Rain, Rain, Go Away...

I can finally take a moment to sit and gather my thoughts. To make a very long story short our house was majorly flooded Sunday night due to the Noreaster. We knew we might encounter some trouble when we heard the weather reports, but we never thought it could ever get as bad as it did. We decided not to go to sleep Sunday night, and that was a good thing. Around midnight the water started to creep into Ryan's home office, so we quickly moved upstairs some collectibles and DVD's. We decided to move as much as we could from that room to higher ground. Around 2:30 am I sat down to rest a moment when all of the sudden the cats bolted from the living room with their tails poofed up. I walked toward the corner they ran from to see what scared them when...wooosh....in came the deluge. The next thing I knew our whole downstairs level was covered in about 6 inches of water. It turns out that a dam up the road from us broke and the lake wound up overflowing into our development, which explained the big rush of water.We quickly worked to bring what we cared about most in the remaining rooms upstairs, but at that point a lot of the damage was done. So much for my little room.

At first I felt such despair. I knew I had lost a lot of memorabilia because my scrap book room was soaked. Ryan lost some of his things too, memorabilia he had hung on to over the years, not to mention our carpets and furniture. I cried my heart out because I felt so overwhelmed. How does one clean up a mess like that? I didn't even know where to start. Then the waters receeded and left us with 4 very wet carpets and a lot of damaged furniture. I felt such saddness...and then I got a chance to watch the news and I realized that it truly could have been so much worse. Seeing the damage that many other unfortunate people had to endure helped to put my mess into perspective.

So now we are working on drying out and cleaning up, with some much appreciated help from my daddy, Laurie, and Veronica. We threw out so much stuff today, which was a step towards normal. I'll just pretend it's spring cleaning and not parting with things we otherwise would not have wanted to part with. My body aches from all of the stress we have endured, both physically and mentally. I have to remember that at the end of the day the important thing is that we are okay. No one was hurt, thank God. What we lost were things...they were just things...and they don't matter...not much anyway.

New Hair

Just before leaving for Arizona I decided it was time to cut my hair. It was getting to be so long it was hard to manage. I also decided that I wanted to donate it, realizing that such a gesture would help someone like my Aunt Janet who I lost to breast cancer in 1995. I didn't realize until now though how much it would feel like a sacrifice. As Jo said of cutting her hair in "Little Women," "It will be good for my vanity, I was getting too proud of my wig." I miss my long braid but find comfort in knowing that my hair was not swept up by the hairdresser's broom but instead will be used by someone in need.

Arizona was different this time around. It was wonderful to see Winkie married and happy. This time the trip seemed rushed, with a check list of things Carrie had to do. I knew this would be the case since it was her sister's wedding. She also had to work many of days we were there. Still, we had the chance to lounge together at night and chatted away as much as possible. Meanwhile Ryan and I explored the area in our rental car by day and enjoyed some nice alone time of our own. We also spent a day up in Sedona, which was beautiful and relaxing. We had massages and then ate lunch at a cute little Mexican Cantina. It was picturesque. Every day we had the pleasure of enjoying 85-90 degree weather so it was a shock to the body to return to 50 degrees. We left Phoenix with some new memories and the rejuvination that comes from vacation.