Ta-dah!

For those of you who actually KNOW how to do home improvement projects, or maybe really just love plumbing disasters, here's what we spent all our money on:

Thrilling, no? Sorry the pics are leaning to one side... so is our basement. And me, with 21 lbs of baby weight on me, I might occasionally list to one side, too.

It's funny. D and I are really pleased this project is done, but it's sort of anticlimactic. I mean, it's not a project you drag your friends to your house to see. "Look at our new pipes! Look at that concrete! Isn't is great?" I assume that when we get our first whopper storm and our basement stays dry that we will send up shouts of praise to the good Lord above. But right now... it's just kind of... there. After weeks and weeks of the wettest weather ever, we've had tons of sun and dry weather. Which means I'm still fervently praying, "Lord, please keep our basement dry. Please show us that this project accomplished what it was supposed to."

The basement bathroom looks exactly the same as before. We've got some work to do there.

Speaking of, it's sort of sad how often David and I utter those words. I never thought our cute little house would offer us so many problems. I calculated how much money we've spent in home repair (exterminator for the carpenter ants, central AC, new windows, new front door, insulation in the attic, attic fan, redecorated bathroom, overhead sewer, new sump pump) in the 10 months we've been here. Let's just say we could have been paying off a LOT of our mortgage with that cash.

But those problems existed, so thank goodness the Lord provided the money to pay for it all. I am grateful. No more house stories for a while, I promise.

On another note entirely, Baby Girl Yeager appears to be training for the Olympics while she passes time in the womb. I'm midway though week 28 and getting bigger every day. It's really fun to feel her move about - it makes me wonder what the little person inside me is like. More on her later.

Friday AM

The basement is done! Pictures coming soon. (Lots of new pipes and concrete... oh boy!)

It's a little overwhelming - our finished basement is basically unfinished now, and we need to rebuild shelves and install a few new electrical boxes to make space for the sewer/pump plugs, but... at least we can use our washer and dryer again!

Now we need to move everything back downstairs...

Pics of the basement!

Hi all. Sorry I haven't posted. Internet at home is on the fritz. Here are some shots from Day One:

These two show the laundry room, where the majority of the work is being done. It was originally unfinished... but to see this is a little unnerving.

You can see here they've dug a trench (in which pipes will go to reroute storm water seepage)... The trench goes ALL the way around the basement.

This last picture shows the sump pump wells. Hard to imagine pits that deep are being dug below our home!!!

Using Panera's free Wi-Fi. Gotta run or I'll be late for work!!!

The Prep Work

(Warning to Oma:
no comments about me writing a downer post, okay? I figure this is important.)


And so it begins. Last night David started hauling stuff up from the basement so that we (or rather, our plumbers) can start work on Monday morning. This is what things looked like after about two hours of work. There's still a ton of stuff down there. If I can, I'll take some before pictures, so you can see what's going on. We - or rather, D and some friends - have to take everything out. It all goes. And then shelves are coming down, tile is coming up, and we lose our 2nd bathroom. While they're at it, moldy mildewy drywall is coming down, too. We're basically taking our (partially) finished basement, gutting it... and hopefully, starting from scratch.

Please, please pray for us. First, pray that this project actually resolves our problem. I'd love to never see another damp spot in our basement - but I suppose I could still be content if said puddles only appear near our sump pump well once in a great while (like, say, when a monsoon hits Wheaton). Please also pray for us. Stress levels are high. I want to be focusing on Baby Girl and celebrating her coming, and D would like to be focusing on finishing the album and getting it out. But the house... THE HOUSE... is taking over. Pray that we would stay patient, and work together on all these things as much as possible.

Again, thank goodness the Lord has provided for us financially in this. And thank goodness it hasn't rained in a week.

I'm going to be late for work if I don't go now.

Surviving on Venus

So Google tells me that today is Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli's 174th birthday. Apparently, a long, long time ago, he drew a map of what he imagined was Mars, and his work apparently "started a revolution in astronomy." I should probably know who he is. I don't. I bet D and his family do.

