Close Encounters of the Mold Kind

Four weeks ago tomorrow I found some water on the floor between my bathroom and laundry closet. I called Dave and Stacy down to look at it and they discovered the wall and ceiling were wet as well. Several days later we learned that it was from a leak coming from their house and so began the process to fix my house. I didn't take a picture of the first hole--the one that freaked Zacky out and made him say "skawy" over and over and over and eventually had to leave my house because he couldn't calm down. However that hole was tiny compared to the picture below.



This picture is from inside my laundry closet. The tape and plastic are "protecting" me from the mold. Apparently it was safe for me to live here but not for the fix it guys to be here for more than a few minutes...Go figure.

Then Wednesday night while working late I got a phone call from Stacy telling me that I had to be out of the apartment the next morning at 9 o'clock and would have to be gone from 5-13 days while they repaired all the damage. To say the least I lost it. It had been an incredibly difficult couple of weeks and that was the last straw. I knew immediately that I didn't really have anywhere to go for a night much less 5-13 days so I quickly finished what I was working on and went home to come up with some kind of a plan. On the way home I used A LOT of pride and called my sister to see if I could stay there for a couple of nights while I figured something else out. She agreed immediately because she's perfect and wonderful but I knew it was horrible timing because she's minutes from having a baby and has enough on her plate. Later that night Becky called with "The Plan": they would move Zack to the crib, put the baby in their room, put Paul's parents in the guest room and me in Zack's bed. As grateful as I was and believe me I was it was just too much so I told her I had somewhere else to stay and went back to the drawing board. Wednesday night I used up the rest of my pride and E-mailed JuJu to see if I could sleep on the floor in her downstairs apartment--a good opportunity to see if I really wanted to live there and to see if it would work out. Thursday was another incredibly long day at work and at 7 p.m. when I left work I still didn't know where I'd be staying that night. I had all my shiz in my car but no where to go. I had received some offers from my work friends but I knew none of those were real options especially given my inability to ask for and/or accept help. On the way home I called the Princess to see if she'd had the baby yet and/or if the in laws were in town yet and she told me that they really would love to have me stay with them. The picture below is what I discovered Thursday night when I went home to get my pillow. Holy Freaking Cow it looks like ET's house after it gets taken over. The green thing in the middle is a machine that made the most obnoxiously high pitched sound--even if I'd had access to the bathroom and could have stayed at my house I would never have been able to stand the sound of it.

Saturday afternoon after spending the entire day away running around trying to keep myself busy and not bugging Becky and family I stopped by my house to get more clothes and Dave told me that the guys had finished the mold work and that "ET went home". Yay! I drove to Springville, packed up my stuff and came home for a much needed 10 minute nap before getting ready for my jam packed Saturday night. The picture below is what it looks like now. The re-construction begins tomorrow--fix the wall, re-paint and re-do the floors. I can't wait until I can put my stuff away and get back to some semblance of normal. I miss normal or as much normal as I'm used to.