On the edge......

We survived our trip to South Carolina. However, my poor oldest daughter, Alyson, barely survived while we were gone. Here are all the sorted details.

We arrived in South Carolina for Maddie's National Clogging competition on Wednesday. We had a great time sight seeing and even made it up to Asheville, North Carolina and looked around. What a great city.

Thursday we were able to sleep in and then out again to see the sights of South Carolina. The competition went well. Maddie took 1st place in her Duet category and her team got Overall Grand Champions for their Show routine and 3rd place in Howdown. She was disappointed in her individual placing, but hey, you can't win them all. Pictures of the competition. Yes, I'm posting pictures of other people's children without permission. They can contact me if they don't like it - I just wouldn't recommend this week. This week they can suck it.













Thursday night we got a frantic phone call from our daughter Alyson at home. She proceeded to tell us that the entire back half of our basement (our finished basement) was flooded up to her ankles. "Flooded with what?" we asked. "With water from the septic", was her reply. Dear God.

After further clarification, it wasn't actual sewage, but grey water. Some relief.

She had already called the septic guy and he was there pumping the septic tank to make the water go down. Pictures of the septic tank draining into our backyard, which, by the way is totally illegal, but at this point? Not really caring.












She had also already called the carpet people to find out what to do with the saturated carpet. Pictures below of the carpet with pad removed and fans and dehumidifiers placed underneath to try to absorb some of the water.














Due to the fact that my husband has not finished putting up all of our trim in the finished basement (a subject for an entire different post), there was a pile of trim in the basement that was sitting in water. We asked Alyson to attempt to move that pile out to the main room of the basement. While doing that, she managed to run one of the boards through the drywall and add a great big hole to our decor. She was so worried that this might be the final straw that might send her mother to the funny farm, she calls her friends' dad, who is a contactor, finds a drywall guy, he comes over, repairs the hole and she pays him $50 of her own money just to save my sanity. Picture below of the hole, fixed, but not yet painted.












After taking care of as much of the basement as she could, she went outside to do the nightly farm chores and found the dogs feasting on the full carcass of a coyote they had dragged from God knows where. Hmmm. Bless her heart, she finally gets the dogs away from the carcass long enough to get them in the house and locked in the mudroom. Then off to find a pitch fork to dispose of the carcass where they can't get back at it. After disposing of the coyote carcass, she comes inside and finds that coyote is not something that agrees with our dogs' digestive system and they have puked most of it up on the mudroom floor. Hmmm. In the middle of cleaning up the dog puke, the electricity goes out. She finds a flash light to find the phone book to find the phone number to call the power company and they explain to her that someone has hit one of the transformers in our area and they will get it back on as soon as possible. Hmmmm. I won't post any pictures of the coyote carcass, just because I love you and don't want to make you puke.

Today was spent trying to explain to the insurance company what transpired and trying not to hear them say, "I'm not sure that is covered under your policy." It's possible that the agents ears on the other end of the phone are still burning.

Now we're playing the waiting game to see if they will 'bless' us with a check for the damage or if we get to pay it out of our pocket on top of the ridiculous premiums we pay every month to insure that we are taken care of. The wonderful world of insurance, you have to love it, don't you?

On a happier note, our mama sheep is going to burst at any moment and we can just be thankful that she kept her legs crossed during this disaster, because having to deliver twin lambs on top of everything else just might have put Alyson in a padded cell.

I've been worrying about Alyson going off to college. I wasn't sure if she was ready to live on her own, she still seems pretty dependent on us. However, after this weekend and the way she handled everything, I worry no more. She will do just fine. Not to mention it was great birth control. The first thing she said was, "I'm never getting married, having children or owning a home." Small blessings.

One final picture here - the picture we took of the 'egg inside the egg' oddity.












I certainly hope none of you loyal readers had the weekend we had. So, tell me how things are in your world.