Amazing how time flies when one's having fun...

Okay, it's only day two of early wake-up calls and let me tell ya, I was not ready to roll out of bed at my 5:30 or my 5:35 alarm.

However, due to my determination, I did manage to roll out of bed and get going. Overall, the whole bottom floor has now been scrapped and is ready for a fresh coat of paint in the AM. After an afternoon run to Hutch for painting supplies, the morning's plan was to start painting this evening. However, our wonderful neighbors rented a carpet cleaner for their carpets and since it didn't need to be back until tomorrow morning, she surprised me with the offer to use it on our carpets, which really needed it. It worked well since the plan was to rent a carpet cleaner eventually, so the evening was spent cleaning carpets, half the staircase, the furniture, in addition to mowing some of the weeds in the backyard.

Good news from last night - I have a water heater back!!! After making some makeshift sandbags out of dirt and Walmart plastic bags, I hoped I could keep the incoming water from rising too high and knocking out the pilot light (which did happen). Fortunately, the water table seems to be going down a bit - the sump pump hasn't been kicking on constantly - so I was able to get the heater lit again and I gotta say, the hot shower this morning was wonderful! I did go ahead and get some sandbags at Home Depot today; however they don't seem to keep the water out any better than my makeshift sandbags did.