Stretched A Little Thin
The girls are on the blow up mattress in the living room, watching Mary Poppins (for the second time in as many days). They are surrounded by blankets and pillows, a treasured Barbie, and a couple of stuffed animals. They are also surrounded by boxes and bags of clothes and toys and their larger things are stacked up in every available corner. Our dog Ella Bella is locked up in the bathroom because there is no room for her in the kitchen and we're afraid to let her roam free tonight because there is so much stuff everywhere. It is ridiculously loud in house, louder than it normally is with two active kids and one barky dog. The noise is coming from four huge fans and a mammoth dehumidifier. There is no longer any carpet in the girls' bedroom and the smell in there, while starting to get better after an anti-mold treatment, is still nauseating. The wood flooring in the kitchen is completely gone, revealing the hideous linoleum that was there when I bought the house. I had forgotten just how ugly it was. It is absolute chaos here right now.
On Sunday, after church, we started the clean up from our dishwasher leak. We quickly realized that is was a lot more extensive than we thought it was - almost all of the girls' carpet was wet and more of the boards in the kitchen were starting to rise. So, I went ahead and made an insurance claim on-line. Since it was the weekend, the system said they'd call me before noon on Monday. And true to their word, they did. And by 3:00 p.m. they had a Water Mitigation Specialist out here. What she did was determine that the carpet is not salvageable and went ahead and pulled it up and threw it away. She sprayed some kind of anti-something-or-other spray that smelled like 50 billion lemons just on the edge of turning bad and then set up some fans. In the kitchen, she was initially going to just put up a fan. She didn't want to pull up any of the boards because she didn't want to have to break the wood if it was salvageable. I asked her if she wouldn't mind pulling up just one to check and see how much water was under there. My concern (although it seemed unlikely) was that if there was water under there, that it might spread far enough to get into the living room and then we're in for having to replace the flooring in there, too. So she went ahead and pulled up one board and found a puddle. She said then that she had to remove the wood until she found a dry spot. An hour and tons and tons of boards letter, the dry spot was found just a few inches shy of the living room. Yikes! So, she set up fans and the dehumidifier in the kitchen and told us she'll be back tomorrow to check on it. She told us to expect it to take about 72 hours to dry thoroughly. Once it's dry, a contractor will come out and we'll start the process of replacing the floor. It's completely insane around here and my temper is unbelievably short. But, I'm so thankful that we have insurance and that they seem to be doing everything they can to make this as painless as possible for us. I'll just be glad when we have our house back
And, in true form, the whole ripping up the flooring in half the house thing wasn't the worst part of the day. Yesterday, my grandfather (the one who lives a few streets down from me) was admitted to the hospital with a pretty nasty infection that's going to require some surgery. I'm worried about him and particularly worried about my grandmother. Any prayers that you can offer up for them would be greatly appreciated by my entire family. The plan right now is to get the infection under control and then let him go home from the hospital and then do the surgery sometime later (although not much later). I love my grandparents and I hate that they are suffering now.
So, I think right now I'm feeling stretched a little thin. I was just starting to get back into the groove of things after my daddy's death and the girls and I felt like we were finally getting on a schedule. I was starting to feel like I was making some headway in getting some organization in my life and now, I feel like I've been knocked down a little bit again. But, I know that this will all pass and I'll appreciate even more the blessings in my life. Right now, though, I could use a little break
Here's a scrapbook page I did earlier this year. The girls call this game, appropriately enough, "The Stretchy Game"
On Sunday, after church, we started the clean up from our dishwasher leak. We quickly realized that is was a lot more extensive than we thought it was - almost all of the girls' carpet was wet and more of the boards in the kitchen were starting to rise. So, I went ahead and made an insurance claim on-line. Since it was the weekend, the system said they'd call me before noon on Monday. And true to their word, they did. And by 3:00 p.m. they had a Water Mitigation Specialist out here. What she did was determine that the carpet is not salvageable and went ahead and pulled it up and threw it away. She sprayed some kind of anti-something-or-other spray that smelled like 50 billion lemons just on the edge of turning bad and then set up some fans. In the kitchen, she was initially going to just put up a fan. She didn't want to pull up any of the boards because she didn't want to have to break the wood if it was salvageable. I asked her if she wouldn't mind pulling up just one to check and see how much water was under there. My concern (although it seemed unlikely) was that if there was water under there, that it might spread far enough to get into the living room and then we're in for having to replace the flooring in there, too. So she went ahead and pulled up one board and found a puddle. She said then that she had to remove the wood until she found a dry spot. An hour and tons and tons of boards letter, the dry spot was found just a few inches shy of the living room. Yikes! So, she set up fans and the dehumidifier in the kitchen and told us she'll be back tomorrow to check on it. She told us to expect it to take about 72 hours to dry thoroughly. Once it's dry, a contractor will come out and we'll start the process of replacing the floor. It's completely insane around here and my temper is unbelievably short. But, I'm so thankful that we have insurance and that they seem to be doing everything they can to make this as painless as possible for us. I'll just be glad when we have our house back
And, in true form, the whole ripping up the flooring in half the house thing wasn't the worst part of the day. Yesterday, my grandfather (the one who lives a few streets down from me) was admitted to the hospital with a pretty nasty infection that's going to require some surgery. I'm worried about him and particularly worried about my grandmother. Any prayers that you can offer up for them would be greatly appreciated by my entire family. The plan right now is to get the infection under control and then let him go home from the hospital and then do the surgery sometime later (although not much later). I love my grandparents and I hate that they are suffering now.
So, I think right now I'm feeling stretched a little thin. I was just starting to get back into the groove of things after my daddy's death and the girls and I felt like we were finally getting on a schedule. I was starting to feel like I was making some headway in getting some organization in my life and now, I feel like I've been knocked down a little bit again. But, I know that this will all pass and I'll appreciate even more the blessings in my life. Right now, though, I could use a little break
Here's a scrapbook page I did earlier this year. The girls call this game, appropriately enough, "The Stretchy Game"
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