Lumpy Heads Make for Soft Hearts!

Endings are better than beginnings. Sticking to it is better than standing out. Don’t be quick to fly off the handle. Anger boomerangs. You can spot a fool by the lumps on his head.
Ecclesiastes 7:8-9 TM

Last Saturday I was ready for an afternoon of errands and finishing up back to school shopping. As I came downstairs from my bedroom I hear my husband call “Honey, we have a prooooblemmmm”. “Ahhh, man. What now?” I thought to myself. Our sewage had backed up in the toilet and tub and flooded our entire downstairs. The girls rooms, their closets, the hallway, part of the living room. It had run everywhere, and quickly. I said “well I will call the carpet cleaner to come out, you call Michael (My brother is a plumber) and we will get this taken care of. That process began at 2pm in the afternoon, and once the cleaners had sucked water several times, and our floors and baseboards were still soaked we realized we had a bigger problem than we thought. It was 11 pm before we closed the day.

We called our Home Owners Insurance. We were told we would have to leave our home, as it was not safe to be here breathing in toxic bacteria and other yucky stuff. I was keeping my sisters daughter because they were out of town for a funeral. So I took them to my sisters house, and we were able to stay there for the 3 days while they aired out my home.

We immediately began calling those we knew in the flooring business. I was fine and moving through the problem at a calm pace. My thought was as long as I had everything back in place by the time school started in a week (August 11th) then I was fine. And hey, we could now do the hardwoods in our home like I have wanted for awhile, right?

After several days of dealing with Insurance adjustments, and looking at flooring, we had chosen our floors, and cleaned the mess out. The floors would start on Thursday, and would be finished no later than Tuesday. What?? Tuesday? That is two days after school starts. This was not working according to my plan. But o.k., take a deep breath, it will be fine. The girls will sleep in the room with us, and this will soon come to an end, and I will have beautiful new floors, right?

Wednesday night my husband and brother decide to go ahead and rip out the carpet in my living room and dining room. After all, the more prep they did, the less for the installers and the quicker they could get things done. As they were ripping carpet in the dining room, I ask “what is that on the floor?” “where” my brother asks. “Right there, it looks like it is wet.”
Well, under our carpet was yet another problem. There is moisture in the concrete. We can not have hardwoods. What? Well, they can dry it out, sand it, and seal it. O.k. so one more day of process. I am becoming annoyed now, but take a deep breath and focus on your new floors.

Then as the flooring guys are at my house on Thursday, and therefore I am at my sisters, I receive a phone call. “As they were sanding, they ran into more moisture. They can not lay flooring on that until we are sure it is not a leak, and then we can not do the hardwoods.” My husband reports. At this point I am in tears because they are leaving, nothing they can do, and my brother is on his way to check for a leak. We are another day further from having my floors done. I am more than annoyed, and now in tears. To some, you may be saying just chill it will be fine. I must say that this is true, however when it comes to things like having everything in order for the first day of school, “i’s” dotted and “t’s” crossed brings out a little type “A” personality in me. Chaos is not something I deal with easily.

Finally after finding no leak, and having only guesses as to how the moisture is getting there, we have decided to seal the floor and “float” a good laminate hard wood. So I drive back to the flooring store to pick out more flooring. When all is said and done, at least for today, it will be next Friday before all is done.

I forgot to mention that we had already scheduled to have my kitchen remodeled, and the lady came and took our cabinet doors, and we had to move everything out of our kitchen. So basically our entire downstairs sits in the garage right now. While she said she would wait, my husband said “Hey it can not get much more chaotic than it already is. So go ahead and let’s just rip the band-aid.”

Last night, I was so tired and frustrated. I could feel myself taking it out on my husband and girls. I knew I needed to take a deep breath, but I had taken so many I thought I would hyperventilate at some point. I left with my daughter to go to the grocery store and began praying for God to give me peace. (NOT the other “p” word” 🙂 ) As I did, I heard a still small voice say “God uses every circumstance to teach us. Your attitude can change your circumstances. If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. And until you change your attitude, your circumstances could potentially continue to throw you into walls.” GULP!!!!! I quickly repented, and thanked God for my blessing of new floors I have actually prayed for a couple years now, and had to call and apologize to my sister and husband for the attitude I had for the day.

Then this morning I read the above scripture. I felt quite ashamed to feel that I had been acting so foolish, but I had the lumps to prove it, and could not deny it. Today, I am attempting to change the way I look at these circumstances determined to make lemonade from my lemons, and hopefully carry a little softer heart, yet again.