But it totally saved me the rental fee on a steam-cleaner...SCORE!

Oh, it's been a FINE week in the Crazy Mama household. When I mentioned last Monday that the basement was flooding? SO NOT KIDDING. I mean, it's not like we had a foot of water or anything, or even 3 full inches for that matter, but when you are talking about your completely finished, fully carpeted, walk-out basement? WATER IS WATER.

The picture below is an aerial view of our town. The Finley River runs through the center of the picture. It was taken several hours after the rain finally stopped, but before the river actually crested later that evening. The city park is located under all the water in the middle of that photo.

The road going out of the far left bottom corner of the picture is the road we live on.


I should also say, now that I am reasonably calm (which I was NOT Wednesday morning), that we are very grateful that our damage was so minimal. Many others in the areas surrounding us were not so lucky. Just a few miles away, mobile homes were floating away and people were being evacuated in row-boats.

That said, this still reallllllly stinks. And NO, we do NOT have flood insurance, as we "do not live in a flood plain" (MY ASS!).

This room - our unfinished storage room - was the first sign of trouble. We've had a little water in there before, but NEVER enough to cover the whole floor and then some.


We soon noticed that the very edge of the carpet in the living room, which backs up to the storage room, was damp. Within the hour, it had spread all the way across the room, making it's way to the next room, which happens to be Seth's office (he works mostly from home).

We rented a sump-pump, Seth spent much of the night pulling out what he could with a shop-vac, and a good and generous friend brought a truckload of sandbags, but with six inches of standing water on the west side of our house, there wasn't much that we could do to stop the damage.




And once we realized that the rain wasn't stopping any time soon, we started scurrying like ants, trying to save all of our books, furniture, and Seth's office furniture and equipment. It all landed, piled as high as we could stack, in the back corner of the living room and in the back corner of the spare bedroom, which ended up being the only two dry spots. I'm just glad there WERE dry spots.


I started getting JUST A TAD STRESSED OUT when it reached the stairs. I know it doesn't look like much, but it was enough water to splash when you walked. And delightfully cold and mucky smelling, too!


SOCCER FIELD UPDATE: You can only IMAGINE Garrett's unbridled joy when he realized that the flooding was washing away his soccer field masterpiece (does the boy have some kick-ass timing, or what?).

He very excitedly informed me, "Now you won't have to clean the carpet, mom!". You could practically hear the wheels turning in his head...I! Am! So! Off! The! Hook!

Uh, not off the hook, much as he might have wished. However, I will say that his full-basement illustration actually proved helpful Tuesday evening. I went out to my cake class (thanks again to my friend Carey for helping out with G and L!), and I called on the way home to see how far the water had risen since I'd been gone. Seth's reply? "Oh, it's about mid-field."


Unfortunately, it continued to rain through much of the night, and things only looked worse in the morning. The carpet had to be ripped out before mold could start to set in, and there were no professionals or equipment available since so many others in southwest Missouri were in the same situation. So, my hardworking hubby took off work and spent the day ripping out and hauling away soaked carpet.

Seth's temporary office space leaves a lot to be desired:

Molly, would you just come PAINT my concrete floors? I'm SO DONE with carpeting.

So, to conclude, we've got some OBVIOUS drainage issues to fix, we need a new roof, our kitchen ceiling must be re-textured and re-painted, the mortar is falling out of our front porch and steps, our windows have hail damage, we need two new door frames for the downstairs doors, the bathroom linoleum must come up, the downstairs needs all new flooring, and I've got at least two months of reorganizing to do downstairs.

Let's move on to happier pictures, 'kay? Hope you and your family had a relaxing spring weekend.

Wouldn't be a holiday in the Crazy Mama household without holiday cake orders!

And no, I did NOT choose the plastic pocket watch and Barbie necklace to go with the carefully executed matchy-matchy Easter outfits - that delightful credit goes to McDonald's. Thanks, McDonald's, for handing out crappy plastic jewelry on the weekend that I actually attempted to make my children look decent!

She's so fat she shines - how freaking cute is that? Wheeee!