Google's homepage got me thinking about Ray Bradbury, the science fiction author. Images of Mr. Bradbury had actually been dancing around in my head for a few days, so it was kind of an interesting coincidence to see something space-y broadcast on Google. Bradbury was fascinated with space - quite often with Mars, but really, space in general. He wrote some fantastically creepy stuff. I was introduced to his short stories in 8th grade, when my English teacher started reading, The Illustrated Man aloud to us in class. The first story in that book is one called, "The Veldt". (In case any readers are curious, it's a tale of a futuristic family that has a 3-D, interactive nursery for their kids. The kids imagine their surroundings, the walls of the nursery change, and voila! they can spend the afternoon playing in a virtual wonderland. Of course, the nursery is supposed to be imaginary - their surroundings aren't real. But the nursery malfunctions. And the results are terrifying.) To this day, I mark it as one of the best stories I've ever heard.

But "The Veldt" is not the reason for my recent Bradbury fixation. A little further on in the collection is one entitled, "The Long Rain". Here's the opening line: "The rain continued. It was a hard rain, a perpetual rain, a sweating and streaming rain; it was a mizzle, a downpour, a fountain..."

It's about several men who have crashed their space ship on Venus. Since no one really knew anything about our solar system back in the 50's, Bradbury has imagined this - the perpetual rain, unfit for humans. The small band of astronauts are in search of a "Sun Dome" - a biosphere built by our government, full of creature comforts, and a replica of our Sun, in which humans can survive. Apparently, the constant downpour on Venus drives men insane. Or drowns them.

I'm sure you all can see where this is going.

Thankfully, we have a week of sunny weather in the forecast for us. Today is glorious - in the 50s. But last week we had 2 days of water, and we discovered a leak in our roof that empties directly into my closet. (The leak is easily fixable - not a big deal - just sort of frustrating at this point.) We now know what company we are going to use to repair our basement - but we found out that in order to do the jobs, we need to move most of what's in the basement out, up to the 1st floor. With the gathering baby stuff, my relocated closet, and now the basement stuff joining the first floor, things are getting crowded.

So much for our second bedroom. Ah well.

Barns

It stormed last night, and we had our third flood of the year since May.

Thankfully, this was nothing compared to the last two floods. It rained all day, but started in earnest at about 6:00, pounding down until about 10:30. We realized we have more than just a city sewer problem. The groundwater seeps in through myriad cracks in our foundation. Good times, folks, good times. David was kept quite busy with our shop vac and our pump.

I am pretty convinced that the previous owners were less than truthful about their experience with water in the basement. But there's nothing we can do about it now.

Fortunately, we had scheduled the third of three plumbing estimates last night (they scouted the scene before the geysers erupted). They were the ones who confirmed the problems with the cracks in the foundation, and suggested that aside from just getting an ejector pump, we may want to talk to some concrete guys and get the foundation patched.

Well, just before bed last night, I was having an Eeyore moment. I sat in my sweats, propped up in bed. David had just come from the basement to give me the update that the water was under control. I started spouting doom and gloom about how much this was going to cost us to fix. We'd have to dip into savings - savings that were meant for baby, and maybe a new used car, and maybe some fun things we needed. (Does anyone else note the irony in that last complaint?) Or savings that were maybe going to be stockpiled to do some serious aesthetic remodeling on the house. (We keep hoping a tornado will blow our garage down - without touching the house, of course - and save us some of the demolition work.)

And then David looked over at me and said, "Yeah, we wanted to use the money other ways. But, you know, God did not tell us he would provide for us and allow us to build bigger and bigger barns." (It's from Luke 12:18.) He continued, "He told us he would provide what is needed for today. And he has always done that for us - and more. Everything we've needed for this house, we've had it when it was necessary. We have the money to do this now. The Lord is providing."

And that folks, is one of the reasons I love my husband. He was right - is right. "A man's life does not consist of the abundance of his possessions." (Luke 12:15) Take a look at the parable. We have what is needed for today. We are encouraged to be generous with the Lord's provision. The Lord will provide for tomorrow.