Flood with emotion...and water

Moving has been more difficult than I had imagined. Besides the fact of the sentimental things, like this being our first home together, leaving great friends, and a wonderful job, we have had some big difficulties. To avoid the expense of renting a moving van and to make things easier for our family around Christmas, Cory & I have been taking loads of items home each weekend to a storage unit and my parents’ house. The past few weekends we have started moving furniture home. The first shipment of furniture made it home fairly well. We had a glass knob break off of a cabinet, but it can easily be replaced. Moving out of the apartment we also managed to damage a sleeper sofa, but it’s really old and we aren’t planning on it staying around forever. Last weekend when we moved things back it was VERY windy. We had a chair fall off on the highway and it ate the pavement pretty well. We also had some paint scratched off of the china cabinet that I painted last year. I was upset at first, but it made me realize not to put too much emphasis on worldly items…even if it was our nicer pieces of furniture. Well, this morning our complications with moving did not take a week off. I woke up to find our entire downstairs flooded with ankle deep water. Now keep in mind that since the majority of our furniture is gone, tons of our belongings are on the floor. (ie: laptop, cameras, Tivo, Christmas cards, packed boxes, etc.) I couldn’t believe it.

This is how it went down: Cory & I went to bed at about midnight and we left the living room nice and dry. At about 1:00 I thought I smelled something burning or at least abnormal. I then thought that the smell I smelled was chlorine and since it had been raining all evening I figured it was just water from outside. I tend to have a very sensitive sense of smell and Cory thought I was crazy because he didn’t smell anything. I should have gone downstairs to check on things but I just went to sleep. Well, this morning when I opened the bedroom door to start getting ready for church, I heard some water running. It sounded like the toilet running and I told Cory, who was still sleeping, that the toilet had been running all night. As I walked closer to the bathroom I noticed that the sound was coming from downstairs. It sounded like the washing machine was on. As I went to the staircase I saw the carpet at the bottom of the stairs soaked and had some water standing on it. I screamed that we were flooded and Cory jumped out of bed. We ran to the laundry room where water was spraying EVERYWHERE including the ceiling. Apparently the pipe that connects the washing machine to the water source burst. I can’t believe so much water accumulated. We immediately started picking up boxes and electronics and carried them upstairs. Boxes that were packed and ready to go were drenched, damaging books, cards, and memories. I started dumping things out and carried the boxes to the dumpster. Of course it starts snowing. Cory and I are in our pajamas soaked in water to our shins and it’s freezing. I’m so glad we were planning on going to the early church service so we stopped the water when we did. I called the maintenance people and they sent a man with a wet vac over. He clean up most of the water but things will be damp and hair will be frizzy here for a while. Just when I think that things couldn’t get worse, the heater doesn’t want to work. The heater is in the room where the water was spraying and a man has just informed us that the whole unit will need to be replaced. This will have to take place tomorrow. Yikes! Cory is such a sweetheart and is going to stay with me tonight to keep me warm and sane.

I’m sorry this is nothing but whining. The reason I’m writing this is to warn you that if you’re getting a Christmas present from us the package may be warped and non-returnable, that if we borrowed a book from you it’s probably going to be a little wrinkly, and that if you normally get a Christmas card from us, this year you won’t. That last statement is the hardest for me. We didn’t take a picture for this year’s card but I did buy some pretty (non-cheap) cards this year and wrote personal messages in each one. They were stamped and ready to go but not so much now. I used a felt tip pin so the cards are all smudged. There were also raised up parts to the cards that are messed up. I don’t think I can purchase and write on 35+ cards and stamp them again considering we’re probably going to have to pay for damages and the clean-up crew, the heater, a high water bill, and possibly damages to our neighbor’s apartment. Bah-humbug.

Here’s a picture of our cards. The camera was in my purse, which was on the floor, and got wet. It works but is very foggy right now. That’s why it looks the way it does.

I’m trying to look at the bright side though. Here are some positive thoughts:

• We weren't hurt (not that we really could’ve been from water, but it wasn't a fire)
• Cory is staying an extra night with me.
• My laptop wasn't damaged. I have lots of important files on here.
• A lot of our furniture and things have been moved so it made it easier to clean up the water.
• I wanted to shampoo the carpet and mop really good before we left. Check!
• Since the heat has temporarily gone out maybe the floors will freeze over and we can ice skate? ..yeah, I’m becoming a little sarcastic. I will end this post.

Sorry if this has put a damper (pun intended) on your day. Moral of the story: if you think you smell something strange in your home check it out.