THE TOILET IS OVERFLOWING!!!

Yesterday was a wonderful day. I felt like work was great. Chelsea started her new school and loves it. I felt like it could be the beginning of some better times for us. I was talking to my boss yesterday and I was telling her that things were going so smoothly with the move that I almost feel like I should prepare myself for something bad to happen. She just looked at me like I was crazy and told me that God was just taking care of us. I agreed and went back to work.

I picked up Skyler after work and drove home. As I was walking through the halls of my apartment building I noticed that water was coming from my storage room and I thought "oh great another leak, I better call maintenance."

I got in the house and everything looked fine. The babysitter was glad to see me and I was happy to be home and visit with her. I called the office and let them know that something was leaking although I could see no signs of leakage at the time.

Within five minutes of hanging up the phone with the manager, water was starting to pour into my kitchen.

Have you ever been in a flood? No? Yes? My answer would have been no.....YESTERDAY!!! I have now been in a flood. I walked into my room and I was two inches deep in water. It had flooded both my bathrooms, my entire bedroom and was traveling down the hallway. Skyler thought it was funny and started running and splashing and making boy noises. Matt and Victoria switched into high gear and started moving all the boxes from my room to the living room. I splashed my way to the bathroom and saw water just pouring out of the toilet. I reached down and turned the water off.

I was in shock. I have cleaned up water messes before...but this was different. This was the kind of water that you would see at a public pool. Skyler was still splashing through the TOILET water...Matt now thinks the chaos is fun and starts walking back and forth. Chelsea wants nothing to do with it and goes to her DRY room. Now I'm crying. I cant believe my four year old is splashing through my house like he is at a public pool. I turn around and see the maintance man looking at me with pitty in his eyes. I send Skyler to Chelseas room and tell her to turn on a movie and NOT to let him out.

The maintenance man was overwhelmed with all the water so he called the carpet cleaning people to come in a hurry and help. His little shot vac was not going to do the trick this time.

The flood was eventually contained. LOL The carpet guy showed up within fifteen to twenty minutes and did an amazing job. He left us with a dehumidifier as well as about five commercial fans. The carpet is nearly dry now amazingly enough.

Words fail me this morning. I cant believe that this happened. I am fairly sure that one of my children (while I was coming home from work) went to the bathroom, flushed and ran out the door failing to notice that the toilet was flooding over. Of course nobody did it. "Nobody" is our sixth family member by the way. He shows up quite often and I am just grateful to have someone to pin the blame on. "Nobody" gets in trouble quite a bit. (sigh)

Just this past weekend I spent all my laundry money on cleaning the clothes. I was excited because I felt like it would be the last time I would have to do laundry here at the apartments. Boy was I wrong. When the flood happened I was left with lots of soaking wet towels and bath mats and clothes. Frustrated does not explain how I felt.

As I was moving things out of my room to clear the floor so that the carpet man could suck the water up...I noticed a laundry card on the floor of my closet. We don't use quarters here...our money is put on a credit card of sorts. So I found one...one that I had lost a while ago and I thought "Dear Lord, help there to be money on here." Much to my surprise....there was eight dollars on the card. So in the midst of all the chaos...God sent me a rose in the form of a laundry card. Thank you Jesus that was able to wash all my toilet water laundry last night.

So the craziness continues. I will look back some day and laugh. I might even laugh about it today at work. Who knows....right now...I'm just thankful to have semi dry carpet.