All Good

Uff da, but we've had a hard winter!

What I'd really like to be blogging about is our recent road trip to Albuquerque, and I will get to that eventually, but we've had such a week with water in the basement, that I feel the need to vent ... so, here goes ...

At least the weather's latest storm finished before our return home, so the roads were not too treacherous as we drove back. And the little girls from across the street who were caring for our fur babies, did some shoveling of the driveway and we were able to get into the garage. All good. But then, the snow started to melt and the rains began.

We haven't had water in the basement for a few years. We had leaf guard type gutter covers installed, and that helped so much. But this year has been crazy with snowfall, and when it started to melt, it came in through the foundation and bricks of the fireplace.

We thought we caught it just in time. Out came the towels and shop vac, and we worked it hard for several hours until it seemed to subside. We decided around midnight that we would rest a bit, silly us, because the next time we went downstairs, the entire family room (complete with fairly new carpet) was covered with water and it was moving into the laundry and storage rooms.

We tried to keep a sense of humor. We drank coffee and took thirty minute shifts with the shop vac for a good 18 hours. And then we turned on the dehumidifier and fan, and hoped for the best. I decided that I would fold up some towels and walk on them to try to absorb water from the carpet padding. It helped some, but everything remained so wet. I brought out a little space heater and then a second one, but it tripped the circuit breaker so only one could be used at a time. We turned the gas fire place on to warm up the air. I read online that you only have about 72 hours to dry out a carpet before mold starts to grow, although it did add that foundation leaks are cleaner than most and maybe you have a little bit more time.

I went to Curves eventually, now four days into the flood, and talked to my people there who always have sage advice. Try a blow drier, they said. So I went home, and as I sat on a folded towel absorbing water from the carpet padding, I used the blow drier on the wettest spots I could find. Literally for hours.

In the meantime, the cats seemed very interested in all the new funky smells that a wet carpet can produce, and I worried they might think of it as brand new cat box, so I decided that they couldn't be unsupervised until things were totally dry. In which case, they're now roaming the rest of the house at night and Punk rattles our bedroom door, crying to be let in, which is annoying.

I wondered if I could smell something not so nice coming from the basement. Or, was it from the roasted cabbage that we had made for dinner a couple days in a row?

Anyway, this morning when I went downstairs to survey the situation, I realized that things seemed so much drier. And the air smelled so much nicer. Really?

You know, it's funny how you don't always realize how a stressful situation is dragging you down until the stress seems to subside, and then you feel so good. Wow, did I feel good. I noticed that the sun was shining. I had energy to do some laundry! It was amazing.

It's also the first day of Spring.  💕💕💕