Sunday, June 29, 2008

Take Time to Smell the Roses


This has been an emotional roller coaster for me and I am not an emotional person, I feel so guilty for feeling badly about the things I have lost when so many others have lost everything! The devastation that Mother Nature can do is incredible. This is the first day that we have not worked like crazy, we decided we needed a down day. It almost seemed normal. They picked up all the trash up and down our street on Friday, I was so glad to see it gone when I turned the corner after work, it was a depressing sight seeing every one's belongings piled in the street. We have the basement down to bare bones and are waiting for it to dry completely so we can start the rebuilding. I even picked up paint chips, that is a good sign, right?

3 comments:

Iowa Victory Gardener said...

Wow, IGW, I'm sorry to hear about this! We're losing quite a bit of nostalgic stuff for us from the basement too, but fortunately our appliances (esp the brand new furnace!) got a little wet, but are still working fine. We too feel really fortunate in many ways (we're still hauling ruined stuff out of the basement) because there were quite a few people in town (and elsewhere) who did lose everything.

A bunch of accumulated junk and other stuff that should probably have gone anyway, that's nothing! :-) That's what we keep saying (though losing all my grad school notes and writings and my teaching stuff, that really hurt!)

It's still a good mantra.

Sally said...

That's a *very* good sign IGW. My friend Jay took his father to Iowa City the other day and he said that Cedar Rapids looked like a war zone. I can't even imagine what you must be going through.

Teresa said...

So sorry to hear of all the damage and loss you and your community have had due to the floods. My guess is that you have turned the corner and now you see your basement as having fresh potential. What fun; choosing new paint colors!