Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain!

Wednesday, March 21, 2007 11:01 AM

We have been having extraordinary weather here, or I think so because I love the sun. Last weekend we went to the park and all got some sun. We took the girl's bikes for them to ride there and that turned out to be no fun. Their training wheels were all bending or getting loose or something and then they would whine because their bikes were too wobbly. Amber was the best of them all. On our way to the park Robert ended up taking one set of training wheels off. Emily was on that bike, so she had to have someone with her to hold her bike up. I ended up walking home and getting the car to drive home so we didn't have to ride the bikes back home.

Since we had training wheels off, I thought I would work with Emily yesterday to ride her bike a bit better. So I held on to the back of her bike and ran with her as she rode it. She would ride it on the sidewalk in front of our house and then turn up our driveway and go in the grass. I had her permission to only let go when she was in the grass. So we tried that and no falls and by the end of about 20-30 minutes she was riding her bike.

We went in for dinner, Robert had meetings to go to and I asked Emily if she wanted to go in the BIG backyard to try her bike one more time before bed. No problem we do that, and she is riding away no big deal.

Meanwhile, Lindsey had gone to the bathroom right before we started in the backyard with the bike. Sometimes she has a tendency to use a little too much toilet paper. Luckily when she does that she doesn't flush the toilet so I catch it before it clogs and floods. (I have a special toilet wooden spoon for this purpose, and fishing out any other foreign objects as well.) On top of that, our toilet has a tendency to keep running until you jiggle the handle or the handle will stick down.

We come back inside from all the outdoor riding and Lindsey and Lauren are saying, "what's that, uh oh Mom look!" All I hear is a down pour of rain... but we are inside. I look and the ceiling in our basement at the bottom of the stairs is just raining like crazy. I am looking at it and trying to figure out where this is coming from, what happened.... what to do, and I then go up stairs to a flooded carpet in the hallway, and the bathroom is about 2 inches deep in water. I have flip flops on and I take them off and they are just floating around on the water. Then I hear the toilet running. I jiggle the handle. Then I lift the lid as water is dumping rapidly out of the toilet, I get the plunger and start plunging away, finally the toilet water goes down. Phew! One thing fixed. I notice that the carpet in my room next to the bathroom is soaked, like standing water, for about 2 to 3 feet away from the bathroom door. Not to mention all the boxes and things under Amber's crib are sitting on a watery carpet now.

Robert is at a meeting and I am looking at this mess not even knowing what to do. Get a towel? Not even Bounty the quicker picker upper would work for this mess. I call Robert and tell him we have a bit of a problem. We have water standing in the upstairs bathroom and leaking all the way to the basement floor. He says, okay.

I think about our carpet cleaner, It sucks up water.... I go down stairs to grab it and then notice when I open the laundry room door, more water on the floor all the way almost to the washing machine, we have a drain in there so it stopped about there at the drain. Not only water on the floor but it is raining from the ceiling and the door jam. (Later Robert tried to shut that door, but it wouldn't because of all the waterlogged wood.) I walk through the raining ceiling to get the carpet cleaner, just thinking about where the water is coming from and how clean it is as it is dripping on my head and everywhere else.

I take the carpet cleaner up to the bathroom and turn it on, it is full in about 40 seconds max. I dump it and repeat for about an hour and a half. Sucking up the water in the bathroom floor and the carpet in my room and the hallway and down the stairs a step or two. Not to mention, it is bedtime, the girls are interested in what everything looks like. I give Amber who is tired and crying to Emily to hold, tell them all to stay in the front room while I am trying to get some of the water up.

Robert comes home with a neighbors big shop vac, he fills that completely full from the basement. To help you see this picture. After Robert had sucked up one canister of water into the shop vac, it was still so wet down stairs on the carpet then when you stepped from the stairs to the carpet it splashed like a mud puddle. You had to walk really slow and carefully for it not to splash.

As if the water part wasn't bad enough, we had all sorts of toys and things in the hallway upstairs that got soaked. We had clothes that had to be hand washed that I had washed recently and hung them on Robert's weight bench downstairs to dry that are now soaked. There was a box of kids books soaked downstairs. It looks like most of them are okay, but 3 of them may not make it. There was a box of scrapbooks that got all wet. I think they will be okay. The album that got the worse was our wedding one... figures! I think they will be okay as long as we don't try to take the pictures out of the plastic.

Robert starts tearing down wet sheetrock that is on the ceiling. He takes down a light fixture that has completely filled up with water. (Don't turn on that light!) Now not only is the floor wet, but now we have that nasty sheetrock dust on everything, but because of the water it turns to a nice paste. (Remember those clothes drying? They now have that dust/paste all over them.) Robert ripped up the carpet that was soaked, and the padding and the tack strips and all that fun stuff that goes with it. Carrying all that to the garbage can, which luckily is empty (or was) because it was just garbage day. And you know that sheetrock dust paste, well it is leading from the basement to the front door, to the girls room, to the kitchen door.... in the garage. That should be fun to clean up.

We took apart the weight set and took it to the garage. I think we might get new carpet now, and a new ceiling.... Robert thinks now is a good time to redo the room. Maybe get a fireplace down there.... (Like there will be money for that now that we have to replace everything else.) I am just glad we didn't already redo the carpet. We talked at one point about putting our computer down there in that spot where the weight bench was, which is directly under the upstairs bathroom. I am really glad that wasn't the case this time. That would have been worse, especially how messy our desk is with paper work and receipts and all that stuff. I can handle a little more laundry and a few books to be replaced... the computer thing would have been real ugly.

So about 11 pm we go upstairs to go to bed and call it a night. While I am in the bathroom or try to get in there, I realize I still have to take the shop vac, the carpet shampooer, and all the attachments out of the bathroom so we can even get in there to brush teeth and what not. Not to mention all the wet stuff in the tub that I threw in there when I was cleaning the bathroom and the hall. (Stuffed animals, a backpack, brushes, soap, hair products, all the bathroom rugs....

Oh, and another thing that was down stairs in the "rain zone" was a huge package of toilet paper from costco we had picked up a week or two ago. Of course they are indivually wrapped in PAPER, so I think I saved like 5 or 6 rolls that didn't get squishy wet, and some of those are still damp. I thought we could unroll a few of those to get something. Costco is usually pretty reasonably priced, but this turned out to be some real expensive toilet paper.

So today on my "to do list" is get rid of all the sheetrock paste down stairs, and rip up the rest of the wet carpet. Rewash the towels that are on the chair that now have sheetrock junk in them, (should have folded those before I guess) and move the fans around to dry up more carpet. I am glad it isn't snowing or too cold or we would be really freezing in the house. I told the girls to wear warm clothes today. I am not sure that maybe even water didn't go down the air intake in the hallway for the furnace. Not sure if that is a big deal or not. (ha-ha-ha-ha) I also need to call the insurance to see if this is covered or not.

I can laugh about this now, but Robert isn't quite to that point. I was laughing about it last night. It will take longer for Robert to find humor in this. And poor Lindsey, last night she just kept saying "I'm sorry Mom, I didn't know" over and over again. I told Robert we should be careful how we say things or when we talk about it so that she doesn't feel bad about it. Emily and Lauren kept saying, "you did this Lindsey." Poor girl. She seems okay today about it all.

Well, I have things to do today... guess I better get started with it all. I hope you have a fun day today, I know I will! We look forward to seeing everyone soon!