Of Floods And....

You guessed it - Poop!

After a week of stomache flu and on the verge of the busiest weekend of the year, we thought it might be fun to flood the basement - so we did!

Just kidding. Well, it did flood, but not because we planned it. This home we rent is on a very old cesspool system that needs to be replaced. The joy of cesspools is that they drain right out into the ground. So when the ground is saturated, there is nowhere for the black or grey water to go. So you guessed it! It just backs up into the house.

This afternoon I was busy finishing work on my computer, when water begin quickly flooding the basement from the laundry room. We were able to stop the surge by turning off the washer. But were faced with lots of water, wet walls, wet carpet, you get the picture. Thankfully, this was mostly soapy water that had tried to drain from the washer. Several hours later, the cesspool is pumped with temporary relief until the whole system is replaced. You can guess what that involved - yeah, lots of poop! I shouldn't really complain. I'm in here blogging about it, while Bill is out in the freezing rain, helping cut through concrete. So we are on water restriction. We can only use enough water to fill the remainder of the tank and it will back up again.

If that isn't motivation to clean the basement, I don't know what is. Course that was NOT on the agenda for the night. The agenda for tonight? Plan A: Clayton's school musical play Plan B: (due to Clayton having the stomache flu), Bill taking Riley and Ian to their award's night at church for their discipleship program (that Bill also helps lead) Plan C: Mop up water, set up fans, pump out poop, serve hot chocolate to workers, occupy kids with movies, and add 6 more loads of laundry (ie. wet towels, blankets, gloves, clothes, and shoes) to the list. But oh, well!

Last night I was doing my 10 minute routine...ten minutes to make cookie dough (and let others make the oookies), 10 minutes for dishes, 10 minutes to decorate the tree, 10 minutes to clean out a file....How do you decorate a tree in 10 minutes? Well, you should see the tree. Hayden got to pick it out this year. It has about 10 branches!

I usually do an annual purging of the file cabinet in January. This year, as piles of paper begin to overflow on every available surface, I decided it was time to do it early. I also decided that there wasn't much use for all but the top drawer. I've had a file cabinet since I was 18. Yeah, what does an OCD 18 year old do with their graduation money? Go on a trip? Upgrade their car? No! Invest in a file cabinet to keep organized? For years, I clipped articles and saved sermon notes, and all manner of things that were full of good information and would be useful for years to come.

I realized yesterday.........I NEVER look for anything in my file cabinet! I have a new form of information searching now, it is called GOOGLE! I can find anything I want in seconds. Why store an entire tree in my corner!?

So, I began viscously weeding 1/2 a drawer in 10 minutes. I found a very interesting file. It was labeled "Passions". I expected to find it full of articles on Passions, but it was not as I thought. I don't even remember starting this file. I don't remember putting any of the contents in it. It must have been started during darker days of motherhood, based on its contents. It contained an article about a crisis nursery, the first children's story I ever wrote, and a pamphlet for Wycliffe. I found it very interesting that somehow, sometime, I had started filing away my dreams. It was a file of the things I would do, if I could do anything: write, minister to moms in crisis, and Scripture translation. Very interesting.

So, you guessed it! I left that file alone.