There was some heavy stuff and some light stuff and to be honest there was a lot of whining because it rained an insane amount here for close to two weeks straight. When there is real grief and also just plain ol' general malaise around here, I take to this little laptop and let my fingers fly about all the big things and the little things and often times, as is likely the case here, the events in my life in which you could not be less interested.
So, now, at the risk of losing some readers, I'm going to tell you a story about the time my husband was out of town for a week and I had to do a lot of adulting that I didn't want to do.
This will require a little background and I'm sure you're just on the edge of your seat. You might recall that back in February our sump pump died and our entire basement was flooded. Or you might not recall because why would you care? Anyway, it did and as you might imagine I look back on that time as such a super fun season in the life of our marriage and our family. I'm certain that it strengthened us in ways that escape me right now, but perhaps I'll understand when I get to heaven.
So when this record amount of rain started to fall a couple of weeks ago, I was bound and determined to never let the basement flood ever again. Every day, many times a day for the past two weeks, I've been running down to the basement, pulling the cover up on the sump pump and peering down into the vast black hole with a flashlight watching the water level and praying to Jesus that the new Fancy Pants pump we'd had installed would keep working. It's just exactly the relaxing laid back summer I had hoped to have this year.
Anyway, a couple of Wednesday nights ago - the fifth night in a row it had been raining - we had some of the biggest downpours we'd gotten all week. As I mentioned, Steve was out of town and the alarms on the sump pump were screaming bloody murder. I looked in the black hole of peril to see that the water level was significantly higher than it had been and was about 6 inches away from starting to pour out onto the basement floor.
At that point, I figured I could either just start bawling my head off or I could try to come up with a solution to keep our basement from flooding again.
I would like to tell you that I skipped the panic part all together, but alas, I'll point out that for about the first 10-15 minutes, I did, in fact, do the superfreak, call Steve in Atlanta, and commence to just about lose my ever lovin' mind.
Anyway, I realized that it seemed that the sump pump was functioning as well as it could, but it was just getting overcome by the amount of water. I texted Kyle to come home from hanging out with his friends to PLEASE HELP ME BECAUSE AGAIN
At first, we started filling baseball buckets full of water and emptying them into the bathtub. This was neither an enjoyable, nor a sustainable activity.
Then, suddenly it was like I turned into Caroline Ingalls with the grit of a Pioneer Woman and Kyle turned into the Professor from Gilligan's Island with a genius plan. The two of us rigged up the extra pumps we had bought at Home Depot to help supplement the work that our sump pump was doing. What I'm telling you is that there were flashlights and extension cords and busting out of window screens and corrugated pipes running out of the basement window, and hoses running into the bathtub and also a configuration of a bungee cord and a dog leash that I can't adequately explain.
Pause. I'm picturing many of you, dear readers, right now. You're thinking, "Why has she returned here to her blog to talk about plumbing when she didn't mention one peep about the Nordstrom Anniversary sale last week? Why is she not talking about the great deal she got on boots or jeans instead of what she purchased at Home Depot? Whose blog is this? Check, please."
Bear with me. If it helps I will tell you that during this entire ordeal I was wearing the Hunter Rain boots in Glossy Black that I got from last year's sale. You're welcome.
Now let's get back to the fact that what Kyle and I had just done might have gotten us jobs at FEMA.
Soon there were multiple high fives and our collective self-esteem went through the roof. We were very, very impressed with ourselves. One of us made sure to check on our work every hour and half or so all night. I have never been more grateful for FortNite because apparently that game is better than a straight IV of coffee to keep a kid up. Kyle was able to stay up until about 3:00 am and then I set my alarm every hour or so to make sure we weren't going to flood.
The moral of the story is that my 17 year old and I are basically MacGyver-like geniuses and we saved our home and family from great peril. If someone wants to option this story for a Disney film, I will consider your offer. We're pretty sure it will bust all the cinematic records for the rest of time.
Also, just to make this story even more riveting, I'll share with you the photos that I sent to Steve because he kept wanting me to send him these so that he could get a sense of how justified my meltdown was. So I sent him evidence of our genius after using the handy little editing feature on my phone.
Around 2:00 am, I had really started getting a little loopy from shining my flashlight down into that black hole for so long so thought I was being really funny by sending him these photos.
Listen if you're doing this right now, I get it.
I'll admit that these might be completely offensive and inappropriate. So if you're offended I apologize. It's just that I had to make jokes to keep myself from actual breakdown and let's remember that Baby Jessica and the miners are all safe and sound now. Does that make it better?
No?
Let's move on to the most important thing I need to tell you today.
