WinterWonderSlam and the Great Flood

On Thursday night I took Robert and Corey with me to the WinterWonderSlam tour at the Elco. Toby Mac, Family Force 5, Aiesha Woods, The Afters and Hawk Nelson all had great sets – real fun time for sure. I suppose if I had my grillz, I would have been able to rap better…but I still had a lot of fun dancing. We had seats right next to two energetic kids named Austin and Lennon and my friend Amy Romersberger. It was so hot in there (for some reason I had chosen to wear a sweater!?), the music was incredibly loud, and it took me a few hours to hear properly again, but the freedom to rock out was worth every dollar.

It was raining when we left, and so when I awoke the next morning, I expected to see snow on the ground as predicted. Not the case… What I did see was water soaking the carpet and seeping slowly beneath my television stand at 7am. I dropped Robert at school and rushed back home to move everything. The ShopVac was brought down and I tried to get all the water removed. What I discovered was a floor drain under the carpet that was working in reverse. Unfortunately I had a meeting, and when I returned, half of the room was soaked. Corey and I worked like crazy with two ShopVacs and a sump pump. We were able to finally get it where the sump pump was keeping up with the inflowing water. The carpet, however, was quite soaked even after repeated vaccumings. I gave up for the night at around 9pm. (By this time Corey had gone and Robert had taken over.) The pump ran all night. I had to duct tape the window shut as the temperature was 17 degrees last night. Since my bed was covered with stuff that was formerly on the floor, I slept in my hammock. Sadly, it was not very restful as I wanted to make sure the pump didn’t stop running. This morning, after seeing that the carpet was not any more dry (even after yet another vaccuuming), and smelled absolutely awful (as wet carpet does), I got out the tape measure, a couple levels, and a sharp utility blade and cut the wet stuff out. It took a whole truckload of smelly, dripping wet, 20+ year-old carpeting and padding, but now at least the floor is dry. I ripped up the tack strips and ground off the nails. The pump is still running and, as soon as it stops, I plan to fill that hole with concrete. Thankfully, nothing was ruined and the floor is in nice shape so I might do the concrete floor thing for now. If we stay there for a while, I will most likely paint it. Life is always interesting and challenging. I am so glad I have good friends like these two boys who were so willing to help me out like that. (It might have helped that I had just taken them to a concert the night before, but I like to think that they just were being kind!) I may post pictures if I can find a free space in my room to set my computer.