A few of our Executives from the company I work for (Gulf Winds Int'l) went on a missionary trip to Colombia to visit the orphanage that we have chosen to help this year. They returned with amazing stories of their experience that truly touched my heart.
Every year I have supported and helped Gulf Winds with every charity they have chosen. I can truly say I have enjoyed it every single time and look forward to it every year. This year is no different. I think what also raised my interest was the fact that they added a great incentive (as they do every year but this one is the best)to the top 3 who raise the most. Incentives include vacation time OR a trip to the next missionary trip to Colombia. In my opinion, forget the extra vacation days I would choose the missionary trip to have an experience that can change our lives. How awesome would it be to actually visit the place and the people who you raised money for and to see the impact in their life. I know many at our company love to help people and look forward to our charities every year like myself and can become competitive (with good intentions). It only makes it harder to be one of the top 3 but I can sure try. Either way, the money is going to a great cause.
I can't wait to get started. If you would like to help me, please click on the link below to read more about our goal and to donate.
Judy Ochoa fundraising for Gulf Winds
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Welcome to Homeownership (Disasters)
We were welcomed to one of our first home disasters sometime last week. One sunday afternoon we noticed there was a small puddle of water in our downstairs half bath. We checked the walls, the bottom of toilet, the sink on the outside and just to see if anything was wet. We had no clue to where the water was coming out of. We decided to clean it up and dry up the floor and go on with our day. Days later we run into the same situation but this time its during the work week right at the time I was planning on heading out to work. I was walking downstairs & turned the light on to go into the restroom and felt my feet touch water. Sure enough, the whole floor was wet. About an inch of water was in the half bath and came out to the front entrance of our home (inside). I could not believe it. I immediately called my husband to give him the bad news and asked to come home. I panicked and called my mom and then my brother in law to ask for advice. Once I finally cleaned up the floor, I had already turned off the water valve for the toilet to avoid any more water flowing out. When I spoke to my husband he told me to close it and I mentioned to him I had already turned it off. He made me question myself whether I had done it right so I decided to turn it again. Well, I had turned it back on without knowing. I had gone upstairs to test it and make sure I had turned it off, I turned on the water from our shower and went back downstairs to check if any water would come out. About a minute later I noticed water flowing out through the bottom of the toilet and I immediately ran upstairs (I had no clue I could run up those stairs so fast lol) to turn off the faucet from the shower. I am not kidding you, in just the few seconds it took me to run back up and come back down the water had already reached out to the entrance again. I could not believe it. What took me an hour to clean had just happened to me again in a few seconds.
Finally my husband arrived and he helped me clean. We had to place towels all around the toilet to keep the water from flowing through out the restroom. I had to call in to work to let them know I was going to arrive a bit late. It was a bad start to our morning. It definitely woke me up that morning. I was wide awake! We were able to dry up the floor and turned off the valve for sure this time. We both left back to work but still a little worried that we would return home with a huge puddle of water.
We were fine for a few days and hadn't used the restroom for a few days until the weekend when we ran into the same issue AGAIN. No freakin way!! I had tried washing and placed a load to wash on a saturday morning. I noticed a weird sound when the washer turned on and shouted to my husband to check the restroom but he didn't hear me and it wasn't checked. I jumped in the shower right after. When I got out the shower I had asked my husband to bring up my brush that was downstairs in the half bath. As he turned on the light, there was water all over the floor. A few not so nice words came out of his potty mouth. He remembered of a friend who is a plumber and was able to have him come by our house the next morning.
Sunday morning came around and his friend was nice enough to show up early to fix our problem. An hour or two later, he was done and left. He asked us to not use the toilet for 24 hours. The next evening after our dinner I began to wash dishes and we noticed the water wasn't going down. We messed with it a few minutes and I see my husband run to the restroom. Yes, you guessed right.... and AGAIN (became my favorite word of the week). My husband called his friend and he was there in less than an hour. Apparently, the issue hadn't started in the restroom. There is some pipe out in our garage that everything is connected to (I'm not a plumber so I don't know the right terminology) and it was clogged up. As time went by, it continued to clog up and was somehow causing our toilet to become lose and the caulking to start coming off. That is where the water started to flow out of causing the puddles of water in our restroom. The problem was finally solved.
A few days later we kept checking the restroom to make sure everything was ok. We were so traumatized. We finally got through it. Whew! That was our horrible week.
Finally my husband arrived and he helped me clean. We had to place towels all around the toilet to keep the water from flowing through out the restroom. I had to call in to work to let them know I was going to arrive a bit late. It was a bad start to our morning. It definitely woke me up that morning. I was wide awake! We were able to dry up the floor and turned off the valve for sure this time. We both left back to work but still a little worried that we would return home with a huge puddle of water.
We were fine for a few days and hadn't used the restroom for a few days until the weekend when we ran into the same issue AGAIN. No freakin way!! I had tried washing and placed a load to wash on a saturday morning. I noticed a weird sound when the washer turned on and shouted to my husband to check the restroom but he didn't hear me and it wasn't checked. I jumped in the shower right after. When I got out the shower I had asked my husband to bring up my brush that was downstairs in the half bath. As he turned on the light, there was water all over the floor. A few not so nice words came out of his potty mouth. He remembered of a friend who is a plumber and was able to have him come by our house the next morning.
Sunday morning came around and his friend was nice enough to show up early to fix our problem. An hour or two later, he was done and left. He asked us to not use the toilet for 24 hours. The next evening after our dinner I began to wash dishes and we noticed the water wasn't going down. We messed with it a few minutes and I see my husband run to the restroom. Yes, you guessed right.... and AGAIN (became my favorite word of the week). My husband called his friend and he was there in less than an hour. Apparently, the issue hadn't started in the restroom. There is some pipe out in our garage that everything is connected to (I'm not a plumber so I don't know the right terminology) and it was clogged up. As time went by, it continued to clog up and was somehow causing our toilet to become lose and the caulking to start coming off. That is where the water started to flow out of causing the puddles of water in our restroom. The problem was finally solved.
A few days later we kept checking the restroom to make sure everything was ok. We were so traumatized. We finally got through it. Whew! That was our horrible week.
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