A 4:30 am wake up call may not be what you really wanted for your birthday, but when your three year old daughter who doctors predicted would never walk or talk crawls into your bed and kisses you on the cheek you wake up with a smile on your face, no matter how tired you are. And in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is important to know find the celebrations that you can!
The trip to the lake was cancelled because someone in the group tested positive and most of the places where you typically would have gone out remain closed, so the sweet morning wake up call serves as one of the best ways to start your day.
The later events in the morning, however, made the wake up call seem like a picnic.
Water, Water Everywhere
You started a load of laundry and then went to your sewing machine in the front of the house. Your older son had already left for work, and your husband and your younger son were still sound asleep. About 45 minutes after starting the washer, you went to the back of the house to get something and discovered standing water on the floor in the hall outside the bedroom, the first three feet of carpet into the room, the laundry room, the boys’ bathroom, the hall outside their rooms, the carpet just inside their rooms, and even the kitchen and into the garage. The washing machine apparently filled up and then kept going, causing a flood. You are thankful for your neighbor who immediately bringing over your wet and dry vac and a big fan, and to other friends who offered theirs as well. Every towel you own is now soaked and every fan in the house is on full blast, but at least the standing water is now gone from the floors. There is a fun squishing sound under the boards though!
The insurance company has already been called and a water mitigation team has been called so that hopefully you can avoid having to replace the flooring. July had been relatively uneventful so far, so you guess this should have been expected. But seriously, can you just be done with 2020?
The good times keep coming! The water mitigation guys are here to begin the process of removing the wet padding from the bedrooms, taking down base boards and drilling holes for air flow/drying, removing the wet wood flooring, setting up big noisy fans and humidifiers which will raise the temperature in the house by 15 to 20 degrees. They say the flooring that got wet is not repairable, so it will all need to be replaced. You have wanted to replace the carpet in the bedrooms with wood flooring, but if you cannot find the exact same flooring that you currently have for the rest of the damaged area, that will mean replacing the flooring for the whole entire house because of the home’s very open floor plan! This process is going to be loud and long and possibly expensive! As a result you will be spending much of your your birthday weekend cleaning out the bedrooms and preparing your lives for this different kind of fun! Yay 2020!
To your husband’s credit, he worked a few miracles and was able to reserve one of the top horse carriage tours in town. He says that no matter how little or how much of the clean up process is done, everyone will be taking a break at 6:00 p.m. to head downtown for dinner and then an evening horse carriage ride. Your husband knows, of course, that the horse carriages are your favorite part of the downtown experience, but this time he promises that he has a special horse carriage in mind. It is certainly something to look forward to after what has been a very rough start to the day of your birth!
As many as 42% of travelers feel more romantic on vacation, so it should come as no surprise that 37% of families say vacations make them happy. It is important to remember, however, that you do not have to wait for an out of town vacation to enjoy the sites.
