Today started out innocently enough with, you guessed it, a big pile of laundry. Brett was super busy preparing to open registration this evening for his online program for young writers. In the late morning he went into town to record an introductory video for the new students. We don’t really have a good shaded place to record videos here.
I stayed behind so I could keep breathing the good air. I got more laundry done, got myself some lunch and sat down to rest. Through a series of unfortunate events, l ended up contaminated from having to pick Ramona up.
She got really excited about some people she saw and started whining and barking like crazy. I felt so embarrassed and couldn’t think of what else to do to get her to calm down besides picking her up.
So I did, and only afterward realized it meant Brett would have to come back. I didn’t have anywhere to decontaminate and change in privacy. The van is our only shelter.
Poor Brett was super stressed trying to get everything ready to open registration at 5pm. It was 4pm, the worst possible time to interrupt him! I felt so horrible about it that I wanted to cry! But I knew that if I failed to deal with cross-contamination from Ramona I would probably have to deal with increased symptoms and sickness. That would be bad for Brett too, not just me.
So, Brett started on his way immediately when he got my text forgetting that he had temporarily stacked our coolers one on top of the other to create a platform for his computer. As soon as he pulled out onto the road the cooler on top fell over and burst open! It sent a rushing river of ice water right under the rubber flooring in the front of our van!
He was noticeably upset when he arrived and I was mortified when he told me why. What are we going to do?! Our van could be ruined if mold grows under the floor! How are we going to dry this?! It only takes 24 hours for mold to grow! This is horrible! Are we going to need to tear up the floor? Why did this have to happen now?!
We were pretty sure we’d need to pull up the floor but Brett suggested I email Sara Mattson to ask what she would do while he finished opening registration. She confirmed our suspicions… This was serious and we needed to make sure it dried completely.
I texted my family to ask them to pray and they called me with an idea. They suggested using a utility knife to cut through the floor and pull it up that way.
So this evening we went to Walmart and bought a utility knife. It was already dark out so we stayed in the lighted parking lot to do the job. Brett did almost all of the work as I watched helplessly, handing him paper towels to mop up the water.
He cut around the seats so that we could lift the floor and let it dry underneath. It seemed to take forever because Brett was having to offer customer service to potential students at the same time. When we were finally finished we drove back to the ranch and heated our shower water as quietly as mice. It was past 2am and we just couldn’t wait for the awful day to be over.
By the way, Brett and I made a beautiful PDF of my favorite resources for suffering souls. I created the content and he made it look fancy with his superduper graphic design skills. It’s available for free to my email subscribers. Click here to sign up and receive 5 Resources for the Suffering Soul.
