I hope everyone had a great Christmas Season. Ours was mostly good. We got to go to Colorado and spend time with my family, which was awesome. We had a great time and are forever thankful to everyone there that put up with us for that week.
The drove over there was a nightmare. What should have been an 8 hour drive turned into over 10 hours. There was wind and snow the whole way. The boys did great though and we took it easy and got there safe.
Here is what the roads looked like most of the way:
We did have about 15 minutes of sunshine on the trip. It was mostly spread out over 2-3 minute intervals.
One of the things we decided on doing this year was a white elephant gift exchange. Here are some pictures of that:
Dad got hair styling stuff like curlers and rollers.
It was a fun trip and we are glad we went. The drive home was great and the roads were clear and it was sunny the whole way so it was much better than the way there. We were nervous because the weather report said there was a 70% chance of snow the whole way, but it ended up being pretty clear. Of course it was still bitterly cold and windy, but at least there was not snow or ice on the road.
The worst part of the whole trip was when we got home and were unpacking the car and Koby told me there was a funny noise coming from the basement. We went to check it out and found out that the whole basement was flooding. There was water everywhere. The previous owner installed a water softener and the seal on it broke. Water was spraying all over our furnace room and soaking every thing in there. We have a drain in the room, but there was no way it could handle that much water coming into it.
I quickly found the shut off valve and got it stopped, but the damage had already been done. There was water on all our storage boxes in that room, but luckily we use rubbermaid boxes so there was not any water in most of the boxes. The only problem was one of the boxes had cracked when we moved here from Colorado and water was in the bottom of that one. It was my mission box. It had a bunch of things from my mission and it was mostly ruined. I lost a bunch of books, pictures and some binders, so I was not happy about that. Luckily my journal didn’t get wet, nor did some of the souvenirs so I was able to save those. I did have to dry out my release letter, some of my certificates and a couple pictures that I wasn’t going to throw away.
It was a real bummer, but I am glad it was the only box that got water in it.
We got to work ripping all the carpet up and using the shop vac to clean up the water. We had to take everything up to the garage and out of the basement. Then we went to work on the carpet. We took the carpet back and then got the pad out and outside. It is completely ruined and will need to be replaced. What should have been a half hour to an hour of unloading the car and getting straightened up turned into three hours of working in the basement, plus our car has to park outside and we do not have room in the basement for anything.
We think that with the amount of water all over the place that it must have been going off for at least 2 days. What a bummer! the insurance people are coming out on Wednesday to take a look at it so we know how much it will cost to fix. I hope that it can get taken care of quickly so that we can get things put back together.
I think it is very interesting to think about what makes people do what they do. I used to think that the only running I would ever do would be on a basketball court. I would often ask myself - “Why would anyone want to go out and run for running sake?”
Then one day, for reasons that I can’t quite remember, I went out for a jog and the next thing I knew I was training for the Bolder Boulder, the Freedom Run and even the Loveland half marathon. Cami would often question me as to why, and it was just one of those things that I enjoyed at that point in my life.
I think we all have certain tendencies and certainly desires to do things in our lives that others would question. This is fine as it is what makes us unique and interesting. There are many things that I would love to do that other people would just shake their heads at. I would love to go on an extended, open ended world tour. It’s not happening anytime soon (if at all). I have a little notebook that I carry that has a list of lifetime goals I want to achieve all written down and when I get an idea of something else I want to do (like hit a hole in one), I jot it down.
But where do we draw the line. Or maybe a more appropriate question is, do we draw the line. I think for some (myself included) there is a definite line that needs to be drawn.
There was an article written in the September 1996 issue of Outside Magazine that was called “Into Thin Air“. It talks about one man’s personal account of his summit of Mount Everest and what happened in the weeks leading up to it and the tragedy that followed. Even without the imminent risk of losing your life or limbs, I am not sure what people are thinking when they decide to attempt the summit of Mount Everest.
Anyways, the author talks about how he was given 4-5 times as much space to write the article then is typically given in a magazine, but he still did not feel like it did justice to the events. He wrote a book by the same name that I got for my birthday last week that goes into a lot more detail about the whole experience. If you are looking for an interesting book, this is one I would highly recommend.
So, this begs the question and I want to hear your responses. What is one thing that you want to do that others would think “What are you thinking?”
For me, I would sail around the world.
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