Good morning Everyone!

Our Old House

In the very near future, we are going to be moving again – back to the town and house we reluctantly left two years ago. Needless to say, we are very excited about getting to go back home, but I am not looking forward to the pre-moving “happiness is a full trash bag” stage. Mark has a new job, back in Montgomery, with a very interesting company that I may write about some day if Mark doesn’t mind, and our house in the old town never sold – and it was on the market for over two years! Our rental house has been fine as far as it goes, but I still think of the prior house as home.

However, our “pre-moving” goals got an unexpected boost the weekend before last. Over the two years, we had slowly moved everything out of the old house, and had just gotten the final batch moved this March, which meant that we had a patch of 12-15 boxes in the corner of the garage by the water heater and the air conditioner drain. Friday night, as I got out of the car to enter the house, I noticed that a couple of the boxes weren’t standing flat any more – they looked like they had buckled under from the bottom.

So Saturday, Mark, Kayla and I sallied forth into the garage to figure out what was going on – and were not pleased with what we found. The air conditioner drain had become clogged, and had been spilling water onto the floor of the garage for an undetermined period of time.  (I missed the “what to do when the air conditioner drain clogs and floods your garage” episode of This Old House, didn’t you?)  The boxes were “buckling” under because the bottoms and bottom sides up to a point had gotten wet and collapsed, while much of the sides still remained straight.

So of  course we had to pull out all of the boxes that were wet, open them and check (and redistribute into the house) the contents thereof. I was pretty worried, to be honest with you – there were precious artifacts in those boxes that I really did not want to lose, especially pastel and acrylic paintings Kayla and I had done, family photograph albums, loose family photographs and my (and Kayla’s) most precious books – those we decided were so important to us that we wanted them nearer to us than the storage room we rented for most of our surplus stuff from the old house. Miraculously, NONE of those items were ruined, and only a very few of them were even damp! What was damp and mildewed were clothes and sheets and bedspreads/comforters that had somehow ended up at the bottom of every box. All of those have been pulled out and washed so that we can decide what to do with them without the mildew/must/mold in the dampness triggering the worst of our allergies. What a relief!

During this very long day of pulling out stuff, unpacking it, putting it away, throwing it out or washing it, Kayla was an absolute trooper! Mark had a doctor’s appointment first thing in the morning, so when she and I were ready to get “up and at them,” it was just her and me there. I simply told her that we both had to do things we didn’t like to do that day, but they had to be done and I needed her help. That’s all it took – she was very helpful the entire day, vacuuming the house for me while I started in the garage during Mark’s doctor’s appointment, then coming outside to help both of us once he was home.

The door to the kitchen had to be held open during some of this activity; Darwin and Mandy tried to escape out it once during all of this. Darwin stood at the door wagging his tail, looked directly at Mark as Mark said, “No!” then sashayed out into the garage just far enough for Mark to discipline him. Mandy, who was only seconds behind him, stopped dead in her tracks just before she crossed the threshold and then started grinning and backing away, beaming because she hadn’t got into trouble for escaping but Darwin had. However, if you disciplined dogs based on intent rather than execution, she would have fully been equally as guilty!

After a long day, the garage was cleaned out, the drain was fixed, the wet boxes unpacked and removed and everything tidied up generally, which is what we meant to have happen anyhow at  some point before our move.

So I guess it all worked out for the best. However, I am watching our garage floor like a hawk now for any traces of moisture in case the drain decides to repeat its clogging performance – and the floor around it has several feet of clearance on most sides.

Have a great day!

Nancy