What a morning!
The Tulsa area has gotten a lot of rain this year. I think the grand total is something like a gazillion and a half inches or something like that. So it was no surprise to have another line of storms come barreling through last night. Unfortunately, the ground is REALLY saturated, so we get a lot of water staying on the top... especially in our back yard, which has a dip in the back anyway. And in our side yard, which has never managed to grow grass back since we had our cocker spaniel Molly like three years ago, so it's a total mud pit.
So we've lived in our house seven years, almost seven and a half... and we have NEVER gotten water in our garage until a week or so ago. It's coming in from that side yard, which is a half-inch deep in water. This morning when I got up I had to go out there and get a bath towel out of the dryer, and discovered to my horror that the water had gotten high enough that it had soaked into a bunch of boxes of stuff out there. Mostly my stuff that got moved out there when we were clearing out what is now Hannah's room. Some boxes of textbooks and who knows what all else. I had to go to work so I had nowhere near the time to try and salvage anything... thank goodness the washer and dryer are a couple of inches up from the ground! Realistically, if the stuff out there had been truly important it probably would be inside and in use... thankfully I never put my music equipment out there. So hopefully if anything got trashed, it was kind of extra junk anyway. I guess I'll find out tonight.
So I got ready to go... running a little late because I had been sloshing around out there in the garage trying to see what got messed up... threw my lunch into my bag and ran most of the way to the bus stop. Good thing I did, too... I got to the bus stop at almost the same time as the bus did. Partway there I noticed that my leg was getting pretty wet... I thought that the rain had soaked my faux leather el-cheapo convention bag and was running off onto my leg. Once I got onto the bus and opened it up I learned otherwise.
I found out that the can of diet Dr. Thunder that was in my bag had been punctured and most of it had run off into the bag, wetting my clipboard (I carry it for collecting gas prices for this Web site), my notebook that I carry to write song ideas in, my library book, and my metal Bible. I got the bus driver to stop for a minute and I dumped out what I could of the soda and then tried to lay everything out on my seat to dry. Once I got to the office I got some paper towels and worked on it some more. Now everything's king of laid out in my office, slowly de-popping.
Fortunately, nothing important appears to be damaged beyond repair... even the fake leather bag seems to be in OK shape (we'll see later if the pop that soaked into it attracts critters, I guess). (I like the word "critters," don't you?) Hopefully they won't flog me for the library book... the drink only got on the very edges of the pages, and even then it's not the whole edge. Still readable, if maybe a little bit ugly. I'm at work and I forgot to wear a belt today because I was in a hurry, so I'm feeling a little frazzled, but I'm healthy and except for my pants pocket, pretty much dry. Even my GoGear survived the ordeal without damage (it was in the pocket that got wet). My house has power (at least it did when I left). My family is safe, I have a job I enjoy, I have a church full of people that I care about and that care about me. It's been a frustrating first couple of hours of Monday morning, but it could easily have been much worse. Life is full of frustrations (especially, apparently, on Monday!) but I'm so thankful for the blessings.
The Tulsa area has gotten a lot of rain this year. I think the grand total is something like a gazillion and a half inches or something like that. So it was no surprise to have another line of storms come barreling through last night. Unfortunately, the ground is REALLY saturated, so we get a lot of water staying on the top... especially in our back yard, which has a dip in the back anyway. And in our side yard, which has never managed to grow grass back since we had our cocker spaniel Molly like three years ago, so it's a total mud pit.
So we've lived in our house seven years, almost seven and a half... and we have NEVER gotten water in our garage until a week or so ago. It's coming in from that side yard, which is a half-inch deep in water. This morning when I got up I had to go out there and get a bath towel out of the dryer, and discovered to my horror that the water had gotten high enough that it had soaked into a bunch of boxes of stuff out there. Mostly my stuff that got moved out there when we were clearing out what is now Hannah's room. Some boxes of textbooks and who knows what all else. I had to go to work so I had nowhere near the time to try and salvage anything... thank goodness the washer and dryer are a couple of inches up from the ground! Realistically, if the stuff out there had been truly important it probably would be inside and in use... thankfully I never put my music equipment out there. So hopefully if anything got trashed, it was kind of extra junk anyway. I guess I'll find out tonight.
So I got ready to go... running a little late because I had been sloshing around out there in the garage trying to see what got messed up... threw my lunch into my bag and ran most of the way to the bus stop. Good thing I did, too... I got to the bus stop at almost the same time as the bus did. Partway there I noticed that my leg was getting pretty wet... I thought that the rain had soaked my faux leather el-cheapo convention bag and was running off onto my leg. Once I got onto the bus and opened it up I learned otherwise.
I found out that the can of diet Dr. Thunder that was in my bag had been punctured and most of it had run off into the bag, wetting my clipboard (I carry it for collecting gas prices for this Web site), my notebook that I carry to write song ideas in, my library book, and my metal Bible. I got the bus driver to stop for a minute and I dumped out what I could of the soda and then tried to lay everything out on my seat to dry. Once I got to the office I got some paper towels and worked on it some more. Now everything's king of laid out in my office, slowly de-popping.
Fortunately, nothing important appears to be damaged beyond repair... even the fake leather bag seems to be in OK shape (we'll see later if the pop that soaked into it attracts critters, I guess). (I like the word "critters," don't you?) Hopefully they won't flog me for the library book... the drink only got on the very edges of the pages, and even then it's not the whole edge. Still readable, if maybe a little bit ugly. I'm at work and I forgot to wear a belt today because I was in a hurry, so I'm feeling a little frazzled, but I'm healthy and except for my pants pocket, pretty much dry. Even my GoGear survived the ordeal without damage (it was in the pocket that got wet). My house has power (at least it did when I left). My family is safe, I have a job I enjoy, I have a church full of people that I care about and that care about me. It's been a frustrating first couple of hours of Monday morning, but it could easily have been much worse. Life is full of frustrations (especially, apparently, on Monday!) but I'm so thankful for the blessings.
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