Under Water................

Other than a bit of celebrating for our lovely friend, Ello, I’ve been largely absent from blogland the last week or so because I’ve been under water – figuratively and literally, I’m afraid – we flooded last Sunday.

First, I hope all of my bloggy friends who live in areas hardest hit are doing okay. Stacey, Ralph, and Travis, I’ve been thinking of you guys especially over the last week or so...

My case isn’t so bad, I keep telling myself how much worse it could be and how dare I even bemoan my own situation while so many people have been flooded out of homes and are dealing with devastation in their communities? But guilting myself into bucking up doesn’t seem to be working.

The actual damage here wasn’t so bad. I’ve lived in my house for eleven years and this is the first time we’ve gotten a drop of water... unfortunately, it was sewage... ewe, ewe, ewe... And, lovely as it is – I live in a bi-level... there are seven steps down to my family room/laundry room/etc... seven steps up to the bedrooms... so, the water came in through my downstairs shower and flooded into the laundry room... we got a handle on it pretty quick, but the flippin’ smell is killing me!!!!!

I have washed more laundry this week than I ever remember washing in my life.

I’ve bleached the floors, poured bleach down drains, and I think I bleached myself...

The carpet has about a one foot square in the doorway that got wet, despite my best efforts... I cannot get the flippin smell out.... I wet vacc’d, vacuumed, steam cleaned it... I steam cleaned again, sprayed Febreze – I think I have to tear it up and I can’t can’t can’t afford new carpet and that is our most used room so I can’t very well have the kids walking around on whatever the hell is underneath there....

Oh, and in the mad dash to move everything in the water’s way, and stop the rush, and put towels down to protect the carpet... I fell down the stairs – not once, but three flippin’ times! Partially because it was dripping with water... mostly because I’m a klutz... but I’m so bruised I look like a poster child for the abuse hotline and I’d really like a long hot bath... that lasts ten years or so...

Ah, better. There were already some personal issues going on that made this little added difficulty a bit harder to handle... I’m not getting into it here, but we’ll just say that my hands are too full to blog much. I’m sorry I haven’t been checking in on you all with regularity, but I hope you’ve all weathered the storms and are doing well...

For now, I’ll leave you with a poem. It’s one of my favorites, and it’s been making me feel a bit better lately:

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as a Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be,
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance,
My head is bloodied, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

- William Ernest Henley