Dear Readers, My friend, Mary Mike is the best!

My posts on Writing Life Stories sounds like a letter to a friend, I'm told. I guess that is what I am doing each week -- writing a letter to my readers, my friends.

Someone wrote to me and said it is too bad that more people don't read your blog. He doesn't know that I have many readers but only a few comment. I don't follow the guidelines for bloggers and I don't ask for comments, but am so happy that I have regular readers who do comment.

Those who subscribe by leaving their email address on the sidebar where I ask for followers, have my new posts pop up in their Inboxes. Often they email me rather than leave a comment on the blog page. No matter how they come, I always enjoy hearing from my readers.

Just like you, I have my share of challenges every week. No one's life is always easy and simple. I don't want to whine and complain, but my challenges seem to have grown completely out of control since last November. Last night was the latest one.

I was on the telephone with my dear friend, Mary Mike. We were talking about her latest find in genealogy. She is a whiz in locating ancestors and she knows all the online methods that would take me the rest of my life to learn. As we talked, I decided to walk downstairs to the studio and get to my main computer. At the bottom of the stairs, I saw that I had another crisis.

My small storage room where I keep office supplies, Christmas decorations, boxes of papers and other things I need to have close by, was completely soaked from a broken pipe where the water comes into my house. It was horrible that the entire floor was soggy, but the break in the pipe up on the wall was spewing water on the shelves and the walls.

I cried to Mary Mike, "I have to hang up. I have a water leak and flooding."
She said, "I'll be right there."

I managed to focus on cutting off the water and calling the man who had installed the filter earlier this week. By the time he arrived, my friend had come in and begun hauling out boxes that were soaked on the bottom and some all the way up the sides.

We had no place to put them except the studio. I put down towels and throws to protect my hardwood floors. She began soaking up water  with towels while Richard, the filter man, went to work on the broken pipe.

As you know, I just had a water leak and broken hot water heater a few months ago. That whole event cost me nearly two thousand dollars. I wanted to sit down and bawl like a baby.

Whoever said that you spend less money after you retire or you don't need as much money after you retire was full of bull! Barry and I went to financial counselors and thought we had planned so that we would be well set in retirement. We didn't know that all the costs of living would skyrocket and health insurance, medical insurance, car insurance and homeowners would become outrageous. Groceries have become ridiculous. I'm told that the tariffs that our president has put on everyone has caused that. I pay more for one person now than I did for two people ten years ago. But, I digress.

My major problem was my flooded storage room. The water had sneaked through a wall into the studio in one place. But Mary Mike said, "We can take care of this."

I sent Richard to find the old shop vac in my garage. I am so glad I had not given it away or sold it at a yard sale. I haven't used it in almost twenty years. He could not find all the pieces in the dark garage, but resourceful Mary Mike asked me for duck tape. She took a part of a leaf flower and taped it onto the hose of the shop vac and Richard went to work. When he finished, we gathered all the fans I could find and put them in the wet storage room. Mary Mike positioned them to where they would do the best job. Then we took my dehumidifier and put it into the room also. By the time we were through, my back was killing me, and she was very tired. Neither of us is a young sprout.

"Keep the fans going for about a week," Mike said, to be sure it is completely dry.
"A week? I have a class to teach here in two weeks," I said, looking at all the boxes, lugs and bags on the floor of the studio.

After icing my back, I crawled into bed and slept well. Today, I am doing my best to clean up and decide what to keep and what I can store in my garage for now. I will need someone with a good back to move all this stuff out, and I hope I can find someone soon.

Life is no picnic lately. I learned a good while ago that I don't own this house. My house owns me and it is shouting its needs almost every day it seems. It makes me think of a house on our farm that belongs to a family member who has neglected it for years. No one lives there now and the yard is like a jungle, but nothing is being done to take care of it. Perhaps that old house was crying out for too many repairs and too much upkeep that the homeowner just could no longer manage. I can imagine the couple running out the door with their hands up screaming, "I can't do it anymore. I am gone. I will not come back."

