The Flood

Anyone in Northeast Kansas knows its been rainy lately. We have had inches upon inches of it and no sun since last week. I miss the sun. Its my friend.

The lack of sun wouldn't be so bad, if we didn't have solid clay as our soil (meaning the water doesn't sink in it sits on top once the ground is wet). Oh, and the ground will stay wet for a while because clay is really good at keeping the moisture there. Enough of the science lesson, back to the drama that is our house.

Our house has water issues. We had no idea it had water issues when we bought it. They said the neighbors had an above ground pool that broke and flooded the house. They did not say, if it rains more than a couple of inches you will have a flooded house. Obviously they didn't read the definition of 'sellers disclosure.'

Last year it was rainy in the spring, and we didn't realize our house was flooding until we smelled that horrible smell of wet carpet. And, of course, the smell doesn't happen immediately, the vile stench was noticed about 3 days after it had rained last. Um, yay.

Anyway, last spring (early June I believe) with the help of the local missionaries we dug a French drain 3 feet deep and about 20 feet long. We planted grass, and thought, all was well. It was well. You see, monsoon season is the spring. I mean, the rainy season.

Honestly, if Mother Nature hadn't of dumped 5 extra inches on us last month we would have been fine. Maybe its not 5 extra inches, but we are over 5" above average for the rain around here. I don't know if its accurate, but according to the local newspaper website, we have already had 8.43" of rain this month and the average to date amount is 3.66". I am guessing they are counting April or something because it didn't rain that much overnight. Or who knows, maybe it did, I mean I was asleep, so who knows.

Anyway, part of why we flooded is that the attached neighbor never cleans her gutters. Daniel went and cleaned them out yesterday with next-door Steve's help and sewer snake. You see, hand cleaning wasn't enough, and the broom handle wasn't enough. It took about 15-20 minutes of snaking from the top of the gutter as well as from the bottom to get water to flow down her side. They found a dove in her nest in Steve's attached neighbor's gutter. Daniel grabbed the eggs, but when he showed me they were cracked so he coundn't hatch them.

We are going to have a neighborhood meeting about cleaning gutters. All I gotta say is, you need to clean them! Last year the gutter attached to us was completely full and Daniel cleaned it out. He even found a tennis ball plugging the hole.

We also (impulse buy) got a sump pump. After opening it, we learned the details and it totally needs at least 2" of water and a hard surface to do any good. So, we are going to return that. I will go find a less hard core pump that won't need as much standing water sometime today. Maybe even a fountain pump that we can attach to some hosing. You know, sometime after Alice wakes up from her "why are we driving Daddy to work at 6:30am" nap. Its sort of like extended sleep really. Thank goodness I gave our couch and loveseat away. Now, I can move the living room into the dining room and have space to set up the room in there until we fix the water problem and clean the carpets. Who knew cleaning the carpets would be required so often? Oh, and the front water problem is on hold until the roof stops leaking. The part where Daniel patched it is holding great, but we have a leak in our bedroom, and Daniel thinks its from a cracked plastic casing for a vent tube. He noticed they were looking bad when he was up there last time. We just need a sunny day to warm the roof now, and wham bam thank you ma'am he can fix the roof. I have confidence in his ability.

Water water everywhere

OK for real now. What is the life lesson I need to learn regarding water?

We went to bed a little late because we had stayed up putting together a garden wagon for hauling dirt from the front of the house, to the back ofthe house. Maybe 30 minutes after falling asleep Daniel says someone was knocking at the door.

Our dishwasher exploded.

It flooded the neighbor's kitchen. Ours too. Daniel found the in hose (that pipes in hot water) when we were mopping up water. Yes thats right all of our towels are yet again wet. Sweet.

I am tired.

President Ezra Taft Benson (one of the prophets I was alive for, but didn't really remember) said: 'The Book of Mormon is the instrument that God designed to “sweep the earth as with a flood, to gather out [His] elect.”' But we read the book of mormon this morning. I think. We must have, we read Doctrine and Covenants before bed, so that means we read BoM in the morning.

Read about the flood here: http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=b02978de9441c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1

Its a pretty good article, and I only skimmed it. I sent Daniel over to the neighbors to see if he could help since its technically our fault her kitchen is flooded. Geez. Water used to be one of my favorite compounds. So amazing. Now its just copious and I am sick of it. When I discover the hidden truth, and have had more sleep I will share it. For now, I seek more water to remove the evidence of the other water. Good old showers.

I can't believe its still Monday.

An Earthquake??

I came downstairs this morning to find the giant puzzle picture, kept above the mantle, on the floor. What the heck?

The little mirror, 2 pictures (one of which has a glass frame) and our little "Family" photo album (also glass) had come crashing down.

What the heck?

So as I was cleaning up broken glass I realized the giant picture came out unscathed. How lucky. The Melbourne Temple picture, from the COwards, broken in the corner. The glass frames "Sweethearts" picture of Daniel and I, totally destroyed and the picture was wet. Naturally we had a cup of water there after our DDRing last night also fell, and the shattered frame allowed the picture to get wet and adhere to the glas that was not broken. Bah.

