather here. We had a light snowfall last night, temps in the twenties today, and we have had flurries off and on all evening while watching the SuperBowl. Such is life in New England, I suppose!