I'm in a mild form of hell. I'll give the highlights now. In a few days I'll see the funny side of this. Right now, I'm just pissed, tired, ready to fight or cry at the drop of a hat.
Why?
Well, the outer wall of my room is nothing more than paneling over 2x4's basically. Inside & out. No insulation. No sealant in any size, shape, or form. Just cheap wood paneling & unpainted base boards inside & exterior siding outside. Zilch in between & most definitely nothing at the bottom.
How did I discover this? Because we have had some serious rain lately, we are & looking forward to more thanks to this hurricane down in Cuba. Because the outer wall was buried in about 10 inches of dirt, all the excess water ran inside. Under boxes, under books, under journals, under clothes, under furniture - about 1/2 way across the floor.
It now stinks to high heaven, I dried everything out and clean it all enough over the weekend so that today I stripped the room down and rearranged. I spent my day off Friday outside raking out about 10 inches of dirt, clearing between the siding & cement pad. I've tossed 4 large trash bags of papers & books. Have done 7 loads of laundry. Prayed that my furniture doesn't rot. Little things. Satuirday & Sunday I cleaned madly & dried everything I could with either a fan or a hair dryer. That was oodles of fun, believe me. Today, I stripped the room down and rearranged. Tomorrow, I'm going shopping & getting some of that canned foam expanding insulation to put outside. May not do a damn thing, but it will make me feel better.
Other than that, not much else is going on. This morning, I went swimming & thought about someone I have not seen since 1989 - Julie Hemling. My senior year of high school, she was my best friend. Then we went to college, and never saw each other again. No idea why I thouhgt of her, but judging by what my stepmom has dropped, & what did not pop up-on google, my life has been a bit more adventure filled than hers. Either that, or a bit more hate filled.
Am I the only person out there who feels bad for not being more philosophical in their blogging? I read several dozen others, but really do not feel like adding to what is already posted in blog-land. I know that I am shallow and have little to really add when on-line like this, but . . . I feel guilty! I feel like I should be exercising my mind and adding to the commentaries about the Middle East, politics, social debates, and so on & so forth. But I don't and I feel so shallow some times because I would rather read what others say and then go my merry way.
Quit beating yourself up. That is rule number one.
ReplyDeleteIf you got the dirt away from where your walls meet the foundation you have the biggest part of the work done. If you use foam sealer, be sure that you paint any part of it that is open to sunlight. Sunlight eats it up completely.
Thanks for the encouragement, 3-Score. Right now, I am starting to see the humor of the situation. It's taken me a few days, but the good side is that I had to clean, rearrange, rebox, and generally made things better than they were before.
ReplyDeleteThat & we must have looked ridiculous as we ran around trying to get everything off the wet carpet & whining about the wet mold smell. ;-)