Deep down under

This morning I had a list of about 10 tasks for Tim and I to get through: fix toilet, weed front yard, put on mailbox numbers, paint front door and back door, paint stoop, , etc- so that tomorrow we can go fishing and to a movie.
We started with the toilet that had been leaking from the tank into the toilet (needed a new flapper)for about 2 weeks and was progressively getting worse. But in order to fix it with the new flapper, arm and float we needed to turn off the water to the house because the valve to just the toilet leaked quite a lot when we shut it off (so it too had to be replaced).
I had gone to Lowe's earlier this week and got the toilet insides but hadn't picked up the valve b/c I realized when I got there I didn't know the size or if we had copper or galvanized pipes. So today Tim went under the house in search of the main shut off- and found it- quite far under the crawl space by the furnace (where there is about 30 inches between the dirt floor and the floor of the house). It was here that he discovered the main vent from the furnace to the front of the house had COMPLETELY fallen off. We had been wondering for months why our crawl space was so nice and cool all the time (and had found a couple of vents into the house that needed to be better positioned and taped up) and why the front of the house was always so darn hot!
So I went to Lowe's (having not bathed yet- which if you know me you know that I shower before I exercise because I feel gross otherwise so this is a big step for me- AND wearing the t-shirt I wore yesterday and slept in- I looked AWESOME) and got both the needed valve for the toilet and some extra long zip ties to reattach the vent to furnace. Good thing the zip ties were sold in a large pack. When I got back Tim said he needed my help to hold the vent/duct thing while he got the zip tie on. This entailed me crawling under the house 6 months pregnant trying not to slide on my belly under all the air conditioning stuff hanging down from the floor above which only left about 20inches of clearance. We got the main issue resolved. Tim turned back on the water- the toilet now working perfectly. At this point I was back up in the bathroom to make sure our new valve did not also leak (since we had to use the existing compression ring instead of a new one since the copper pipe was cut so close to the floor we could cut it off and replace it with a new one). And then I heard Tim from under the house yell up that he needed some more zip ties and help because he looked around more under the crawl space and saw that even further under the house (now less than 30inches space high) there was another duct work problem where a y-junction had completely fallen down and wasn't attached to the ducts leading to the front two rooms. So in I crawled in again with the extra zip ties to where Tim was assessing the best thing to do and we fixed that as well.
So really, the leaking toilet has probably saved us gobs of cash on air conditioning, and we found it while I am still able to crawl around under the house, and now I won't boil in the front rooms! It's been a good morning-though so far all we've gotten done on the list is the fix toilet and mailbox numbers- the weeding and the painting will have to wait until this evening or tomorrow.
It's been one of those weeks of lots of house and car ownership hassles- the wagon needed a new bulb in the headlamp and new tires, the house had a HUGE limp on the roof when we got home from vacation so that brought visits from both the tree guys and the roofing guys...ah, the joys of ownership!
After Tim gets back from getting his haircut we go to pick up our car (which needed 4 new tires- one had been slowly leaking for a few months and every week the light would come on and we'd get out the bicycle pump and put more air in-I counted this as part of my exercise) and then we get to go to finish picking out a rocker for the nursery!