That statement could probably sum up my last week. At first, the week looked quite promising. I was at the beach with my family for Labor Day weekend, we had a lovely time, the dogs were on their best behavior, etc. Then on Tuesday, I got some bad news at the doctor's office. Later that evening, as I was bringing in a load of groceries, I felt a drop of water fall on the back of my neck. I looked up and saw that my kitchen ceiling was leaking through a tiny hole in the paint. I called Brian over and he went up to the attic to check it out. It turns out that the pipe that carries condensation away from our air conditioner had a tiny leak. Over time, that tiny leak soaked into the insulation over our ceiling, making it super heavy and water-logged. Finally, the weight became too much for the ceiling to handle, and well... this happened.
Insulation went EVERYWHERE. I am still finding it in various nooks and crannies. We called ServPro to come and take care of it, and they arrived at 11 PM on Tuesday night (the ceiling collapsed a little after 8 PM). They were at the house until 3 AM. They put a ton of dehumidifiers around, pulled out all of the wet insulation, tore up floorboards, etc. We scurried around the kitchen gathering everything we could, moving it to the dining room where it would be out of the way. When we finally got to collapse in bed, I fell right to sleep.
The next morning, Brian got a jury duty summons in the mail. At any other time, this would be annoying, but after the past two days, it really felt like the universe was taking a giant dump on us. Oh, and my vacuum cleaner was broken and in the shop, so I couldn't vacuum up the insulation, dirt, dog hair, etc. that was steadily accumulating on my carpet. We couldn't open our fridge without contaminating the food inside with little floating bits of insulation. Also, we couldn't use the air conditioner (it was still leaking), so the dehumidifiers made the temperature in our house shoot up to 95 degrees Fahrenheit. I was incredibly miserable.
And yet...
Things still seemed to work out. That bad news at the doctor's office? I had no time to focus on that. I was way too distracted. All of the water damage? Completely limited to the kitchen, and only the ceiling and floor. No water got into the walls. Also, no one was hurt when the ceiling collapsed, and our appliances are fine. The air conditioner was fixed after a day, and the extra heat helped speed up the drying process. That week we had a lot of social activity planned, so we had dinner at a friend's or family's house every night. My incredibly amazing mother came over on Saturday and helped me tackle the herculean task of cleaning up my kitchen. (Seriously, my mom is Superwoman). It looks like our insurance will cover all of the damage. I get a new kitchen floor and I get to repaint the kitchen (two things we weren't going to do because we are just going to move in a couple of years when Brian gets his doctorate). Brian will still go to jury duty and my vacuum cleaner is still in the shop, but these are not Earth shattering events.
On the surface, I had the week from hell. And if I had a choice, I certainly wouldn't have gone through this week. But if this had to happen...it happened at the best possible time and in the best possible way. I cannot control what happened, but I can certainly control how I react and respond to it. Even though it doesn't always feel like it, God is definitely watching over us and has a plan. We just have to learn to trust in it.
