Counting my blessings

Being a homeowner has many advantages, such as more rooms, more storage, more fun! But this weekend we experienced the major downfall of owning verses renting. 


As hurricane Irene ripped through the Lehigh Valley it left behind power outages, flooded streets, closed work places, and....flooded basements. 

The hubby had work on Sunday and when we went to check on a drip we have in our laundry room at 6:30 AM, he was greeted by a puddle in our family room. When he turned on the lights to further investigate he realized that it was not a puddle but a pond. 


We have a finished family room that is attached to an unfinished laundry room and both were filled with water. 


When he woke me up I immediately put on my game face, which is shocking because typically my first instinct is to panic. Luckily my parents had a shop-vac that we were able to borrow, and we started to suck the water out from our basement. 


All I could think of was "my beautiful home, what a mess!" 


By noon we had the majority of water out of our home and under control. As I sat relaxing my sore muscles all I could think about was how blessed we actually were. 


A list of our blessing (in no particular order):


1. We didn't loose power. Thank God we didn't lose power because if we did our sump pump would not have been working. We got water in because we got dumped so quickly with so much water that our pump couldn't handle it all. If our power would of went out we would of have way more water in our basement then we could handle. As the hubby vacuumed out the water I pushed it into the pump which shot it back outside.


2. As soon as my brother heard that we had a problem he was over to help, and even though there wasn't much for him to do, he was able to help carry the vacuumed up water outside to dump it. Just knowing that he is always there for us is so comforting! Growing up I never would of thought him and I would have the relationship we have today! He is the best.


3. My parents had an extra shop vac. We can always count on them to be there to help us with whatever we need. They have been through it all and luckily lived to talk about it (and lend us the things they purchased along the way!)


4. My hubby. Not once did we bicker or argue about what had happened. We worked together as a team and got the job done. This was our first "emergency" and it was so nice to see that we can both stay calm, lean on each other, and do what needs to be done. I now know that we can handle anything....together. I think I fell more in love yesterday.


After purchasing a dehumidifier and a fan we have our family room back together and our laundry room is airing out. We, luckily, did not have anything damaged and can resume our normal routines and lives.


I can tell you we WILL be better prepared for the next storm that rolls through the valley!

"Here comes the sun...dodododo...."