Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Tonight's picture was taken in June of 2006. That day Peter and Mattie went with his buddy Zachary and his dad to a Day out with Thomas (the tank engine). Mattie and Zachary LOVED trains and spending the day riding trains and running around with each other made for a very memorable moment! 

Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins. 

• Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 39,338,982
• Number of people who died from the virus: 641,709

It dawned on me that I forgot to post this photo on last night's blog. The shelving in the office has three sections, and I only posted two of the three last night. The middle section is equally important as it has photos of Mattie with us, many of his clay pieces he created in clinic, his hand print, and the Lego taxi he built at the Lego store with a master builder. 

The Washington DC area got hit with a terrible storm from Hurricane Ida. I won't forget Ida any time soon. At 2am, we awoke from lightning and thunder. Then Sunny jumped on the bed in a panic. Needless to say, we both jolted out of bed. Peter had the where with all at that horrible hour to check on the basement during the storm! Brilliant! Because if he didn't we would have extensive damage this morning. 

We have a new door on order for the basement because we knew the current one wasn't water proof. In fact, it has a big seams in it, where we can even put our hand through when the door is closed. Keep that in mind. 

Any case, within minutes of Peter leaving our bedroom, I heard him screaming for me. He wanted me to know that the basement was completely flooded. I ran downstairs, but it took me a few minutes to understand what was happening at 2:30am. When I got downstairs, I was besides myself. This is a photo of our utility room. That wasn't so bad. 

But the entire basement, including the bedroom and bathroom were covered in two inches of water. Peter and I were wading through water up to our ankles. We started scrambling to address the issue. Peter has a wet/dry vacuum. But it died mid-use. There was just too much water. So I ran upstairs and got brooms and mops. I literally opened the outside basement door and started sweeping water out. The issue is the drain outside the door got jammed with leaves. Once Peter cleaned it, it did drain water appropriately. But our area received 3-4 inches of rain in 45 minutes. In comparison we can get that much rain in one month usually. So it was a deluge and practically impossible to manage.

We swept and mopped for almost four hours straight. We stopped at 6am. In the process of dealing with this, I called Servpro, which is a company that deals with water damage 24 hours a day. I honestly think that is a misnomer, because they sent someone this morning around 10am, after we cleaned up the mess.

We were vigilant at getting every drop of water out of the basement, and thankfully it only sat there for a few hours. After sweeping and mopping, we moved to drying down baseboards and bringing down fans and spraying Lysol. Fans are still going down there. In the process of dealing with that, I landed up doing multiple loads of laundry of towels and mats that got soaked with water. 

We haven't unpacked the basement, but we do have boxes and items down there. Many are of Mattie's things and I would have been livid if they were destroyed. I call it the basement and house from hell, as there isn't a minute's peace here. 

Any case, we have a plan in place to manage that outside drain to prevent it from getting covered in leaves again and we can't wait for the new door to be installed in October. 

Meanwhile it is raining and STILL raining cats and dogs. We are both on the edge as we don't want another night like the last one. 

By mid-afternoon today, we both took to the couch. I literally put on pajamas and I haven't moved since. Peter is resting and exhausted. Sunny and Indie are in the family room with us too and both took to their respective beds. A bad night for all four of us. 

I end tonight's posting with a photo of our TV stand in the family room. Not to see the TV, but to see all the items featured under it. As you can see it is the Sun, Moon, and Star theme... so in essence very Mattie Miracle!

The little red vase on the lower right hand shelf was the vase Mattie made for me on our last Valentine's day together.