Empty Basement

I had to go to Lincoln this past weekend for the Nebraska Chiropractic Physician's Association state convention. I left on Thursday after Hapkido to stay with my fabulous in-laws so I had no idea what the basement would look like when I returned. I had received a call from the Serve Pro crew who was taking care of everything that they were done on Friday and had taken all of their equipment out and we are ready for the construction crew to come in to get to work. I talked to Thomas in the evenings and he let me know that everything was out, even much of the drywall. Well, hearing it and seeing it are two entirely different things.

Here's what the basement currently looks like. On Wednesday, the construction crew, the plumber, and the carpet people are all coming out to get started putting things back together again.



View looking down the previously carpeted stairs into the basement.


View into the main room from the bottom of the stairs.


View of the inside of the closet that sits at the bottom of the stairs. It USED to be cedar lined.


Looking back at the stairs from the far wall.


Thomas' downstairs bathroom.


Looking into Thomas' office and closet from the bathroom doorway.

As you can see, the place is gutted. Hopefully SOON we'll have pictures showing the repair progressm

Even the sink...

The vanity in Thomas' bathroom has to be replaced, so the guys doing the clean up removed the sink and put it in the back yard. The stool is in the armory -- it looks hilarious sitting there. The photo I took was fuzzy, but I'll try to get another one. Here's the sink. I kinda feel like we live in Arkansas with a sink in the yard! :) :)

Flood -- part 2.

So, remember that little flooding problem we had a couple of weeks back. Well, we got home last evening from Hapkido, Thomas went downstairs, and ..... yep, the basement was flooded...again! Water actively coming in this time, standing water on the carpet, and the septic cover is floating in the hole in the back yard! Thomas did a great job of explaining everything over in his blog, so check out his post here.

Here are some pictures of what we walked into last evening. I called our insurance and luckily the damage is all covered (after deductible, of course!). Today, a crew came out & started ripping up carpet, marking drywall to be removed, etc. I'll take pictures as things progress, but here are a few to get started.


The armory - it was full of standing water. Luckily, all of the guns are on shelves and not on the floor!


See the squishy footprints?? Carpet -- SOAKED!


Oh, did I mention that Thomas spend Sunday putting his office back together & hooking up his computers & such again?!?! See the squishy footprints??


This is the closet under the stairs. Notice how the drywall wicks the the moisture right up. Yep, about 2 feet of the bottom of all the drywall gets to get replaced!


Here's the closet with the water softener. Standing water in there. See where the hoses go into the pipe? Water was oozing out of there when we got home.


This time, even the middle of the basement got flooded. This wet spot is the floor drain - yep, water was coming UP there, too!


Cedar lined closet -- cedar ruined!


Cedar lined closet today - carpet out. The cedar is also out now as well.


This is the area in Thomas' office that is in front of the closet with the water softener, etc.


Carpet removed - cedar now removed as well.



This is looking along the far wall where are books are. Luckily, they are safe!



The compromise of the guys that had to get the carpet out before unloading all of our stuff into the big mobile storage unit that is now in our backyard. They cut the carpet out around the bookshelves! :)


Big ole' pile of carpet on our back patio. Luckily, a big dumpster got delivered this afternoon, so the clean up will not be so difficult. I highly doubt our regular garbage guys would take this on Monday!

New Door & Window Casings!

The construction continues, slowly. The crew is trying to work at the office between other jobs & such, so the progress is slow. However, I now have a door that closes and casing around the windows! No more cold air coming in! Once the trim gets stained, I'll have the blinds put back up & the front will look so much better! I'm so glad that this is all getting done!

The new door & threshold. The guys are also replacing the trim around the door & windows so for now the new trim doesn't match the painted trim.

Concealed Carry Class

Today, Thomas and I took Chris Zeeb's class for the Nebraska Concealed Handgun Permit. It was a great class. Chris and Roger did a great job teaching the "boring" parts of statutes, laws, etc. They team teach and tell fun stories while getting the information to the students. If you are looking for a class to take and haven't yet, check out theirs. Their information is here.

There is a written qualification and a shooting qualification before you get a certificate stating that you have passed the firearms training. Both Thomas and I received a 100% on the written part, and a 100% on the shooting. He, of course, shot much better than I did, but I did well enough and had a great time!

Here are the targets that we shot today! Can you guess which was which!?!?!?





Yep, Thomas' is the bottom one. I was a tad nervous, and had the one "flier" but it was still on the white, so it counted! I will be putting in my application to the NSP as soon as I get all of the necessary paperwork in order!

Unexpected day off ...

