Ice Cold Water = Salt Water Tears

I love to look at the "dream rooms" on those decorating websites. Take me away, take me there now.

I think that readers of my blog know that they're not always going to find sweetness and light when they come here. We all strive to make our homes a beautiful and calm oasis, but that's not always the case. Having worked for a newspaper for many years I've been conditioned to tell it like it is......and it isn't always pretty!

We should all keep in mind what we're striving for but allow ourselves the fact that it's not attainable every day, and probably not desirable every day.

After the "big water event" back in August, we've done alot of work repairing the damage done by the basement flood. I'm not very fond of water right now. And I'm not very fond of the neighbors up the road who built a really big grey house. Before the grey house was built we never flooded, neither did our close neighbors, but after construction of the grey house all bets were off.

The neighbors house behind us has had the basement carpet replaced at least 4 times in the past few years. The couple living there now bought it 2 years ago when they were transferred here. After the flood in August I felt it was important to pass the knowledge of the previous events along, because I'm not sure they were aware. There are at least 4 other homes that were severely damaged during the flood and we've all decided that we're not going to carpet our basements, we'll be installing porcelain tile and using area rugs.

We've had tons of snow and a constant succession of warm and horribly cold temperatures. Yesterday it rained very hard which melted tons of snow. Being very nervous about water I went down in the basement only to find the new sump pump and the battery back up were not dealing with problem at all. They were both running, humming along but it was apparent to me that nothing was passing through the pipe. First thing this morning I called the local heating/air conditioning/sump pump people. It seems we've had the perfect storm of weather conditions and the pipe running from the house to the leach field was frozen solid, the first time in 14 years.

Did I mention I hate water?

I'm probably the most positive and optimistic person you'd ever meet but this situation on top of 5 months of work reduced me to tears. Isn't it funny how you THINK you're dealing really well with problems and then BAM. I'm the first to admit that these problems are very minor in the scheme of things but I learned something important during my years in therapy and that was never to compare your troubles with someone else. Don't fall into the "someone else has it much worse" trap. Even though that is true it does not lessen the stress or pain you're feeling.

So feel it! Cry! Scream! Curse the H2O or whatever it is that's stressing you out. Release the steam and don't let it build. Certainly don't dismiss it because someone has it worse than you.

It's a good thing that last night we headed over to the Tap House Grill for a Mardi Gras celebration. The crawfish was great, the gumbo was mediocre and the party that was promised never really happened because of the terrible weather. No matter, we made out own good time.