Building an ark

It was a typical Monday morning. My brain and my body weren't ready to start the week. I hit my snooze three times instead of two. I was running a little behind, and I had to grab my shirt out of the dryer. I walked to to the top of the basement stairs, rubbing sleep from eyes along the way.

When I flipped on the light switch to head downstairs, I saw this...


Nothing like 10 inches of water to wake you up in a hurry. At this point I shouted up the stairs. "Uh, hon. You need to get up. Like... now." Last time (when we got water in 2008), I waded in right away to start pulling stuff out of the water. However, this time I had a baby to think about and mixing water and electricity isn't exactly safe.

Instead, I marched back up the stairs. After a quick cry in the bedroom closet, I called my office to let them know I wouldn't be coming in.

We got seven inches of rain over night, and our sump pump died. The benefit of being married to a firefighter... he has plenty of water pumps and hoses. So while Ryan set to work pumping out the water, I ran out to buy a new sump pump. It took a couple hours to pump out 1,100 square feet of 9 to 10 inches of water.

Once the standing water was gone, we hit the remaining puddles with the wet dry vac. And as soon as we confirmed the washer and dryer were functionable, I set to work washing and drying the soaking wet clothes. Every fan we own went down stairs and the humidifier was running on high.

It was a long day. Followed by a long night. Another round of storms kept us awake with worry knowing the ground was already saturated.

We are very lucky to have great family and friends. So many people offered to help, so we had a demolition party Tuesday night.

Less than 36 hours later, the basement looked like this...

It's a look we're all too familiar with - and one I'm really starting to loathe. It'll take a good week for everything to dry out. And then we can start the remodeling process.

Sure it's frustrating. And the timing isn't the greatest with this baby due any day. But, it could have been worse. We have neighbors who had 7 feet in their basements. Others had raw sewage. And still others in town had a few feet of water on their main floor.

It's all about maintaining perspective, and counting your blessings - even if you have to force yourself to think that way.