There were several things I thought about sending out to the world-wide-web this month, but, the fact is, I’m scrambling on the last day of the month.
We had a flood in our laundry room on Sunday evening. It seemed fairly tame in appearance when we got home from only about 1 1/2 hours away from our house. I heard a weird trickling noise while I was preparing our dinner, and finally discovered the source of the sound that would change the trajectory of the next several days of our home-life. The water had maintained about 1/2″ height in the better part of the 8’x12′ room. I immediately turned off the faucet that had been running hot water in our tiny laundry room sink to soak a couple of mop pads. Then I quickly relayed the news to Ray, while he was finishing his shower, that our laundry room had flooded.
Oh boy, it’s amazing how a simple lapse of memory can cause a conflagration of trouble on a household!
When Ray pulled the drawers out that were next to the sink that overflowed, all 4 of them were full to the brim with water. Most of my gift wrapping supplies were destroyed. Many of my spools of ribbon were spoiled. Besides the whole room needing to be uprooted, there were losses I had to deal with, and I had to give up my dining room for the flooring that was taken up, in rows, to be preserved for when we could be certain that the water damage had been completely eradicated.
I made a plan to minimize the damage to spools of ribbon and string. We moved many things out of the room to dry out – in the garage, in the dining room, outside. I kept thinking about households who have suffered true floods – overflowed rivers, failed levees, monsoons, etc. – and how mild my circumstances were compared to them.
This has been a big inconvenience. I have had moments of discouragement. But I know we are in the best of circumstances for this that has befallen us.
I am retired, and can still prepare food for us. I can perform most daily tasks. Ray is skilled at many things in home construction. He was able to handle pulling up the Luxury Vinyl Plank flooring (thankfully we didn’t have any damage to our 3/4″ solid wood flooring in the main part of our home!), cutting away damaged molding, moving our laundry tubs out of the way, testing the wood and floor boards for moisture, etc. We have had to circumnavigate a section of our home during our daily routine, but we have most of our home that remains entirely intact during this unexpected project!
I kept thinking, “What would it have been like having to wait for professionals to come in and handle all of this?” “How terrible would it be to have your home entirely flooded?”
None of us choose to have a situation halt our “normal” in life. None of us anticipate when a simple thing will change everything we have planned, or expect, to be the status quo. But I think it’s pretty safe to predict that we all will deal with something that comes upon us suddenly – something that challenges our preparedness & willingness to pivot for the crisis we stumble into.
Hopefully, we can find the positive point on the negative edges we encounter.
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