It has only recently occurred to me that I never blogged about our apartment flood that happened back in March of 2007. Well, our apartment flooded. So there. Now I’ve blogged it.

We had always had low water pressure and complaints were answered with, “We can only give you what the city gives us.” Then, one day I turned on the water in the shower and it almost knocked me over. Seems someone had figured out the problem. About a week later, the increased pressure blew the fittings off the back of our dishwasher when no one was home and the adventure began.

We lost a fair amount of “stuff” when the water rained down from our second story apartment into our garage and storage room. But having just returned from our mission to New Orleans, we were mentally and emotionally prepared for that.

After almost a year we were still dealing with some of the issues created during the flood. By using our lease renewal as leverage, I convinced the management to install new carpet and baseboards. We tried to plan the work to have minimal impact on our lives. Tammy’s business trip to Wisconsin dovetailed nicely into this plan. Also, a friend of ours was looking for some cheap, first-apartment furniture and after about nine years we were ready to replace our living room set. Perfect! All these things coordinated pretty well and the last couple of weeks have gone swimmingly.

We moved all of our furniture into our garage. Then, Tammy headed out. The new carpet was installed on Monday, the new baseboards on Wednesday, and the new furniture arrived Saturday. In the mean time I vacuumed the new carpet over and over, trying to get all the fuzz out before we had to move back in. It literally overpowered our vacuum, require a couple of “trail repairs”. I collected the fuzz in a separate trash bag and it now has the size, shape and weight of a small dog. I am not making that up!

We are about 95% moved back in. Tammy and I have both decided to lower our “stuff factor”. It’s truly amazing how much stuff you can accumulate over time. Tammy culled her clothes once before the carpet arrived and then once more while moving back into her closet. She produced four (Yes, four!) 30 gallon trash bags full of clothes that either don’t fit her physique or don’t fit her fashion. I am so not making this up. There must be 200 pounds of clothes in our garage waiting for a ride to Goodwill.

In that same spirit, the couch and love seat that we planned to give away have now been joined by a badly weathered computer desk, a recliner, and a heavily abused coffee table. We’ve cleaned out all our “junk” drawers, our kitchen, our pantry… the list goes on. The large boxes in which our new pub table and chairs arrived are now overflowing with cast offs.

Culling the cruft from your house can be a liberating experience. We actually have room now! Our tiny kitchen no longer has drawers that won’t quite close. Our walk-in closets can actually be walked in. And for the first time in months, my desktop computer has a desk top surrounding it, rather than piles of things I would never “get back to” no matter how much I wished I could.

It’s like I can breath again. Now, if only we could keep it this way. Wish us luck. Or better yet, pray!

P.S. Is anyone in the market for a wedding gown? Seriously.