I do not see patients on Wednesdays. I decided this past year to close one day a week for some "downtime" and to catch up with paperwork, insurance garbage, etc. So, yesterday was my day off. I started the day with a meeting at the Masonic Home at 10am for the nursing assistant kids that I am helping with (I'm teaching clinicals for the high school). Then, I hurried to Papillion to the YMCA to get my swim training in. I swam for 30 minutes (750 yards -- I'm getting better :)). I went home, threw some laundry in, relaxed for about an hour, then threw more laundry in, turned the dishwasher on and ran out the door to Hapkido. -- some day off :)

Well, we get home about 8pm from class, Thomas goes downstairs and yells up -- WE HAVE A FLOOD DOWN HERE! I went down and yep, the basement was flooded. Apparently, the two loads of laundry & the dishwasher went into the basement and not outside! ARG!

Luckily, I have a steam cleaner, so we're sucking up the water...bucket by bucket. I called a plumber to come out this morning at 8am. Its 10:30 by the time we get enough water pulled up that we feel we can go to bed. So, I called my receptionist and had her schedule my patients to this afternoon hoping that I would be able to go in for at least 1/2 a day.

The plumber shows up at 7:50 am. GREAT! Let's get going so I can get to work! He goes downstairs and tries to snake the pipe -- except he's going back into the house and not out! I show him the washer and he goes through the outlet pipe there. 60 feet ... not much interference. Hmm... he says "I'm afraid it might be your septic, when did you have it pumped last?" "Well, we've lived here almost 3 years and WE'VE never had it done." He tells me that he has to get more equipment and he'll be back.

About an hour later, a different guy from this company comes out to look for our septic tank. I don't know where it is. I can't find the map of the property that the previous owners left us. So, hunting we go. He starts looking around where it "might" be. Meanwhile, I notice an area of ground that "mushy" and ask if that could be it...this is on the opposite side of the backyard! He goes -- well, lets check. He has a handy-dandy rod that he pokes into the ground about 18 inches and it goes: "thunk"! PAYDIRT -- we hit concrete! So we dig, and dig, and dig. We find the tank, but not the lid. Its now 10:45 and he yells "found it!" We get it cleared off and open it and it is FULL! Now he tells me that I have to call someone else to pump it...apparently, they don't do that.

(Here is the tank and lid that we had to search for. I decided NOT to post the "open" picture)

I call my receptionist again and tell her to close for the day. I'm not making it in. :( She gets that done while I call for someone to pump my septic tank. Luckily, they can come out today and get here about 1pm. The poor kid almost buried the truck in the yard, however. (It doesn't look good for the yard!)

He opens the lid and goes "yep, you're full!" Gee....really!??! He gets set up and it takes well over an hour to pump it out. I ask him about marking the area so that we don't have to hunt in the future, and he put a "riser" in so that it covers the lid and marks it for future reference. He did mention that we shouldn't need to do this again for another 5-10 years! YAY!

(Here's the "AFTER" of the cover over the lid of the septic tank so that we don't have to go through the hunting stage again!)

So, my day off was spent digging in the yard and helping pump sewage!

I did manage to go for a bike ride, however, so that day wasn't a complete waste.

I'm waiting for Thomas to come home from school so we can work more on cleaning the water in the basement! YIPPIE!

Mall Security

A couple of weeks ago Thomas and I were shopping at the new mall in Papillion. I had a chuckle out of the new "vehicle" that the mall security was using. The more I thought about it, however, the more it makes sense to use in an area such as a mall like Shadow Lake. This is a mall that has many separate buildings for the shops, its not all enclosed like Gateway mall in Lincoln. Here's the pic of the security guy and his "vehicle."


I had to snap the picture fast because that little thing could MOVE! He is also pretty darn tall on it, so I'm guessing he's got a good view of what's going on around the grounds!

Whispering Pines Bed & Breakfast

It has been a very LONG winter, and Thomas and I decided to take an evening off from the world and relax at a bed & breakfast last evening. I did some searching and found Whispering Pines in Nebraska City. We stayed in the "Victoria's Suite." It is a small room in the basement of the house with its own entrance. It is literally about 10 steps from the hot tub -- which is the main reason we chose this B&B! We got to the place about 5:30pm, went to have a nice evening meal at The Embers in NE City and then went back and soaked in the hot tub for about 2 hours! The evening was cool, clear (the stars were amazing), and the hot tub was fantastic! We both were able to relax and enjoy the evening.

I'd strongly suggest this B&B. We will most likely go back at some point in time. There are several rooms available, and even a barn for lodging. The breakfast was delicious as well! It was a great "mini vacation" for us and a taste of what we are planning for the summer! We are planning to do a "road trip" vacation and stay at different B&B's in NE, SD, MN, and IA the first part of June (after my triathlon!) I'm looking for fun things to do along the way. So far I've found some rock climbing in SD and a water park in IA.