the great flood of twenty ten

I'm sitting in my living room, with my feet up on my bed. Why you might ask? Well you see, on the last day of Thanksgiving break my house flooded. This day was supposed to be the last day before I "hit the ground painting". I was planning on re doing the kids rooms for their Christmas present. I was in town, purchasing a few last minute room decor items and I received a phone call that now when I think back it was very underplayed.

Shannon called me and said "Hey (very calmly) when you get home, you need to rent a rug doctor, the toilet flooded our bathroom and bedroom"

I immediately began thinking about all of the possibilities. You see, sometimes (most of the time) my dear husband exaggerates. But, there are times that he underplays situations. Like "it only cost $100.00" Sorry dear, but $129.99 is $130.00. So I'm driving home, with chatty cathy in the car chatting away.........not knowing what to think.

When I got home this is what I saw......

Rich approached me at the front door with a look of terror on his face. His first words to me were "I think I cleaned your bathroom up pretty good"

Shannon yelled, "Rich wash your hands, you were handeling sewage"

Codi and Linsey had just gotten home from their moms house, and seemed to be sort of disappointed that this was how their home coming was. Rightfully so.

And the cats didn't seem too happy about the whole thing either.

Oh crud!

I kicked off my shoes, I had on my gold flats, didn't want to ruin them, and I ran into my room. The hallway was wet, and when I got into my room my carpet was a sloshy mess. The baseboards were stained, already, and the room stunk. It stunk bad! Shannon and rich did a great job of soaking up all of our towels in the mess, and they moved and tried to save as much as they could. Bless their little hearts. They tried to save the house.

How did this happen you might wonder, well, this is how:

Shannon was sitting on our bed, 2 feet away from the bathroom with his headset on dictating notes for work. He went to the restroom, not the big job and no toilet paper was needed (TMI, you might say, but that is a critical point). He flushed and went back to work. 2 hours later he stood up to make himself a cup of coffee and found him self ankle deep in water. The rest is history.......

Shannon and I stood in the room in disbelief. For the next hour I was in a horrible state of shock. You know when you pet goes missing and you walk in circles, you pick up the phone and try to dial somebody to help, you start sentences but don't really know what to say to finish them........multiply that by 20. We had never felt so helpless. The water was so bad. We weren't sure what to do, or how to fix it. Where do you start when your room and bathroom has been flooded?

We were able to get out hands on a rug doctor (a huge thank you to the Smart family) and we began to suck the water out of the tub. We worked for an hour sucking the water out of the carpet and eventually after filling the tub with 3 inches of dirty water and still sloshing around in our room we realized that this was way beyond us and our capabilities.

Shannon googled something like "emergency water clean up" and found this great company. This man came to our house with his two grandsons and immediately started pointing this magic wand that told him where the water has flowed to around the house. Let's just say there was a lot of beeping coming out of that magic wand. The water managed to seep into parts of that house that we didn't even realize it would go. That water, it's a tricky little mover. The men began ripping out our carpet and linoleum. They also had to cut huge holes in our walls. That was scary! But 4 hours later we found ourselves standing in a cement house with 5 blow fans and 2 humidifiers and we had strict instructions to leave everything where it was and leave the fans ON!!!

All of my belongings are in my garage, my dresser with all of my clothes, my end tables, my books, my pretty decorations.....everything!!!!! I was swiftly moved out of my house, while expected to still live in it. A very sad day for me. I love my cozy little home. (sometimes)

This nice man from Clean Master told us that we definitely needed to call home owners. He said this is a mess you can't handle on your own. No kidding!

When the inspector came to check things out he is in a state of shock as well. Apparently he hasn't seen toilet damage this bad. Well, if he knew my family, he would know that us Guidry's do nothing small. He wrote his estimate out saying that we will get all new floors, baseboards, paint, and of course patch the gaping holes in my walls.

Great you might say! Yes, I am excited to get new floors and base boards and paint, and especially excited to have those holes fixed but.....yes there is always a but! My dog is scheduled to have her precious little puppies December 11.

Like I said, us Guidry's do nothing small. Including our animals.

The cats refuse to go out side any more. They would rather romp around on my bed, that is placed to nicely in the middle of my living room. The kids would rather have wrestling matches on my bed, and I am going to go insane.