Thank you, Tina!

Happy Mother's day everyone! I hope it's wonderful for all. I was treated to a destroyed bedroom and crayon on the walls this morning. Ahh, the joys of it all.

It's raining, drats! I guess we'll all have to be inside today.

Ted and Nick put together the 2 new picnic tables for me. Pics below when I get a chance to download them The gang is arriving in 20 minutes for dinner the MEN are supposed to cook, We shall see, lol. I already put the potatoes in the oven, cut up salad stuff, arranged the nibbles.

To all you other moms, hope your day is wonderful! Love and hugs to all of you.

Cheers!!

We spend tomstof the day workingo n the house lol. We were getting ready for the sitter who comes today. Today is my first day of training yay! Beth wasn't feeling very well, and still isn't. I don't htink she'll be going o school. Poor lil thing.

You don't sound like an ungrateful shrew, that was a disaster!

Days like that happen though!

Our day was OK. Gave my mom her gift, I got a few small ones from my kids, went to church, the topic was stay married! Funny.

Then we had that communion party, Oh now that was a disaster, that hostess was so unorganized!! The food was awful, and not much to choose from, but we had some good conversations.

We never really got to celebrate with my mother in law, we just gave her the gift at that party and we had to leave. It was getting rather late. I was so tired all weekend!

KaeEll, mine wasn't all that great either, so I feel your frustration! Well, in some ways it was, and others it wasn't...

On Saturday, my youngest nephew's son had his first communion. This is my sister's little grandson (she didn't live long enough to see any of her three grandchildren), and so I'm both "Auntie" and a little like my sister's representative as grandmother.

Anyway, my nephew and his family live about 45 minutes from me. I went to the communion, but because all of the kids had sports commitments on Saturday, Lisa (Drew's wife) decided to celebrate the event on Mother's Day. So, I drove back out to their house yesterday for a mid-afternoon picnic. Except that it was raining!

My husband was SWAMPED with work this weekend, and couldn't go to either event. That was okay with me because I understood his deadline, but he was missed. It has been pouring rain all weekend, but instead of being able to sleep in a bit, and read a new book I bought, I had to get up early to make some baked beans to take with me to Drew's house, shower, get ready, etc., etc., and I had also seen a little something on Saturday to take to Lisa, and I needed to wrap that. Normally, Jim and I would have had a quiet little brunch together, but he was busy in his basement office (I made my own coffee), and mimosas were out of the question since I had to drive to Gainesville!

The actual gathering was nice. We had good food (the "picnic" was indoors because of the rain), and a lot of Lisa's family was there too: her mother, her father, her older brother, two aunts, a cousin, the cousin's wife, their little girl, and of course my nephew, and his three kids.

Our son was coming over for a pot of chili last night, so I left Gainesville, in the rain, a little after 5:00 pm. The invitation for chili had been Jim's idea, by the way, and that was nice because I knew that I would get to see ONE of my children on Mother's Day. About halfway home, I ran into some traffic, and called Jim to let him know that I was on my way, but that it might be slow going. It's nearly 5:30 pm at this point, and our son is due over at 7:30 pm. So, Jim asks me if I would mind stopping by the store on the way home, and shop for all the chili stuff! Okay.......... So, I shopped for the chili stuff, and loaded all the groceries in the car in the POURING rain; I arrived home soaked.

I had looked forward to a couple of hours to put my feet up, and begin a new book I'd bought for myself the day before, especially since I'd made TWO roundtrips to Gainesville in the past two days. (Nice to see everyone -- I don't get to see them often enough -- but I was tired.) Now, of course, it was 6:00 pm, and dinner needed to be made.

Yes, I made my own Mother's Day chili.

The evening ended up being fun though, once our son got here. He stayed late, and we all watched a Bruce Willis movie together.

My oldest daughter had called me before I left for Gainesville, and we had a nice chat, and Arizona-daughter sent me GORGEOUS flowers, and we chatted after I got back home.

TODAY, however, is not so much fun. Our basement is flooded (our entire area is under a flood watch), and we've been sucking water up all morning with a shop vac. Jim stayed home (obviously), and we called our son to come help at 9:00 a.m.

What a mess!

KaeEll, I wish that the solution were that easy, but I'm afraid that it's going to be far more complicated than that. Jim and I sincerely believe that it's directly tied to that patio we love so much -- the one I posted pictures of about a year ago (I think).

We NEVER had even so much as dampness in our basement for all the years we've lived here until AFTER the patio was built. Everything was fine for a couple of years, and then we had a MAJOR flooding disaster about two days after Jim's father died. (Didn't need the flooding...) All three of our kids were away at school, and Jim and I spent 36 straight hours, both of us working together, sucking water out of the basement. We were both completely numb. Instead of grieving, we stood in half-stooped positions, without rest or food (because we couldn't stop) battling the water onslaught!

We noticed that a lot of the flooding was coming from where the wall met the floor, BEHIND where the patio is located. However, at the time, we simply thought that the creation of the patio might have simply redirected the water flow, and we also knew that we needed new gutters.

So, we had new gutters put in, dug some dry wells outside our basement door to accommodate the extra water, etc., etc.

Two years ago, we had another major water disaster in the basement, and again the water was coming from the same location, so we ripped out the wall board to check for mold, and to make sure that our foundation was sound. We began to eyeball the patio, and there are two area in the patio itself that are built-in planters, and they're both against the house. So, we decided that this must be a vulnerable spot. We had the dirt taken out of those two little planters, and had the bricks sealed in those locations. Then, the planters were lined with heavy-duty plastic, and the potting soil replaced. At the same time, we had our basement walls sealed (as you suggested), and replaced our wallboard.

Everything has been fine until this morning.

Yet again, water poured in from behind that same wall, so we're convinced that there MUST have been some design flaw that's causing water to become trapped under that patio. It doesn't become an issue until we have weather conditions that saturate the ground to such a degree that the trapped water has nowhere else to go but inside our house.

I placed a call mid-afternoon to the landscapers who did the project, but haven't received a call back yet...

KaeEll, our basement floor is not of concern at all in this current flooding episode. It's just blue and white vinyl tile that we put down when the kidlets were little, and needed to expand their indoor play area. Over the years, that main room has been used for many purposes, including an art area for my husband and me. There are ALL kinds of stains on it, so I'm not worried about the floor. What really worries me is the possibility of developing mold, although that didn't happen after the first couple of floods, and damage to the structure. I still have memories of our neighbor's foundations collapsing after the 2006 deluge, but in their case, there had been previous structural damage, so I guess we're okay...

Yes, I still love the patio, but this nonsense is getting old.

Oh, and by the way, we were also without heat last night! The pilot light went out on our furnace, and we have no clue how to turn it back on again. I don't know if we have to have our heating guys come out to do it, or if they can talk Jim through it (he's home again today). We're speculating that all the dampness/humity yesterday triggered an automatic shut-off.

KaeEll -- I'm just too freakin' OLD for this!

And, speaking of Mother's Day -- since we're still in the M.D. thread, I know of yet another mother who had a wretched day. I think that we all may have been cursed this year, even though we've all been very, very good!