Too bad they didn't have a friend like Mary Mike. She is amazing with what she knows but she has learned much of it because she had to take care of her house all by herself. I often said she was being tested by God, like Job in the Bible. How she keeps going on and on is a wonder to me.

This is my letter this weekend, dear readers. I am not going to run away, but I will be making some hard decisions in the coming months. Please send your positive vibes my way. Negativity is doing its best to drag me down. But it won't succeed for long. I still have much to do and just have to find the best way to do it.

I must apologize

I feel I should apologize to my readers. 

For the past month my posts have not been up to par, I’m afraid.  But neither have I.

On February 22, a hose, connecting my dishwasher to an outside drain under the sink, popped during the night while the dishwasher was running. My kitchen flooded ruining my floor and a section of my cabinets. 

That began a month of stress, illness, and sleeplessness for me. I am slowly getting back to normal.

I chose to stay downstairs in my basement  studio where I have a refrigerator and a microwave, a toaster but no sink or stove, while the mitigation took place in my kitchen. Looking back, I wish I had rented a cabin nearby. 

I had no time to prepare for what lay ahead. I was asked to remove everything on my kitchen counter tops right away while sheets of  plastic were hung around the kitchen to try to contain the dust, etc. that was already flying into the air from the huge blowers used to dry up the water.

Looking back, I know I should not have been upstairs at all while those fans were going, but I had no one to help me at that time. Breathing in the debris that was exposed when the floor was taken up and the cabinet was taken out sent me to bed in pain and with respiratory illness.

Three days went by while the blowers loudly did their work. I could not reach my pantry, my refrigerator or even my laundry room. 

The congestion in my head and chest was so bad a woman in the grocery store said she thought I should go to the emergency room. My doctor prescribed antibiotics when I was finally  able to get to her office.

“Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost."

I missed Barry more than I have in six years. How I wished he was here to help me make decisions, oversee the entire situation and just let me rest and get well.  But that was not the case.

First thing in the morning I am asked what I  want to do about my kitchen; repair the cabinets that were damaged, replace the section of cabinets where the damage was done, try to  match the ones already there, put in all new cabinets and new counter tops? I couldn’t think. I did not know how much my insurance would cover. I didn’t know if I could simply order cabinets and have them put in within a few days or if I had to have a cabinet company make new ones.

I have adjusted fairly well to living alone and keeping up a house and yard with a minimum of paid help. But it is not easy. I had a partner beside me for forty-five years, and he always took up the slack. When our well went dry, I went away for three days and he stayed in the house while a new well was drilled. Whatever problem occurred or new work that had to be done on the house, he was the one who hired the workmen. He and I would discuss any decisions that must be made. But now I must make decisions about things I don’t always understand.

I was fortunate that Paul who owns A-Perfect Clean took out the flooring and put in new, took out the old cabinets and removed counter tops so that, after three weeks, custom made cabinets, just on one section of the kitchen, could be installed.

My greatest fear from the flooding was mildew or mold behind the remaining cabinets, but I am assured that they are dry and have been painted with anti-mold chemicals.

With the paint, the flying debris from the blowers and stress of being displaced from my home, I could hardly manage my daily existence.

So that is the reason I must apologize for my blog posts in the past month.

I am grateful to a friend who helped me set up downstairs with necessary items, another friend who moved my computer downstairs and another friend who offered a dog-friendly house where I spent one night. During the first week, I drove to my sister’s house where she cared for me so well, I felt like facing the mess at home when I got back.

I hate being dependent on others, but am having to accept that I need help more than I did a few years ago. My doctor said this kind of change in our lifestyle often brings on illness. Our bodies don’t deal with this kind of stress so well.

Now that I am back to my stove, my pantry and my laundry room, I feel normal again. I also love the new drawers that house serving pieces and storage containers. I can see exactly what I have and I don’t have to stand on my head to reach it.

Have you ever gone through a sudden emergency situation like this? I’d like to  hear about it. Hope you managed better than I did.