If you don’t know…our house was built in 1945 and we’re in a historic section of North Knoxville (not THE historic section, but close).  The Jim and I are the first people to tell you and anyone else for that matter that we LOVE OUR HOME.  We do!  We honestly do!  Even with the tacky wall-papered mural of a pastoral scene in the dining room.  Even with the plaster walls that take more effort to fix or require planning to hang a picture (any picture).  Even with the scary “panic room” space under the house that for goodness sake, I would seriously have to be facing nuclear annihilation to actually go into (it’s scary folks).  However, we are now coming to a “matter of deduction” one one of our regular stressors. 

Downstairs, we have a finished basement (see flood post from while back).  A few times each year, the carpet by the back door gets saturated.  We first thought it was rain coming through the door.  No.  We then thought it might be the pipe that connects to the outdoor hose.  No.  I think we’ve figured it out.  We have a sump-pump by the back door that decided that it was just done working.  So it fills up with water and apparently seeps into our lives filling the air with that dank, musty, oh-so-not-filtered water smell and a soaking wet carpet (which, as most of you know, if you don’t rectify turns into dank-musty-moldy-nightmares).  So, we bought a new sump-pump yesterday (and those suckers ain’t cheap – try almost $100.00), and the Jim went about the business of installing it.  In an older home, and anyone who shares this joy of homeownership knows…it takes more effort to fix anything, and often the process is rarely simple.  Of course, it’s scheduled to rain big this weekend.   Unfortunately, he needs to go to Lowes today to buy a new pipe too, so he really didn’t install it last night. Which means, water table rose during the night, carpet got wetter, smell got worse and Anna got more frustrated.  Blessings exist these days in things like wet/dry shop vacs and Yankee candle tart burners.  Hopefully today, we’ll get the problem rectified and the new sump-pump installed and working.  All this and my father is scheduled to get here in a week and a half.  Ah well…not much more do at this point other than hope that the Jim does a good job with his stint as home handyman.