Rain Update

The basement seems to have dried up in most spots, thankfully. To put things in perspective, the local middle school is closed because of flooding and numerous local houses that have never experienced water in their basements had trouble during this last storm. These were extreme circumstances.

But, there's more rain in the forecast today, but tomorrow looks sunny so far. And, from what I hear, the violent storms producing the flash flooding and tornados are over. At least for now.

Long term I don't know what we're going to do. The drain tiles and palmer valve should take care of the wetness problem, just apparently not when we get 2.5 inches of rain per hour which is very, very unusual. I suspect we'll start with some regrading and mud-jacking the driveway in some suspicious spots. My answer Saturday night while moving the contents of our basement to higher ground and cleaning up gross messes was just to chuck it all and move. But given the reports I'm hearing of wet basements abounding, I think that's a pretty extreme reaction.

I'm in clean-up mode today. Throwing out old carpet remnants that lined my laundry room floor and washing rugs from the family room. After the basement is cleaned up and normalcy is returned to our chaotic house then we can start mulling over long term solutions.

Some good news: Elisabeth is feeling better. Completely recovered, I'd say. Oh, and we had the most delicious sandwiches ever last night. I'll share the recipe later today. YUM!

UPDATE: This is mere moments from our home. See why I feel thankful the damage wasn't worse?

It's raining, it's pouring, an old man is snoring...

I don't usually like to use my blog for whining, but today I'm going to make an exception.

Last night it rained. Buckets and buckets of rain. So much rain, in fact, that interstates were shut down and basements got much wetter than ours. But oh, our basement. Our formerly fixed and dry basement was soaked. We're talking standing water eeeeeeverywhere. But guess what? It's supposed to keep raining here until Wednesday. WEDNESDAY! And today is Sunday. Then we're going to have a day of reprieve, and then, yep, you guessed it- MORE RAIN!

Then, the frosting on the cake: guess what else happened this morning? Elisabeth is sick! YAY! Yes, throwing up, making messes kind of sick. Only problem is that my washing machine is in-- wait for it-- the basement. The very same basement that I have to wade through to get to my washing machine that I can't use because the laundry sink is alternating as a catchall for wet rugs and pillows at the moment.

I'm sorry for whining. While watching the news it appears others got hit a lot harder than we did, but it's my blog so I'm going to whine about stuff that affects me. At least for today.

Oh, and Big Brown lost yesterday. I was so hoping for a Triple Crown winner. *Sigh*

Tidbits

Five unrelated updates:

1. Still working out camcorder issues. Hopefully today's Amazon order will resolve those problems and you will be viewing as many Super Family videos as I care to share, which will directly correlate, I am sure, to my varying whims and fancies in regards to blogging.

2. Spent this past weekend with Superdad's parents celebrating our niece's birthday. Fun weekend, and lots of cute mental pictures, like Cedar, our niece, clutching her very first American Girl Doll (Kirsten, if anyone is interested in specifics). Alas, I was using the camcorder, not my Powershot and I can't share those images.

3. It's warm here today. Like, above freezing warm. It might even be in the forties. Woo hoo! The big kids filled the freezer up with snowballs anticipating a quick meltdown and, it appears, hot summer days in months to come.

4. We spent another day yesterday with a Lutheran home school group we were invited to join. They only gather once every month or so, but we have loved being a part of the group. As of right now, they're the only home school group we take part in activities with and, I have to say, one of the most interesting and fun aspects of home schooling is the socialization aspect. At every function we have been to the boys and girls play together and it is more common than not to see the older kids mixing in and playing with the younger kids.

5. We just had a contractor here to give us an estimate on drywalling, carpeting and blowing out a wall and expanding our basement. Another new project to think about!

Dry Basement

Our basement is dry. Seriously.

What cured it? Our plumber. Apparently the valve attached to the drain tiles was clogged, and probably has been the entire time we have owned our house.

What a stupid, easy thing to fix. And it only took us four years to finally figure it out. Still though, I feel immeasurable relief.

Hurray!