Perspective

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." ~Matthew 6:19-21

We were gone over the weekend but apparently our area had an insane amount of rain while we were gone. When we came home there was no water in our basement but the little bit of rain we had the next day must have been what overflowed the cup oy our yard...into our basement. Half of our basement is finished with great carpet with wonderful, thick padding. Our school room is at one end of the finished part in front of a huge window. The back half is divided into an unfinished laundry room and storage room. On Tuesday morning we came down to find our carpet soaked through and standing water in our back room.

I am trying to keep perspective that this is just "stuff", but I have to say that keeping that perspective was much easier to do yesterday in the rush of trying to get all the wet boxes out and decide what to do to minimize damage to the house. My mom and my sister both took the day off work to come over and help us. A friend also helped by watching the kids half the day. A HUGE thank you to them!!!

We learned a lesson in Seattle about moisture in basements ruining things and so after that I bought stock in Rubbermaid (or I should have) and filled my basement with their biggest storage containers for almost everything. I'm also a big fan of the huge Ziploc storage bags. So thankfully, I can't think of one thing that got ruined by the flooding. Not even one book. And our basement has a LOT of books.

We did, however, have to tear out the carpet. So now everything that was in the front room of our basement is cluttering our main floor and our soaked carpet and padding is sitting out in neat little cut up piles in our garage and driveway. Industrial strength air movers and dehumidifiers are making our basement sound like a small hurricane is blowing through. And the bare cement floor reminds me of what used to be in our basement.

I know that the loss of our carpet doesn't take away all the happy memories of playing fiddle, wrestling ,watching movies as a family and the hours and hours of reading cuddled on the couch...but right now it sure feels like it. Some of you moms out there will understand what the feeling of having your home in total crisis and chaos is doing to me. I can't put it into words, but if you've ever felt like your home and family were falling apart through your fingers as you tried to grasp them and hold them together, you know what I'm talking about. There are numerous other stressful things going on in our life and adding this just feels like a little too much. So I'm going to go have a good cry and give this to the One who can bear it. I am going to make a list of all the things I am thankful for - the things that God has blessed me with - and remind myself that my treasure does not lie within the walls of a house.

Now we need to figure out what to do about new carpet. We're hesitant to just slap down wall to wall carpet again because if water ever does come in again we'd have no way to pull it away from the edges to try and keep it from getting wet. And it's too big for area rugs...350 square feet, I think. And it gets cold down there, too! Let me know if you have any ideas!