If you've read this blog long enough you know that Little League has been a gigantic (arguably too gigantic) part of our family's life for a long, long time. Joe was just 6 or 7 when we celebrated the inaugural year of the brand spanking new Loudoun South Little League. After so many years, our Little League days ended last summer when Drew was twelve which commenced a grieving period for me which I'm not sure is complete.
Anyway, if you are a baseball fan at all, go to ESPN tonight at 6:00 pm and find our rock star Loudoun South AllStars making history as they will represent the state of Virginia and play in the Southeast Regional Semi final. Our boys! Right up there on the ACTUAL TV! These boys are lighting our community on fire. We are thrilled and excited and cheering like maniacs for our very own neighbors and friends - many of whom Drew has played baseball or basketball with or gone to school with throughout the past several years. They have set themselves up beautifully to take the Championship and go all the way to Williamsport for the Little League World Series.
It makes me feel pretty much like this.
Then, suddenly it was like I turned into Caroline Ingalls with the grit of a Pioneer Woman and Kyle turned into the Professor from Gilligan's Island with a genius plan. The two of us rigged up the extra pumps we had bought at Home Depot to help supplement the work that our sump pump was doing. What I'm telling you is that there were flashlights and extension cords and busting out of window screens and corrugated pipes running out of the basement window, and hoses running into the bathtub and also a configuration of a bungee cord and a dog leash that I can't adequately explain.
Pause. I'm picturing many of you, dear readers, right now. You're thinking, "Why has she returned here to her blog to talk about plumbing when she didn't mention one peep about the Nordstrom Anniversary sale last week? Why is she not talking about the great deal she got on boots or jeans instead of what she purchased at Home Depot? Whose blog is this? Check, please."
Bear with me. If it helps I will tell you that during this entire ordeal I was wearing the Hunter Rain boots in Glossy Black that I got from last year's sale. You're welcome.
Now let's get back to the fact that what Kyle and I had just done might have gotten us jobs at FEMA.
Soon there were multiple high fives and our collective self-esteem went through the roof. We were very, very impressed with ourselves. One of us made sure to check on our work every hour and half or so all night. I have never been more grateful for FortNite because apparently that game is better than a straight IV of coffee to keep a kid up. Kyle was able to stay up until about 3:00 am and then I set my alarm every hour or so to make sure we weren't going to flood.
The moral of the story is that my 17 year old and I are basically MacGyver-like geniuses and we saved our home and family from great peril. If someone wants to option this story for a Disney film, I will consider your offer. We're pretty sure it will bust all the cinematic records for the rest of time.
Also, just to make this story even more riveting, I'll share with you the photos that I sent to Steve because he kept wanting me to send him these so that he could get a sense of how justified my meltdown was. So I sent him evidence of our genius after using the handy little editing feature on my phone.
Around 2:00 am, I had really started getting a little loopy from shining my flashlight down into that black hole for so long so thought I was being really funny by sending him these photos.
Listen if you're doing this right now, I get it.
I'll admit that these might be completely offensive and inappropriate. So if you're offended I apologize. It's just that I had to make jokes to keep myself from actual breakdown and let's remember that Baby Jessica and the miners are all safe and sound now. Does that make it better?
No?
Let's move on to the most important thing I need to tell you today.
If you've read this blog long enough you know that Little League has been a gigantic (arguably too gigantic) part of our family's life for a long, long time. Joe was just 6 or 7 when we celebrated the inaugural year of the brand spanking new Loudoun South Little League. After so many years, our Little League days ended last summer when Drew was twelve which commenced a grieving period for me which I'm not sure is complete.
Anyway, if you are a baseball fan at all, go to ESPN tonight at 6:00 pm and find our rock star Loudoun South AllStars making history as they will represent the state of Virginia and play in the Southeast Regional Semi final. Our boys! Right up there on the ACTUAL TV! These boys are lighting our community on fire. We are thrilled and excited and cheering like maniacs for our very own neighbors and friends - many of whom Drew has played baseball or basketball with or gone to school with throughout the past several years. They have set themselves up beautifully to take the Championship and go all the way to Williamsport for the Little League World Series.
It makes me feel pretty much like this.
To my Baseball Mom friends down in Warner Robins today: Have a blast, smile big for that tv camera and soak it all in. I don't mind telling you that I'm so jealous that I could spit nails. I mean not that I really minded rigging up water pumps and hoses while y'all are down there living the dream or anything. ;-)
Thank you, Loudoun South All-Stars, for being a bright light in a pretty dark few weeks around here. Go get 'em, boys. We believe.
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