Theme Thursday and a Mini Disaster

This morning I saw that Cari's Theme for Theme Thursday was "Grow" and I thought, "here's one that I can totally do!" and raced to get my camera and then raced down the stairs to the basement to snap pictures.  I cheerfully found that the chives had sprouted and actually looked like chives (see them there in the top row, looking so cute and tasty):

And here's the tray that I actually managed to plant in mid-March, which is a little further along:

Then I thought... the thing that's really been growing down here is the laundry pile (it's taller than me... and although it is on a table... that's still not a good thing.).

Then I slipped.  And that slipping stopped me.  I looked down.  And horror (you might want to stop here and click away if you're particularly bothered by whining).

No, my basement floors aren't naturally shiny.  I don't wax them.  That's a layer of water.  Standing.  Streaming slowly from one side of the room to the other at times.  Seeping up into the boxes of books that were on the floor.

At first I thought that it was coming from the window, with the insulation and towel stuffed into it.  I've never looked too closely at that window, but I've assumed that it's not the most weather proof of places.

Once I worked my way through the boxes to the window, and swept some of the water towards the drain (two rooms away) I found that the area around the window was in fact dry:

It was neat... before Patrick... but somehow we were right back to messy.

So I started moving boxes and unpacking them and combining the contents of the boxes on the shelves (which happened to be behind more boxes and were also covered by boxes).  Did I mention that I have the flu?  And that all three of the little ones have the flu?  And that this wasn't how I was planning on spending my day?

What was my plan? (okay, I know you didn't ask, but I'll share anyways).  I was planning on curling up on the couch during Patrick's naps and letting the girls climb on me while closing my eyes and trying to wrestle some sort of rest out of the day while being asked 50 times every minute why my eyes were closed.

However, I gathered my strength and moved boxes and I discovered the source of the problem, right under a switch that said that it was the main water shut off:

The water wasn't very deep, but it quickly seeped up cardboard soaking boxes.  Thankfully, as I hurriedly unpacked books I managed to save every single book (the Harry Potter books were just damp at the bottom!).  The U-haul boxes were impressively tough, since I wasn't the fasted unpacker in the world and I have no idea when the leak started.

I found box of wooden train tracks that I dumped on the living room floor, which kept the girls distracted while I worked.

And I'm closer to that goal of organizing the "box room."  Kind of.

Now at the very least, after reading this, you probably feel better about how your basement looks, right?  Because even if it's not squeaky clean, there's hopefully not a layer of water over everything either!

Head over to Clan Donaldson to see the much prettier pictures in the link up!

And I'm going to spend the evening hoping we hear back from our land lord very, very soon...