May 5, 2024
Every day, I wake up grateful for what I have in my life. I have an amazing wife, I have a terrific job that allows me to work from wherever I am, I have a great house (with issues, sure, but we love it the same) and so much more to be thankful for.
This is not to say that my life is without adversity. In fact, even with as much as I have to be grateful for, I have just as many challenges to deal with on a day to day basis. Most recently, we experienced a rash of storms that swept through the Midwest, bringing tornado warnings to southern Iowa, and with actual touchdowns in Nebraska and Oklahoma.
The rain that came with these storms filled the pump well just outside the corner of my basement office. The pump either quit or couldn’t keep up and the standing water flooded into the basement. It took the better part of the week and dozens of full shopvacs to get the basement mostly dry. With my shopvac capacity standing at 10 gallons, I estimate that I vacuumed up at least a couple hundred gallons of water out of the basement, 10 gallons at a time, drained into the small stall shower in the basement bathroom.
The flooring I put down mere weeks ago was brought up, cut into manageable strips and are rolled up in the corner waiting to be brought up and tossed.
Just when I was finally getting things together down there…
It’s a shame, but it’s a part of home ownership, especially in the Midwest, that I have to get used to.
So, with all of those challenges, you’d think finding something out of this to be happy about would be tough, but sure enough, I am so grateful that the rains have stopped, the underperforming pump has been replaced, we’ve had a couple of clogged drains cleared, and the floor will now be a stained concrete, instead of the vinyl sheet flooring I was in the process of putting down, which I think will go better with the quasi-industrial vibe I wanted to go for in the first place.
On top of that, I continue to wake up happy and (reasonably) healthy every morning next to my loving wife and my sometimes nightmare of a dog.
And, truth be told, I kind of thrive on the adversity. When I am able to overcome the strife, it brings me such joy. Going downstairs and seeing the water for the most part gone was such a wonderful feeling.
So every day, I will wake up, grateful for what I have and welcoming the day-to-day challenges that life will throw at me.
-Phil