It’s really nice to have a house with no neighbors on the other side of the walls. It also means that when something happens, guess who takes care of it. Monday night we had had dinner and Eddie went down to have his shower. All was well when he came back upstairs. Later he went down to brush his teeth and there was a leak right by the stairs – except there are no pipes there. He quickly got a bucket, then took the flashlight to see if he could see anything – nothing but a slanted piece of wood. It was doing drip drip drip drip drip. He felt around with his finger and suddenly it was drip drip drip drip dripdripdripdripdrip. Then a second drip started right beside it, so another something to catch the water. It seemed to be coming from upstairs but there are no pipes in the corner where the bookshelves are – what was going on? He kept going to check it and it was down to one drip – then later before we went to bed the drip stopped. We could not figure out what it was. We thought maybe it was because of the rain – it wasn’t raining. Eddie thought it was a leak in the roof – then why didn’t it drip when we had all the rain, some really hard rain? It was a puzzle for both of us. We went to bed but neither of us slept that well – some was being uncomfortable and another part was wondering and concern about the leak.
I know Eddie was worried but I chose not to – two worrying wouldn’t make any difference (ask me how I know) and I have spent too many nights worrying. I decided to bring my golden bubble of love all around me so I didn’t absorb his negative energy. I put it in God’s hands and ask for help with the situation, then let it go because I knew the solution was already created. My trouble sleeping was more physical discomfort – must be that housework I overdid on Sunday.
The last two days it hasn’t dripped and yesterday when I talked to Brad, I asked if he had time to check out this mysterious leak for us. I explained what had happened and he had never heard of anything like, so he had no idea what the cause was. It has not leaked since, yet we wondered if it would suddenly start again. He came this afternoon and Eddie showed him exactly where it was leaking and what had happened. So he and Eddie looked all around the basement and then came upstairs to see if something from the upstairs bathroom was leaking – if so, it should leak every time I have a shower or use the john or faucets. But it hasn’t.
The next thing I know, they are looking in the hall closet – they found the floor had been wet. I wondered if was from when we came to live here and the roof needed replacing – I could see daylight when I looked up towards the crawl space. But no, that wasn’t it. Finally the mystery was solved! My mother always liked to be prepared in case the power went out or any kind of difficulty – she had put away an unopened gallon jug of water in the hall closet in case of earthquake or no electricity. The jug sprung a leak and that was what dripped down by the basement stairs. No more mystery, no more leak.
This squirreling of things has been going on as long as I can remember. My Mom liked to be prepared in case of any emergency, so she had extra food downstairs in the big cupboard, a Sterno stove that we have used for hot water or soup when the electricity was out, lots of candles, flashlights and jugs of water in different places. I realized I am not really prepared if there is an emergency, even when it is having no electricity or we are snowed in. As we clean out the house, it is amazing what we have come across – both my Mom and Dad were packrats and I definitely come by my tendencies honestly. No doubt since both of them went through the Depression, there is a lot of stored memories deep inside them. Plus they didn’t have a whole lot of money when they were first married. Dad always told the story about Mom making out the shopping list with the most important things at the top. Then Dad would go shopping – Mom was home with one or two of us – and when the money ran out, he came home. My Mother was good at making things stretch and made a lot of our clothes as we were growing up. She canned fruit and vegetables for winter and froze things in the freezer.
It will be interesting to see what else turns up as we slowly clean out and throw away or give away things – there is no telling what we will find.
Gift of RA 