Before I start this post, I want to take a moment to thank all of you who either commented or sent personal emails offering cleaning supplies, stockpile items, food and even shelter.  I’m taking a short cut and thanking you all publicly here, because, well, there’s too many to address personally.  Again, all the best wishes, etc. mean so much – sometimes you feel like there’s nothing that can be done and are paralyzed.  I now understand how easy it is to allow yourself to do nothing because it’s all so overwhelming that you wonder where you are even supposed to start.  So you start with washing dishes in the sink and washing out a toilet and putting in toilet paper.  baby steps.

Today DH and a family friend are clearing a path from the basement stairs (well, after clearing the stairs) to the laundry room so that the hot water heater can be delivered and installed tomorrow morning (ihopeihopeihope).  After that they move over to the food stockpile side and start tossing.  A sad, sad day for me.  I’ll take pictures of the stuff as it’s tossed and counted.

Since we got gas back yesterday, I have reverted to semi-pioneer status: large pot of water gets heated until boiling, then poured into basin and mixed with our double-taps of cold water (to put a positive spin on things).  Fill and heat again and use the hot water as a rinse bucket. Kitchen by the sink stinks like pee. Since I have to remove all the tile in there anyway (it’s pulling up and the pee smell concentrates there, I’m thinking of bamboo flooring. I’d like to keep the original oak boards, but honestly don’t know how much the floor will go back down after it dries.   With the damp and cold weather, it will take a few weeks, easy.  Side note:  DH was yelling about the dogs peeing all over the living and dining rooms – there were puddles in a few places. I was amazed because I hadn’t seen any dogs in there!  Put the dogs away and cleaned up the puddles. Puddles came back and we realized that it was the wood giving up water from between the boards! So that’s more fun to deal with.  But again, we have a few of those oil heaters and a huge fire going. I know that fires don’t dry out the air like forced air furnaces, but right now it’s the only game in town.

And to think that one week ago I was posting and planning huge Almay deals at the Friends & Family Day event at Walgreens…

You’d be amazed at what comes through a flood like this: Vacuum-sealed coffee is a gift from the Gods! I was sure the cans would be fine, but the others? So far, so good, but I haven’t actually walked on that side – this was just stuff that I could reach from the safety of the stairs.

It still feels weird to toss everything into the garbage and not separate into recycling bins. I told PITA that when anyone asked what she did for Earth Day, she could say she took all the recycling and threw it into the garbage.  She hit me.