Perhaps you remember, not long after we moved in to this house, I wrote this post about why a man needs a man cave. Part of the reason we loved this house so much was that Adam finally got an actual recording studio of his own.
It was on our wish list, very high up, because writing musicals requires that he has a space to really work. And the first floor is tricky given the little people who live with us.
Wednesday night, Adam went down to work and seconds later, called me to his office. I could tell by the tone of his voice something was wrong...and I just knew it was the water. It had been raining for days and days, but Wednesday was the worst of it.
Adam's floor now felt like a water bed and the water had seeped through to the storage room.
Worse, I was having a major stomach issue Wednesday night so I was almost completely worthless. I woke up the next morning to discover my husband had been sweeping and sucking and wringing out water all night long.
It had reached through the storage room all the way to my office.
And really, there was no stopping it. His floor had started to buckle and now mine was doing the same.
Neither of us has ever felt so helpless in our lives.
But something happened to us in that moment. We got the kids off to school, rolled up our sleeves, ate a couple of these:
And went to work. It was like we were doing battle with this water. We joined half the town at Home Depot where we bought an auxiliary pump, a squeegee mop, garbage bins and toilet paper (just because we were out, not because it helped with the water.)
We stood outside in the rain marveling at the water that just kept coming, it was seeping up everywhere.
If ever there would've been a time to justify a pair of cute wellies, now was it...
Our pond flooded:
Our yard kept producing disgusting creatures that made me shudder:
And our sump pump, which appeared to be slow on the draw, deposited all the water right back into the same spot...right next to our house.
(Let me just commend the genius who decided that was a good idea.)
We stayed pragmatic. Even when we tore out the floor we'd picked out and put down ourselves only a few short months ago.
Even when we took a hammer and started destroying the walls we'd carefully painted in the color Adam chose.
And as we did each of these things, the water just kept coming...
Buckets and buckets and buckets full.
Until finally, Adam took the shop vac (best Christmas present I ever bought him) outside and sucked all the water away from the house.
That was finally when we started to see some progress. When the wall stopped wailing and I started to think maybe...just maybe we would sleep that night.
The room was a very sad state.
Boxes and boxes in our storage room were ruined...we haven't even had the heart to look through them yet. Most of them contained scrapbooking related things.
All day Thursday, I felt like I had such a great attitude about this whole thing. I mean, there we were, watching as our home was invaded by this force we had absolutely no control over...
And we just kept pushing forward. We slept hard on Thursday night and when I woke up on Friday, that's when it hit, the emotion of the situation. I knew we were SO LUCKY (not that I believe in luck.) I knew it could've been SO MUCH WORSE. I was thanking God our computers with all of our work were spared and as far as I can tell, so were most of our photos.
We heard reports of people nearby with FEET (like, six) of water in their basement. And that would've been us had Adam not gone downstairs to work on Wednesday night.
I spent the day mostly depressed, feeling violated in some weird way...
And then yesterday, I found out from the insurance guy that we have to rip up the carpet in the art room.
Yeah. The room I finished a few weeks ago.
It's hard to focus on that silver lining, I guess...when all around me I see more and more work. (Do you know how hard it'll be to clear out MY office to put down a new floor?) We have a son who is severely allergic to mold, a moist basement that reeks of this odd cat odor and lots and lots of work to do...
Still, in spite of that, I feel thankful. We did battle and we came out on the other side a little worse for wear, but mostly okay.
And knowing it really, really could've been so much worse.


