Well. That wasn't the plan I had for Sunday.
Oh. My.
It started like this. I cleaned and set up my new craft room. I was jazzed and ready to dig in on my first big sewing project in my new space. But I still couldn't find the quilt that I was working on for Sage before the move.
We still have some boxes in the barn as well as the basement, so I headed to the barn and dug through what I've stored there.
Nothing.
I headed to the basement to check those boxes and was greeted by almost ankle-deep water throughout most of our space.
And the boxes? Yeah. They were on the floor.
Ack.
I called for Pete and along with Sage and Lupine we did what we could to bail out for the rest of the day.
I lifted and drained boxes while we used snow shovels and push brooms to clear the water. Pete headed outside with pick axe in hand and cut a trough across the driveway to divert the snow melt away from the house and down into the pasture.
I sent the kids up to the house with some treasures to try to salvage (our wool and wood puppets were bobbing in the water having tumbled out of their basket, and the frames and pictures from our family photo wall was just dry enough to save if we acted fast).
And then I started going through wet boxes.
One by one with fingers crossed.
The truth is I wasn't sure what was down there. We moved into a very small house and just didn't have the space for all that we kept. We've been going through boxes but it's been slow. Because it's a little overwhelming.
After yesterday I sure wish we'd gotten to it sooner.
In one box I found my favorite photo of Sage - ever - dripping wet. (That's the one above, taken at our last country home when he was three.) I cried a little, wondering what other treasures might be at the bottom of the next box.
There were some sad discoveries. Like Lupine's Flower Book, my favorite artistic/homeschooly creation of hers ever. It was an entire homemade book of lovely drawings of flowers she wished to grow, carefully labeled in her five-year old hand. Poppy. Rose. Tulip. Foxglove. Lupine.
So I cried again and tossed it into the box-of-wet-things-that-can't-be-saved.
And then I opened the next box. And the next. And the next.
It was dark out before we went back into the house. The kids cooked a simple dinner that we ate around a table heaped with wet half-salvaged possessions.
In truth, we really were blessed. We lost random things like telephone books - not baby books. There is still more to be gone through today, but I think overall we got off easy.
I can't imagine weathering a true home-wrecking disaster and seeing the treasures that you hold so close destroyed in their entirety.
And again, it comes to simplicity, doesn't it? If I had just a few things. If the basement was empty. If.
But it is what it is. Today we're sore. Tired. And our house is suddenly full of boxes to be unpacked once more.
So we'll get to it. It's the only choice we've got.
Oh. And one more thing. Remember that last post I wrote? About seeing beauty in winter? (Heh.)
No really. I did. I saw it. Even in the midst of hauling our belongings from the water, I looked up and saw this. And had to stop and breathe it in.
Such beauty. Yes, even in the chaos.
Love,
Rachel
