November 30, 2005
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Yes, after a Pennsylvania monsoon yesterday, the boys innocently went into the basement to play basketball. “MOM! There’s water down here!” The kids and I sprang into action, picking up rugs, toys, books, and everything else that wasn’t waterproof. The good doctor was speaking at Lock Haven, so he didn’t get home until about 8:00. Poor man. He wasn’t even in the door before the children decended upon him with cries of “It’s flooded! There’s water EVERYWHERE!” It was true. From the few spots here and there from three hours earlier, the basement had at least an inch or more of water all over it.
Furious hardly does justice to the emotions of my poor husband. But, when faced with the calm influence of his loving wife (who pointed out that we couldn’t do a blessed thing about it), he went to bed and worked on Suduko puzzles.
The boys and I have worked for about two hours today sucking bucket after bucket of water with the rug scrubber. We don’t have a pump, and all our attempts to figure out how to hook up a hose to the rug scrubber bucket so we didn’t have to haul each and every load of water out the basement window and dump it into a bucket (to be hauled far away from the house to be dumped), but we are stumped.
It takes 60 seconds for the bucket to be filled, carried, dumped, and reassembled. I believe the scrubber’s bucket holds 1.5 gallons of water. So, 90 minutes of constant work equals 90 buckets which equals 135 gallons of water. Woo. There’s still a lot more to go, but we no longer slosh when we walk through the basement.
On a happier note, I am almost caught up with AP work, saw Pride and Prejudice again on Monday (thanks to my dear friend Valerie with whom I had a delightful visit), and tomorrow is December.
Why would I be so excited about December? Well, in the chaos of our fall, I decided that December would be event-free. There is hardly anything on the calendar, so we should have many days and evenings of just lying around and doing nothing. Plus, I have Inkspell on tape–eighteen hours of listening pleasure for our read aloud time. Since I am not reading, I can work on crafts or other things and enjoy myself immensely. (Inkspell by Cornelia Funke is the sequel to Inkheart, a book we all loved.)
I’m trying out a new series, the Mr. and Mrs. Darcy mysteries. I’ll report on how it is. I’ll hopefully be diving in tonight! (Pun intended, sort of.)
Comments (5)
At least you have 5 kids to help you carry all that water out! (good thing we don’t have a basement… I don’t think Livvy could hand it
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In my humble and limited opinion, this post was your most engaging one thus far. Maybe it’s because you focused on one aspect of your very complex life and described it, with all of it’s aspects, and you described it so that the reader could feel it with you. Terrible, terrible, of me but I enjoyed your account of family misery. I laughed aloud and groaned and talked to myself as I read it. I hope, at least, that writing it made you feel a little better. (Writing down the thing that happens to me helps me, kind of lets me “get it off my chest.” ) Thanks for sharing your life with us.
And I am sorry, very sorry, that this happened to you. I can’t think of anything more miserable than a flooded basement at the onset of winter, and in the midst of the holiday season.
Oh no! I was wondering about your basement the other day during the storm. Isaac will be very upset when he hears about it. He has barely gotten over the last flooding!
I enjoy Sudoku puzzles. Not sure how they could calm the frusterated mind tho.
Yeah, I hope you all get dried out soon! BTW, re this:
“…Furious hardly does justice to the emotions of my poor husband. But, when faced with the calm influence of his loving wife (who pointed out that we couldn’t do a blessed thing about it), he went to bed and worked on Suduko puzzles.”
I’d love to hear ‘the good doctor’s’ own perspective on the situation… what was it like, from his point of view?