One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

This morning in my One Year Bible reading, God gave me this:

Take courage as you fulfill your duties,
and may the Lord be with those who do what is right.
2 Chronicles 19:11

I thanked Him for giving me strength to forge ahead with each new day, doing what needs doing.

And then God gave me this:

Which I wasn't very happy about and I haven't thanked Him yet.

Did I mention that when we discovered the back bathroom shower leaked and the long and torturous repairs began, the six of us began showering in the front bathroom? And we then discovered the front shower leaked as well? Again, it was the smell of mildew in the hallway, in the closet, by the front door. So as soon as we could, we all moved back to the master bathroom and had the front bathroom looked into.

Today, I had Nate empty the hall closet (no small feat),

and pulled up the dismayingly wet carpet and pad. The closet contents will go to storage asap, and I still need to unload the shelves by the front door to check for water there. (Drover is helping by smelling everything.)

This is not fun. I don't like these duties.

The good news is that so far the only thing ruined by water damage is a box of unread, disposable books. Everything else in contact with the carpet was in plastic. Hey, I can thank God for that!

Redo

It's not your grandma's purple.

But it's just right for Karis and Meg.

Gayle

One of the beautiful and unique ways my sister Gayle cared for Mom in her last days, poorly captured in a fuzzy phone camera pic.

Mom had told Gayle, "I am glad you are here to help Gwen when I die." (Told her each of her last visits, I think, but this time it took.) Thank you, sister, for taking care of Mom, playing beautiful music, and helping me.

After the Deluge

So, this is what was facing me after the flood.

You can see how the water pushed everything over.

Yes, that's the third seat of the suburban. Gah!

Now after a week of sweat and muck and mosquitoes, the garage is cleaned out from the floor to two feet up. I am sorry to say we lost some things we would rather have kept. But a lot of what we found was years and years of my parents' junk and trash. There was plenty of in-between stuff that I hauled to the curb to find new homes. And some fine new yard art.

One of my favorite finds, safely preserved in the boat, is a quintessential Dad item. Mom and Dad's house number has always been poorly marked. They would never pay to have someone spray paint their number on the curb. The house numbers they do have are right by the front door and cannot be seen from anywhere but the front porch. When someone tries to find the house, especially at night, we just have to walk outside and flag them down. So when I found this,

I knew I had found Dad's solution to the house number deficiency. Lesser men might have gone to the hardware store and purchased numbers to attach to their home, but not Dad. In his neat script, he wrote his house numbers on a file folder which he then attached to a frame he constructed from scrap lumber. Problem solved, Dad-style. And now it is a lovely addition to our growing collection of yard art.

There is mucho mucho mas to be done in the garage, namely everything from two feet on up, but I am leaving it for another time (maybe a cooler time?) and moving on to other things that need tending to. One of my biggest disappointments in the cleanup was that we could not get the boat to budge. I was really looking forward to seeing my childhood boat everytime I looked out the kitchen window. Oh well. I can always visit it in the garage.

Resting Place

Meg and I stopped by to see Mom's new place yesterday. It was beautifully done, with thick full sod and what was left of her lovely flowers. Mom would be pleased.

And someone had cleaned up Dad's marker and laid some of Mom's flowers there. So nice. We added a sunflower.

It is sweet for them to be side by side here. And I am happy knowing they are together again forever, loving each other perfectly.

Insert Clever Title Here

Yesterday was good and hard and sweet and sad and dear. I will have much more to say about it, I'm sure.

Last night was scary. It rained six inches and the creek rose, but it all happened so quietly we almost missed it. I'm convinced God woke me at 4:00, just in time for us to rescue two dogs and two cars from rushing debris-filled brown water. Today is a mucky, soaked mess with many aggravations and lots of unknowns, but I'm so thankful for the happy, living doggies. The alternative is just too heartbreaking to consider for long.

That's all I have brain cells for right now. Thank you all for love and prayers and care.

Let's All Take a Deep Breath

The obituary ran in the paper today, instead of yesterday like I had requested.

Let it go.

Someone cut off the top of Mom's head in the picture.

Let it go.

Some of the wording in the obituary was changed, and not by me.

Let it go.

Paragraph breaks were deleted.

Let it go.

Workmen are here putting the shower together. They'll be here for "I don't know, four or five hours."

Let it go.

Reading from the one year Bible today:

But take courage! None of you will lose your lives, even though the ship will go down.

Application:

This ship is sinking, but we'll be okay.