Wednesday, August 5, 2009

When It Rains, It Pours . . . or Gushes. . .

July 14 2008 - 3rd Round of StormsImage by nebraskasc via Flickr

take your pick!

Have you ever had a bad day? Not a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. . . just a little bad day? That was me yesterday afternoon. There wasn't anything really wrong, I was just a little melancholy all day. No reason, really. . . I think I'll blame it on hormones. :)

Ivan worked late and got home around 8:30. I had the girls bathed and ready for bed. By 9:30 he and I were sitting in bed, chatting and trying to reconnect - catch up on our day. All of a sudden, what do we hear?

Splash! Gush! Spill! More splash! More gush! More spill!

AGH! The hose on the back of our washing machine had detached, and water was SPEWING all over the floor. Folks, we had a little flood on our hands. A little one inch flood. At 9:30 at night. 2 feet away from hardwood laminate floors we put down 15 months ago. Not fun.

We grab every towel we can find, and soak up as much as we can. We don't have enough towels, so we started grabbing dirty clothes from the hamper, trying to save our floors.

To make this long story short, here is my home today. In the hallway, where our washer and dryer are, we've got the wood laminate flooring pulled up, with the liner underneath it exposed, box fan trying to dry it out.

In the hallway entrance, we've got 3 laundry baskets overflowing with WET clothes and WET towels, waiting for their turn back in the washer. (Wish it wasn't a rainy day, I'd hang them out on my clothesline and get it done a little faster).

In the dining room, things look pretty normal except for the concrete floor, looking black and nasty from old glue that's on it. (Water seeped under the wall into the dining room and we had to remove/throw out the flooring we had in there last night). (Which meant we had to move the table, chairs, and 3 other pieces of wood furniture out of there last night after we saved the hallway flooring).

Maybe we could consider it a date night and we'll feel a little better about the whole thing.

Okay, maybe not.

All that to say. . . I was a little more melancholy after we crawled in bed for good last night, 2 hours later.

You always hear, "Sleep on it. You'll feel better in the morning"!

So, here I am today.

I'm thankful that I have a washer and dryer.

I'm thankful for the roof over my head.

I'm thankful for the air conditioning.

I'm thankful I have 3 happy, healthy girls.

I'm thankful I have a husband who loves me, and gives me backrubs after bad days like this.

I'm thankful I have clothes to wash and mop up dirty water. :)

I'm thankful it was the washing machine we had to deal with instead of a fire from the dryer.

Rereading this, it all seems kind of silly, huh? I am so blessed! My life is not horrible because I had to deal with a little water and extra work last night. I'm not trying to sound that way at all. I was just truckin' along, feeling okay, and this seemed to be that little straw. You know, the one that broke the camel's back? I'm so thankful for the life I have, and the life I live. I'm just a little irritated. That's all.

I think the Lord is working on our pride. Pride can really sneak up on you pretty quickly, we're learning. Sometimes our pride causes us to focus on the wrong things, and sometimes it causes us to make the wrong decisions. So, in the spirit of learning and discipline, we're going to pull up our bootstraps, swallow our pride, and deal with an ugly, unfinished dining room floor until we can REALLY afford something new. That something new may not be exactly what we wanted. It may be a whole lot cheaper, and a whole lot more about function than style. However, if the Lord is trying to teach us about pride, I'm gonna try to learn.

Thank You, Father, for working in our lives, and teaching us humility and contentment. And thank You for being with us on our Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Days.


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4 comments:

  1. That's how I've been this week. No water on the floor, but other issues. God's been working on my attitude, too, reminding me that I can do it His way or just be miserable. I've tried miserable for too many years, and I know what it is - miserable. But, it's habit, and doing it His way doesn't come naturally. So, I'm still working on it. Thanks for sharing this - makes me feel like I have a kindred spirit in the struggle!

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  2. Oh! Margie, I am so-o-o-o very sorry. Goodness, water is just awful. The exact same thing happened to us about 15 years ago while we were on vacation. We come home, open the back door, walk in and "squish, squish." It was awful and especially coming home to it. No one was here to know it, so it just ran and ran. So, glad you were home to know it. Love you!

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  3. I so understand water....a few years ago
    I came home from a long tree decorating day...my husband was out of town. I quickley turned on the bath water....every muscle in my body was hurting..the phone rang ..another tree customer...needed to talk about making a change the next week in her tree....one thing led to another topic and another and 30 minutes later I said good bye and remembered the bath water...which was by now in almost every room in the house....I will just leave the rest to your imagination .....new carpet...new floor, etc...and the biggest mess you have ever seen

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  4. Ouch! So sorry you had to deal with this. What a blessing you caught it right away. What if you were asleep and didn't hear it or it happened while you weren't home. Bummer about the floors. Some day you'll be able to laugh and it will make a good story. But for now it's hard to smile. Makes heaven look all the more attractive as these things don't happen and don't matter there.
    God bless.

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It makes my day when I hear from you. Sad, but true - so make a girl feel good, eh? :)

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