Sunday

Well, we've decided to hold off on shopping for a new dryer, at least until after our trip. Instead we've been focusing on the garden and the basement this weekend. The basement has managed to flood every time it's rained and it is really starting to take a toll on the walls down there (not to mention the...fragrance.) Yesterday Ross worked on the storage room while I worked on the garden and, while I'd much rather work on the yard today, I promised to help with the basement too. I haven't got much of a plan yet except that I'm going to use lots of Lysol.

It's been kind of a chilly weekend and last night the weatherman announced a frost warning for our area. Grrrr. I waited so long to plant my peppers so that I wouldn't have to worry about frost! So I brought in my potted flowers, but there was nothing I could really do for the veggies. I checked on them this morning and they look fine. :S Hopefully that really was the last frost of the season. I mean, it's May 17th for heaven's sake!

Yesterday we got the fencing for our veggie garden. It's naval high so it ought to keep even the hugest bunny rabbits out, lol. I was lazy and didn't actually measure the garden before buying the mesh and ended up discovering I was about 8 feet short after I had tied it to the posts. So I had to take it all down and start over, using the existing fence as the back (duh, why didn't I do that the first time?) and problem solved.

I haven't painted at all this weekend - there is just too much to get done before our trip! (When I start painting I have a really hard time stopping and nothing else gets done.) But hopefully I will find some time Tuesday or Wednesday to finish the tulip painting so I can start something new when we get home.

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

-Hebrews 13:5

More Flooding!

Early yesterday morning I was awakened by a cacophony of drip, drip, dripping. The temperatures were rising fast, all the accumulated snow was melting, and it was raining on top of that. By the end of the day the temperature had risen into the 50s and more than an inch of rain had fallen. There are only a few stubborn patches of white left and, in place of the snow that once blanketed the neighborhood, we now have pervasive flooding including, once again, our basement! Fortunately, the basement only got about an inch of water in the very worst spots. I'm very grateful for the sub-pump, which has been whirring into action like clockwork for the last couple of days. The weather service reports that this was a record breaking year for Chicagoland with 50.58 inches of precipitation total.

Aftermath

Well, it looks like we all survived the Great Rainy Day of '08. I'm so thankful for the sub pump in the basement! Today things have dried up enough that I can finally give the towels we were using for sand bag duty a much needed laudering. Next step - Lysol, lots and lots of Lysol.

The standing water in our back yard is gone but our neighbor's yard is still a mess. A pretty mess. I feel like I suddenly have waterfront property.