The Aftermath of the Great Hunt Flood of 2008

Who would have ever thought you could have so much stuff in a basement that turns out to be really insignificant?

I've gone through most of the boxes that got wet in the Great Hunt Flood of 2008, and found things that we never knew or realized we still had. I managed to save most of the pictures I found, only one or two were mangled beyond total recognition.

I realized that college accounting books weigh a ton when they're soaked, and they never open right once they dry out. *toss* Old papers from high school? I graduated 20 years ago, don't think I'll need these... *toss*... Old paperback novels we forget we had... soaked and stuck together... *toss*... and so my day has been for the last week. I found old cross stitch projects, old magazines, old newspapers, financial aid stuff from when I started college, from when Jack's daughter started college... all of it useless, soaked, and turning into huge spitwads. ...*toss*.... ...*toss*... ...*toss*... and so on... we hauled a rather larger trailer full of trash to the convenience center this weekend, and will probably have another one to go next weekend.

I did save a journal that my son wrote for his third grade class. He'd write in it once a week about what he had learned that week, and I'd write back. It was very sweet. I'm glad that survived. In reading it, I realized that my fluffy grey cat will be 10 years old this October. It's scary to think of him as the old cat of the house now, but he is.

I also found and saved the commendation certificates that came with the medals that Jack earned in the Air Force. They're not quite flat anymore, but a cool iron and a piece of tissue paper will take care of that. Some of his old Arabic reference books survived with only slight dampness. We got really lucky with the pictures from Jack's days in the service - they were in a box that was on the floor, all of them together, still in the envelopes they came back from the developers in. But it was a plastic box and they all stayed dry. Woohoo! Still, no more pictures are going to be stored in the basement, unless they are in plastic or on a shelf.

I still have some things to go through, lot of laundry to catch up on. My basement smells damp and musty now. Bleah. Not sure how long it will be before that goes away. It will probably help when we can get the heat pump fixed and start using our central air unit again. Yeah, that went out this spring. We've been using window a/c units through the summer, but we have to get this thing replaced before it starts getting cold - it's our heat unit, too, and I don't think they make window heat units. It's been a rough summer for our house.

Jack found this nifty little item called a "Noah's Flood Alarm" on ebay. He ordered several of them to place in various point around the house and campground. When one gets wet, it squeals. Loudly.

It will be our luck that we'll be out of town the next time this happens, though, and only the cats will hear the alarm. Sweet little furry beings that they are, they're not going to stop the water. No thumbs...

Well, off to fold another load of laundry...