Oh what a night
This past Tuesday was one of the strangest and longest days of my life. It started off with me finding out that one of my kids (the worst behaved one) was moving!! Yeah!! I am down to 27!! It ended with me getting to bed at about 2:30 Wednesday morning. Here is why.
Mom and Dad were gone at Woodhaven so I enjoyed a quiet evening at home (you really didn't think I could write a short version of this). I was happily getting ready to climb into bed for the first time in weeks before 10:30 when the phone rang. It was my mom, panicked, trying to track down Adam - she said the basement was flooded, the hot water heater ruined. Needless to say, I got redressed and headed over to my parents. For those of you who don't know, my parents have a nice, long, ranch house with an equally long and finished basement. I walked downstairs and it was a sea of water (not ankle deep, but definently a LOT of water).
As you can see, this is what the entire basement looked like. Keep in mind, my mom is a pre-school teacher and a former daycare owner. We have a TON of stuff in that basement. However, my mom is also the queen of rubbermaid containers so I don't think any of her stuff got ruined. I still had stuff on the floor that I hadn't moved to my house yet, luckily I lost very little. The person hardest hit was my dad, who hadn't cleaned out his work room in a long time, and had a huge mess to clean up. (which Mom, Adam and I got drafted to do of course) :)
So for three hours we cleaned, moved things to the garage, and I don't think Bob ever stopped running a wet vac all over the floor. It was Dad, Mom, Bob, Adam, and I until 2 in the morning. We also discovered that Maryann's bedroom in the basement at Mom & Dad's was hit too, so we pulled up all that carpet yet Tuesday night. Being that we all had to work the next morning, we were running on fumes by 2:00.
Please note the image on your left. It may not look significant but it is. You see, my father has NEVER (literally) thrown out any piece of computer equipment he has ever bought. So Adam and I had to spend a considerable amount of time getting all of that off the floor and on a shelf. Notice the weights in between the computers. I was holding the monitor while Adam was putting up the CPU unit when he "accidentally" knocked one of them off. He warned me about 1/2 a millisecond before it slammed on top of my foot. Despite the fact that I either broke or fractured a couple of toes, he found it hilarious and continued to giggle every time he thought of it for the next 1/2 hour. Being that this was 1 in the morning, he is lucky I let him come home that night. The sister in me wanted to return the favor and laugh at him and see how he liked it, but the angel on my shoulder won out and I let him live.
So, needless to say I was DRAGGING at school the next day (thank heavens for my student teacher). Of course, it didn't help that I slept through my alarm and didn't wake up until 7:20 (which is the latest possible time I ever leave for school!) Dad and our friend Ken from church along with his son Stan spent Wednesday morning ripping up the rest of the carpet in the basement. They literally were sweeping buckets and buckets worth of water towards the drain in the old laundry room. You can see below how much water was left after they pulled up the carpet, even after they had vacuumed the carpet so many times. Taking the carpet out of the house was an adventure because it dripped so much as they went, they made a skating rink on our driveway.
So, the morals of the story:
1. Rubbermaid containers are lifesavers when your basement floods.
2. Always turn your cell phone off by 10 on a school night.
3. Never help your brother lift anything near any weights.
4. It is not a good think when your hot water heater breaks.
5. This can probably be worked in a story that I am writing - so I guess from trials can come great creativity.
6. I cannot function on 4 hours of sleep.
So, my project today and Monday (Happy B-day Dr. King, thanks for no school) is to work on cleaning my basement because if this would have happened in my house --- OH BOY! I can't even imagine!
Mom and Dad were gone at Woodhaven so I enjoyed a quiet evening at home (you really didn't think I could write a short version of this). I was happily getting ready to climb into bed for the first time in weeks before 10:30 when the phone rang. It was my mom, panicked, trying to track down Adam - she said the basement was flooded, the hot water heater ruined. Needless to say, I got redressed and headed over to my parents. For those of you who don't know, my parents have a nice, long, ranch house with an equally long and finished basement. I walked downstairs and it was a sea of water (not ankle deep, but definently a LOT of water).
As you can see, this is what the entire basement looked like. Keep in mind, my mom is a pre-school teacher and a former daycare owner. We have a TON of stuff in that basement. However, my mom is also the queen of rubbermaid containers so I don't think any of her stuff got ruined. I still had stuff on the floor that I hadn't moved to my house yet, luckily I lost very little. The person hardest hit was my dad, who hadn't cleaned out his work room in a long time, and had a huge mess to clean up. (which Mom, Adam and I got drafted to do of course) :)
So for three hours we cleaned, moved things to the garage, and I don't think Bob ever stopped running a wet vac all over the floor. It was Dad, Mom, Bob, Adam, and I until 2 in the morning. We also discovered that Maryann's bedroom in the basement at Mom & Dad's was hit too, so we pulled up all that carpet yet Tuesday night. Being that we all had to work the next morning, we were running on fumes by 2:00.
Please note the image on your left. It may not look significant but it is. You see, my father has NEVER (literally) thrown out any piece of computer equipment he has ever bought. So Adam and I had to spend a considerable amount of time getting all of that off the floor and on a shelf. Notice the weights in between the computers. I was holding the monitor while Adam was putting up the CPU unit when he "accidentally" knocked one of them off. He warned me about 1/2 a millisecond before it slammed on top of my foot. Despite the fact that I either broke or fractured a couple of toes, he found it hilarious and continued to giggle every time he thought of it for the next 1/2 hour. Being that this was 1 in the morning, he is lucky I let him come home that night. The sister in me wanted to return the favor and laugh at him and see how he liked it, but the angel on my shoulder won out and I let him live.
So, needless to say I was DRAGGING at school the next day (thank heavens for my student teacher). Of course, it didn't help that I slept through my alarm and didn't wake up until 7:20 (which is the latest possible time I ever leave for school!) Dad and our friend Ken from church along with his son Stan spent Wednesday morning ripping up the rest of the carpet in the basement. They literally were sweeping buckets and buckets worth of water towards the drain in the old laundry room. You can see below how much water was left after they pulled up the carpet, even after they had vacuumed the carpet so many times. Taking the carpet out of the house was an adventure because it dripped so much as they went, they made a skating rink on our driveway.
So, the morals of the story:1. Rubbermaid containers are lifesavers when your basement floods.
2. Always turn your cell phone off by 10 on a school night.
3. Never help your brother lift anything near any weights.
4. It is not a good think when your hot water heater breaks.
5. This can probably be worked in a story that I am writing - so I guess from trials can come great creativity.
6. I cannot function on 4 hours of sleep.
So, my project today and Monday (Happy B-day Dr. King, thanks for no school) is to work on cleaning my basement because if this would have happened in my house --- OH BOY! I can't even imagine!
posted by Becs @ 1:33 PM
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