This Old House

Despite the fact that when we moved here the house was in shambles and I worked for a month to get it to a livable state, I love having the parsonage.

We wouldn't be able to afford to live on his salary without it. 

It's not often that people in our position get offered a parsonage. There are blessings and curses about it. Blessings include tax free "pay", free lawn care, and a short skip over to work every day that saves in gas.

I consider every power bill they pay, every water bill, and every month's equivalent of rent we don't have to pay as part of his salary. And since we don't technically see the money, we don't pay taxes on it. It's lovely. For so long we lived in an apartment, paid high rent, and got to hear our neighbors abusing their children on a daily basis. It wasn't something I wanted to do any more and it's a blessing my closest neighbors are 3 houses down.

Curses include living in not the best area of town, the age of the house and things often breaking, and something we are lucky to have not experienced yet - church members popping by unexpectedly or asking for access to the church randomly. I had big fears that would happen a lot. Has only happened once in months. :)

Last night my husband about overflowed the bathroom toilet. Since the house is so old, the plumbing is original. The main pipe that takes away waste water was made out of terra cotta - clay. Well, there's this gorgeous old tree outside next to the house, where the roots have decided to grow through the pipes, crack them, break them, and clog them up. We knew this a day after we moved in, when we backed sewage up into our tub, sink and toilet after running the washer. They dug out the roots and, despite the plumber telling the church contractor it needed to be replaced, he pushed it off, waiting until the pipe was absolutely destroyed. Unfortunately, this happened at 9 pm at night, and any time we went to the bathroom we had to go through the church parking lot to the church. I really don't like that instead of fixing something they knew was broken, they pushed it off until we were inconvenienced with it, especially at night. Honestly, I don't want to be anywhere outside of my locked doors past 10 pm around here. If it's broke, why wait to fix it?

So this morning I have 2 men coming in and out of the house, running the tub, flushing the toilet and replacing the pipe. And, despite the fact that last night I held it until I couldn't any more, and peed in my toilet, I love that I don't have to pay for them to fix my plumbing. :)