Rain go away and don't come back, you bastard!

Thunderstorms are crazy and last night was a doozie! I woke up at 5am to the snap-crackle-pop of thunder as lightening filled my room. Then the rain. SO MUCH rain! Whenever it rains I freak out a little. Our basement has flooded three times now (only ONCE due to rain) and I'm always scared to find our finished basement swimming in it's own contents. I sat very still and listened for the sump pump to kick on. Listening... Listening... Nothing. Our gutter on the backside of the house is broken so all I could hear was water dumping down off the house outside my bedroom window.

Finally I must have tired from listening and fell asleep. Then around 645, the power flickered - WHEW! Except then. OUT. The battery back up in our room started chirping, which was annoying enough to raise me out of bed to unplug it.

Just as I was about to resume the listening...I remembered the sump pump is powered by the electricity that we'd just lost. EFFF!

I fished around in the den for our flashlight (note, get new batteries for the flashlight, it's going dim) and ventured downstairs. It was light outside by now, of course, because I would NEVER EVER EVER venture down into the basement (where the killers are) in the nighttime. I shined my light down the black hole to look at the pump and the water level was fine. Then I heard water. Dripping. Like FAST dripping.

I looked up at the basement window and saw an avalanche of rain water cascading from the windowsill, onto the wall, onto the carpet. EFFFFF!! The window literally looked like a fishbowl, submerged in water (from the broken gutter) and the paint was peeling off the wall as the water trickled down. God what I would have given for five minutes with McGyver this morning. I needed a contraption to catch the water coming off of the ledge before it soaked the wall. I had no such invention. Instead, I placed a bucket as flush to the wall as I could to catch the water, while the rest soaked into the wall and carpet.

and then went upstairs to call the gutter man and pray for the rain to stop but apparently both God and the gutter man were out of the office this morning.

The power didn't come back on until 9:30am and there was no way I was going to work with wet hair. I rolled in about noon today.

I don't even think anyone noticed.