Almost exactly a year ago, our basement finishing project was complete, and we spent many evenings down there arranging our furniture and belongings into our new, awesome space. Last week, with lots of melting snow and almost 2 inches of rain, we spent a few stressful hours removing all of those belongings as water flowed freely into our beloved awesome space. This wouldn't be as surprising if we hadn't taken expensive steps to ensure this wouldn't happen. Two years ago, we had new darinage tile put in from our sump hole area all the way out to the field behind out house. Last year we put in two new, heavy duty sump pumps, and then had a self-start generator wired so if the electricity went out, the pumps would still work. And we had a heavy rain storm last summer when the entire system worked exactly as planned, so we really thought even though we were getting tons of rain last Sunday night, we would be safe.
But we weren't. Best as we can tell (and an electrician is coming tomorrow to confirm), both sump pumps were wired to the same cicruit, and when both pumps had to run for a prolonged period of time, the circuit breaker switched off and both pumps stopped (shouldn't the electrician wiring them have known this might happen?). But it was a little while before we figured that out - all we knew was the pumps weren't working and water was flowing into the basment. Because we watched it happen, we were able to save most belongings and furniture. The kids helped to bring all of their games and toys upstairs (at 5:30 Monday morning). In the end, we had 3-4 inches over the entire basement before Ben got the pumps working again (by running extension cords to other outlets in other parts of the house). Stanley Steamer came and used their "water extraction" equipment and by Thursday all was dry. The drywall was saved, the carpet was saved, and we only lost the carpet padding and the Wii (which was half-dead anyway). The fans running in the basement (23 of them on the first night), were annoying and made it difficult to sleep that first night (imagine a jet engine running in your basement), but worth it in the end. Home insurance is paying for it and have been very easy to work with so far. The carpet (with new padding) will be re-installed tomorrow, cleaned on Tuesday, and by Wednesday we should be able to start moving back in. Our contractor from the finishing project is having the original electrician come out to fix whatever the problem was, and then hopefully we will be set.
On top of that, Ben almost broke his foot Thursday when a 150 lb. set of choir risers fell on his foot. It hurt very badly, and we tried to have it x-rayed but the x-ray person had already left the Dr. office for the day. The Dr. poked and prodded and didn't think it was broke, but Ben had to take 3 days off from running (he is training for his first marathon in two months). He was very angry, and he kept it elevated and iced for most of his at home time for two days. Today he was able to handle a light jog on the treeadmill for over and hour - even though its still tender on top, he could run on it without pain. So hopefully he is on the road to recovery.
And then there was the passing of Senate Bill 5 last week, which will completely change our careers as teachers, and not for the better. In fact, if the law stays as is, we can't afford to keep teaching, even if we don't lose our jobs (which could happen much more easily now). But then there's the problem of not being trained to do anything else. Oh yeah, and we really do enjoy what we do. The whole thing just makes us feel that we are completely hated and unappreciated, and I'm sure the police and fire fighters feel that way as well.
Three weeks from today we'll be on our cruise, and it can't come soon enough. I don't know if I've ever needed a vacation this badly!
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