Flood of '10

"Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink. Literally." -Katie

Tis true. Ames had (last I heard) 8 water main breaks and water levels plummeted to dangerous levels. We're advised to not flush the toilets, take less than 5 minute showers, not do laundry, and boil water if we want to wash dishes, cook, drink, and any other necessary water uses.

It's shocking how priorities change when you don't have clean drinking water. I have given up trying to drink half my body weight in ounces, I have showered far less than I am comfortable with, and I feel horrible about pouring water out of my pasta after it's been cooked.

I was asked to help move a friend out of her flooded apartment this morning. I had already made plans, but I begrudgingly thought, "Fiiine. I'll go be a good Christian...." (totally contradicting what a good Christian should do?) As I rode my bike there, I passed a church that was passing out free water.

Uh oh...

It seems absurd to me to be battling over whether or not I should stop for free water. I rode my bike in circles for at least a minute trying to decide whether I should bail on the friend for free water (clean water!) or whether I should keep moving forward. I'm so THIRSTY!!! And it's 3 gallons!! That's a lot of water!

I ended up leaving the free (clean) water, crashed my bike on the way to the friend's, and once I got there, found out they had already finished moving her. Soooo....I went back and got the water. Win win win. Except for the bloody knee. THAT I WASHED WITH THE FREE CLEAN WATER!!!

So much to do!

It's been just under a week since we moved in, and I'm LOVING it so far! It's a place of my own! My living room, my kitchen, my bedroom, my bathroom!!! And Emma's, of course...

So far, we've:
-thoroughly cleaned all the kitchen cabinets and walls and doorways (my rag was DIRTY!! Gross!)
-got our kitchen unpacked and set up, complete with a pantry for our food since cabinet space is limited.
-finally arranged our furniture in the living room (not permanent, but works until we get another couch - we've got so much room!!)
-scrubbed. the. crap. outta. the. shower. Holy cow, it was bad. And holy cow, it's clean now.
-mowed TWICE and raked up the 1 1/2 inches of dead grass that covered the top (the last tenants were kind enough to NOT mow the previous 2-3 weeks before they moved out)
-seized the mower engine because the grass was so wicked long and it was low on oil (mowers need oil?!)
-set up our internet!
-subsequently broke said internet within 5 minutes
-called and got it fixed for sure. High speed internets, here we come!

It doesn't seem like much, I know. But I've given up most of my evening activities just to get stuff done! (I only have 4 hours to work with since I try to start getting ready for bed at 8:30)

Things we still need to do:
-repaint all the trim and doors and cabinets in kitchen and bathroom (surprisingly, yellow white and true white do not go together...hmm...)
-repaint my furniture (got my paint, just need to get on it...hopefully tonight)
-organize my room - I'm still in shambles because I have no furniture yet!
-paint the kitchen! We're thinking burnt orange...it'd be a nice contrast to the white cabinets, stove, and fridge.
-paint my room - some shade of light grey I think... I don't have a whole lot of confidence in my color palate choices, especially after my run in with dark grey/navy fiasco. BTW, they did let me exchange the paint, contrary to their policy on returning tinted paint. I think it was the fact that I went well over 100 miles out of my way to find a single quart of paint. Ridiculous.
-find a color scheme for the awesome living room we have
-create my frame-art. I've got this wicked awesome idea for wall decor. Pictures WILL come
-figure out curtains for our living room - the slat blinds are NOT going to cut it.

So much to do, but so much potential!! Way excited about this!