The photo album, was of course soaking. I have all the pictures pulled out and drying on the living room floor. The paper liner stuff that was in each page is somewhat destroyed. Luckily none of the old pictures from my paresn't wedding and from when I was 5 or younger were destroyed. The strange thing is I heard what sounded like a rattle fall, but cannot see one of those anywhere.

Oh yeah, and my pen basket is deaded. Totally crushed under the giant puzzle picture. Thats probably the only reason why that glass didn't go crash as well. Oh yay Alice is wet again.

Did you know if a baby is starting solids for the first time, thier poo smells like what they eat? I don't know if I ever want to eat oatmeal again.

Rain rain go away

Well yesterday evening, on the lovely day of rest, we got yet another rain fall. The Forcasters predicted we would get 3.25 inches. The worst part was that at least 2 of those inches fell within half an hour. Daniel ran around watching the water rise and found out the front corner of our house is the lowest spot around. Not just compared to Steve's duplex which is a foot higher, compared to the other side of our duplex as well. There was a small river of water running from thier side on the sidewalk in front of our house, and just pooling there. We had started digging a big hole, and Daniel got a bucket and bailed water from the hole (which was by where the hosue was flooding (yet again) for about an hour. The neighbor Steve came out and said he hadn't seen it this bad, and that they had put a drain in the front. Supposedly the drain should be routing water away from the front of the house, but the water was up to our ankles and totally covered the Welcome mat, so it wasn't working.

I checked out our home insurance policy and found out we have covereage for drains...so we are going to call and see if this is covered and then maybe get some estimates. It might end up being something that would be cheaper than our deductible ($1000) but if we get it taken care of through the insurance, we might be able to get the carpets steam cleaned, and if necessary, the insulation replaced where the house is flooding. I took some pictures, but of course, not ones that show the water level on the house, though the fact that it was coming inside past the frame is an indication, it was pretty high.

Daniel slept really poorly last night. He was up at 2am, dehydrated and stressed out about the idea we need an extra $1K. It looks like with doing lots of overtime it will take about 2 months. Of course, if we have to spend any money we will jstu use the home equity line, but still. How crazy. Obviously this has affected me too since Alice woke me at 5:30 to eat an I didn't go back to sleep. The worst part, at least in my mind currently, is that the living room is again trashed. Pulling up carpet in the corner and moving furniture to the middle of the room does that. Maybe I will try and get some more sleep, or at least go wake Daniel for scruiptures.

Whats that funky smell? And other fun times

Situation #1: So yesterday we had a DDR revolution for Visiting Teaching. Good times! I was ok, but the others kicked my trash. It was probably Alexis' good vibes for having a birthday coming up! Yay for birthdays. Of course that did not stop me from cooling my body in the amazing way created by Heavenly Father. Ok I was sweating like a horse. (Did you know sweating like a pig is not a correct statement since they don't sweat? That's why they lie in mud pits, it helps them regulate their body temperature.)

So in Situation #1, I was the funky smell. Next time I will visit the anti-smell stick.

Situation #2: Daniel noticed a 'mildew' smell when he came home from work and sat on the love seat. I had noticed it earlier in the day, but assumed it was the dirty diapers. 99.9% of the time bad smells in our house are related to the baby's butt. I left for the DDR time and when I got home, all sweaty and gross, I very much noticed the mildew smell. Yuck. I made Daniel start diapers. I was sort of rude to him as well since I had asked him to start them 2 hours before when I was leaving for Visiting Teaching.

He did, and that didn't improve the smell. So he began investigating. OK, the carpet smelled ok in front of the love seat, as did the cushions. Maybe it was his pants. (That made me laugh) He pulled them off and smelled them, nope not mildewy. Then he finds Alice's strap on baby carrier. Man that thing reeked! It was like a combo of "smelly cat" from Friends and death. Heavy on the death.

Under the carrier was a little pink hat...it was wet and also vile. Then he noticed the tile in front of the fireplace. There was water on it. The entire corner of carpet was soaked! We moved the love seat into the dining room, moved the TV and stuff over, pulled up the carpet and found out the under cushion was also soaked. Yeah we have like 10 sq feet of nastiness in our living room.

Bonus: The living room looks huge without the love seat in it. We might retire it, or give it away or something.

So since last night (we went to bed pretty late because of this) we have had the overhead fan on, a standing fan on, AND the carpet is pulled up so both layers can dry. What a mess. Know anyone with a steam cleaner? We will probably have one soon thanks to this. I had been thinking about getting one at some point since we will probably own houses with carpet for the rest of our lives, but this pushed it over the edge.

Situation #3: This morning we woke up 'early' ok it was only half an hour earlier than usual. Read scriptures. I was feeding Alice while Daniel went down to start the big dig! Its supposed to rain this afternoon and we wanted to get the soil away from the house in the area where it flooded. Later we will figure out where the drain pipe that disappears into the ground goes. (That might be the big cause!) So right now we have a hold next to the house where the flooding is, and I dragged a 35 gallon trashcan of dirt into the garage. (It will be even heavier if it gets rained on) Anyone need some top soil? Some of its really good, some of its clay.