To really get the picture here you have to understand that it has been a crazy week, with yesterday being a chart-topper. Long story short, I raced home after being gone all day in time to pick up our 2 youngest children (who got themselves ready) and arrived at their Christmas program with just minutes to spare. I ate a few bites of supper in the van before slipping into the church. I came as I was- not dressed up like other folks. And when we got home at 9:30 the van was stilled loaded with my purchases of the day. Since we had a late night Christmas caroling the night before, we left everything sit and went to bed.
This morning started out fine- I got up a little earlier than usual to get a head start on my busy day. Then I went in the basement. We had an indoor swimming pool! We didn't want one. Turns out the drain pipes were clogged and the heavy downpour we were getting was coming up the drain in the basement floor. It was flowing so fast you could see the water rising. The drain outside the back [basement] door was not functioning either, so a short time later we had an outdoor pool, too, with waves of water flowing in under the door. The children & I were scrambling to find dry ground for everything possible. It was so much worse because we live in the basement right now- so much stuff.
*This was fairly early in the adventure. It got much worse!
I spent all day -until 5 p.m. draining & cleaning "the pool". At first the water was coming in faster than we could bail it out. Just so you get the idea how much water we were dealing with- we had 2 shop-vacs going continually for 2 hours and the one with the larger motor filled every 15 seconds, the smaller one every 30. Richard spent a good portion of the day unclogging the drains, including time spent going after a drain snake.
Once the water stopped come in and we got rid of it, this is a portion of what we had left to deal with ...
It took hours to get rid of that mud! I am exhausted so I'm posting this while I take a break, but I still have today's work waiting. Gifts to wrap, suitcases to pack, etc. Cleaning was the one thing I was going to skip over this week. ha Prioritize takes on a new meaning. Josh & Arianna got dropped off at tonight's program while I came home to keep working and Richard is out on the road making his deliveries now. I'm not proud of how portions of our house are going to look over the weekend but it can't be helped. The work will still be here when we get back from my family gathering.
I have a lot to be thankful for though.
1. This didn't happen tomorrow and we'd come home to ruined belongings.
2. This didn't happen yesterday when Richard was on a long run. He was on a local delivery at the time of discovery and was able to come home quickly (once we convinced him it really was a disaster).
3. Our contractor was willing to roll up his sleeves and help, instead of saying "that's not in the contract".
4. We have good neighbors who came to our rescue with a sump pump.
5. The carpet in the basement is already mud brown so the mess doesn't show.
6. The computer still works in spite of some cords getting wet.
7. I now have a nice clean floor.
1 comment:
OH.MY.Word. So sorry for the stress. Hope your holidays are relaxing, stress free and full of fun.
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