Agua, Water, H2O

Does the title sound redundant?

Well, that's because it is!

And this spring/summer when we were having water problems and water leakages and water damages, it all seemed rather redundant to me, too.

It all started when we were living in the travel trailer. I felt like we were plagued by water while we were living there because of how much it rained during that time--forcing us to stay inside the cramped space and forcing me to do constant laundry (at other's houses) because of how wet/muddy our clothes became. But I had no idea just how much worse the water problems were going to get!

Just one week after moving into the new house, we discovered there was a leak in the wall that lines our shower as well as Josh's closet. We had just finished hanging up shelves and rearranging everything in Josh's closet the day before we discovered the leak. It doesn't sound like such a big deal, but it was the first project that Josh had helped me with in the new house, and we had spent over 2 hours working together in his closet. We had to undo all our previous day's work and take it all down in order for the repairman to open up the drywall and identify the source of the leak. One of the valves had been bent, so every time any water was on in the house, the water pipe was leaking. For several days, we had heaters and fans running in that closet to dry out the drywall and insulation before we could put it all back together again. It was not fun. But that wasn't even the worst of it.

Around the same time we discovered that leak, I discovered a far worse leak in our old mobile home. It was parked approx. 100 feet away from the new house, and I slowly moved items from the old house to the new house every day. It rained something fierce for 2 days, and I didn't hardly get anything moved during that time. After the huge long rainstorm, I went to the house and realized that my pile of photos in the living room was soaking wet. At some stage of moving the mobile home, the roof was partially damaged. There was several little boxes of photos--including my wedding photos, the professional photos taken of our family last year at Gideon's wedding, all of my 2009 photos that needed to be put in an album, and old photos from Josh's mission. I was beyond upset--and I basically lost it. I set out my wedding album and opened the pages, I took out Josh's mission album and opened the pages, and I set all the utterly destroyed photos in a garbage pile. After that, I couldn't focus anymore on what needed to be done, and I went to my bed and cried for hours. Thankfully, my visiting teacher Chris came over that night and she helped me go through the remaining boxes of photos, and we laid out each individual photo on the floor to dry. I felt much better after she came and helped me. I assessed the situation more rationally: the wedding photos were saved, half the mission photos were okay, and everything else that was ruined I was going to order replacements for. I let the salvageable photos dry out on the floor for two days. One evening during another rainstorm, I decided to go pick up all the photos and put them away. It was then that I discovered yet another leak.

Apparently the roof was not damaged in just one place, it was damaged in four or five places. So almost all the photos that had been dried out got water dripped on them all over again. I took each photo, patted it dry and put it away in a big plastic tote box. It took me over an hour just to do that. And in addition to that, my 2 boxes of cards and envelopes got dripped on. Did you know that when envelopes get wet, they seal themselves shut? Yeah, I found that out and had to throw them ALL away, as well as over half of my blank gift cards due to water/mold damage. It also rained on boxes of paperwork that was waiting to be filed, including some of my PTO volunteer papers and some of Josh's school board papers. And it rained on some magazines and books. I couldn't believe my bad luck. I wish that had been the end of it, but it wasn't.

Two weeks later, we took the travel trailer and went camping for the first time this summer. During the packing and preparation part of camping, we filled up the trailer's 40-gallon water tank. After we arrived at the Craters of the Moon park and started to set up camp, we realized that the water tank had a big crack in it, and water had spilled out the whole time we were driving (a 2 1/2 hour drive). The water tank is in our storage under-compartment with all the sleeping bags and camp chairs and blankets and extra camping supplies. We had to pull out every single item, lay them all out to air-dry, and we left the doors on the compartment open for 24 hours to air out the inside of the trailer and its carpeted floor.

Water can be such a blessing. But during May and June this year, water felt more like a curse.

One of my personal goals this year was to catch up on my photo-ordering & printing. I had just barely completed printing all of 2009's photos before we moved out of the old mobile home. But with the stress and chaos of moving, I had delayed in putting them in an album. I was sick when I saw the water damage to my photos. The ONLY box I have left to unpack from moving is the big box containing all my drip-dried photos. I'm still trying to gather the courage to open the lid, re-assess the damage, and re-live the despair that I felt the first time I discovered all those wet photos. I put that box in the living room right by my front door. Every day I look at that box of partially destroyed photos and it feels like I'm repeatedly taking 2 steps back in completing the photo-printing goal. Just seeing the box makes me feel like I got punched in the gut; I don't have the heart to face opening it up just yet.

But, in a more positive note: July and August have been water-damage free and I'm truly thankful for that!!!