browser life

Well, to start with, the basement flood incident has turned into a full-fledged saga, one with no conclusion as of yet. Hard to believe this whole mess started over six weeks ago. Not exactly fun for anyone.

The carpenter ended up having to rip out not only drywall and insulation along one wall, but also a cabinet, a desk and paneling along the entire scrapbooking area. There was not just a little mold back there like we hoped, but a lot, more than can safely be cleaned by hand with a bucket of bleach solution. Even worse, the walls had cracks in a stair step pattern with water visibly running down the cement!

The foundation company came back out, and the prognosis was not good. The entire south end of the house is starting to bow! You can see where internal walls are already beginning to crack due to movement from the foundation.

Because the damage is not yet severe, they want to anchor the southern wall of the basement. This will hold it steady and stop it from bowing further inward. Only problem is, they have to attach the anchor plates to the cement wall at intervals of every five feet, meaning that all the rest of that wall has to be uncovered.

So the carpenter has to come out again, this time to rip out the remaining paneling, drywall and insulation. And the bricked in area which currently houses a wood burning stove! They're supposed to start this on Wednesday, and I have no idea how long this will take as the carpenter is a friend of the family (he works cheap) and is wayyyyy overbooked.

When the carpenter is finished, I have to make an appointment with the foundation company to install the anchoring system and the secondary drainage system that will connect to the main sump pump. Right now they are already booking two months out! By the time they get done and we have the basement refinished, it will be fall!

As you might guess, this is gonna cost us a fortune! To give you an idea, a conservative estimate would be approximately three months of my SSDI payments! But if we wait until we have more cash on hand, the damage may be worse and the repairs more costly, so we need to get it taken care of.

The part that really sucks is that we've had uncovered mold in the basement for six weeks! It worsened my asthma and caused a flare of the Sjogren's. I'm better than I was, but I still seem more frail than I had been prior to the discovery of the mold.

There's not much point in doing any mold remediation until the basement is fixed so that it has a chance to dry out. As a result, my computer time has been limited as the machine is in the basement. I've worn one of those masks to keep me from breathing in too much mold, but they make my face itch, so they're only good for short periods of time.

As if this weren't enough of a financial fiasco, the Mac seems on the verge of biting the dust. The cursor keeps freezing up, and things start running very sluggishly like they did when we lost the hard drive in 2006. The machine is six years old, but we can't afford a new computer (yes, I know PCs and/or laptops are cheaper, but I don't know how to use them).

How am I gonna find cash for this stuff when we're already doing a payment plan with the Mayo Clinic through next year? Hate to say it, but I'm probably gonna have to charge it on a credit card. That way, I could make small payments initially and then larger ones once Mayo is paid off.

So, that's mainly why I've been scarce on this blog. I have no idea how many more of my projects I'll be able to complete in between bouts of basement deconstruction/reconstruction and/or computer crash, but I'll do what I can. I'm already sick of having most of my possessions in the basement covered with plastic (I keep thinking, sanitized for your protection, heh heh).

One thing I intend to try out, though: a new blog feature recently available. I am supposed to now have the ability to post something today and have it appear on a date of my choosing. As I have a ton of material I've been wanting to include in my Raves of the Day, I'm gonna give that a shot so you'll have something new to look at on a regular basis.

I won't be home most of tomorrow. The father of a friend of ours died quite suddenly on Friday, and we're driving to Dan's hometown of Huron for the funeral. It's a couple of hours each way.

Guess I'll stop here and see if this future posting feature actually works.