New Job, Flood, and Recovering
September was supposed to be all about new beginnings as I started a new career path. I accept a job at my locale Elementary/Middle School as a Paraprofessional and I couldn’t wait. I showed up for the first day for staff on September 1st, nervous and excited. I felt like I was undercover and getting to see the behind the scenes life of teachers. I was the unknown person behind the mask.
Then that night we got hit by Ida and we had our first delayed opening. When I left for work that morning I noticed the water heater was working better then ever. The second day seem to go smoother but since I didn’t have full state clearance I had to leave the building before the kids came for locker assignments and Pre-K and Kindergarten teacher meet and greet.
When I got home I knew by Jeff’s face something was wrong…….
Our sump pump couldn’t keep up with the water coming up….
Then the water heater failed and dumped into the already flooded basement….
So we went into action and over the next twenty four hours we pumped out the 2 plus feet of water that took over the main part of the basement. We lost our water heater, dehumidifier, dryer, countless personal items, and damaged the boiler.
That weekend I escaped the madness at home to honor the memory of a BMX friend we lost 20 years ago. It was great seeing one of my dearest friends and big “brother” and so many of the BMX crew I hadn’t seen in years. But the emotions of the day, the week, and life in general over came me so I didn’t stay to see everyone. Plus responsibilities back at home called to me, adulting sucks sometimes.
The following days were filed with cleanup and sad discoveries.
To many it’s just a camera to me it was so much more so I’ll leave that for a blog of its own.
Things were starting to settle after the flood. The water heater got replaced with money we had put away for the adoption, but hope that insurance would help kept us calm.
But because the sump pump didn’t fail it was t covered by insurance….
So we sucked it up and decided to move forward.
We decided to escape for a night and took Qi’ra on her first road trip to my parents house. She wasn’t the biggest fan of the car trip, but she loved exploring their house. She found her favorite windows to look out of and comfy places to take a nap.
Life was moving forward. We had made a plan to recover by refinancing and borrowing money to handle our next big renovation and the money we lost from the flood. Our awesome heating guy was set up to come repair the boiler, the dryer may be able to be repaired, and the majority of our holiday decorations are saved.
Then one morning Jeff woke up and we had no water….
We are blessed to have well water, but we are also responsible to repair any issues with the well. Sadly we are also inexperienced with well systems and because of that we had been unaware that our system was not functioning properly for months and caused more damage. Thankfully we had amazing friends who tried everything they could to get our system up and running to no avail. Instead we called in the professionals to come in and save the day.
We were blessed that one of our neighbors was the guy who did the work for us. He explained the issues with the original system and that it’s not the worst he has seen. Sadly the work was extensive and more money from the adoption fund was drained leaving us nothing left. Plus we found out our refinancing won’t be as good as we expected, but we will survive.
The day the well system failed I heard from the school my paperwork was back and I could start my job! So while the well system got replaced and updated, I officially started my journey into the world of education.
September has also brought back the return church, Christian education, youth & family ministries, my monthly diocesan youth council meetings, and of course being in the church kitchen with my dad. Slowly life is coming back. Some things are never going to be the same and we will mourn the loss of them, but for our own mental health we must find peace with issues out of our control.
Of course we can’t forget the excitement of the good times coming back! Returning to the PBR made life feel a little more normal. Seeing dear friends was a true highlight of the day for me, and spending time with my own VIPs topped it off.
As we move forward in life we are working on repairs to the house for the refinancing. Lots of hard work, help from my dad, and late nights is proving to our way of life. So stay tuned for the house update once the mess is cleaned up. Until then stay positive God is there when you feel like you can’t handle it anymore.
