I CAVED AND IT FLOODED; GRRRR... IT'S TIME TO SHOP

Let's start with the fact that I don't like rain. Nor do I like cold. Nor do I like shopping. When you wait until the last minute to do your Christmas shopping like we do, then you must endure the elements of a windy, cold rain (by Southern standards at least) and get that Christmas shopping done. I threw my hair in a pony tail, put on my rain jacket, put my hood up, threw my purse on my shoulder and I was off to conquer the world - well, Toys R Us and Wal-Mart at least but to me taking on those two one week before Christmas shopping for an item that's sold out everywhere IS like conquering the world. :) (Not to worry, Santa has it covered!) Toys R Us was our first stop and it just so happens it's right beside Krispy Kreme. When we rounded the corner coming up to that intersection, all I could focus my attention on was this:

I really can't believe those things are still legal. Seriously. I look over at Chris and didn't have to say a word. He knew what I was thinking. I'm serious when I tell you I cannot think of a single time when I've seen that sign and NOT stopped. It's like a force pulling me in. I am powerless against it! This is what was left of our dozen after we ate a few and shopped, ate a few and shopped:

I ought to be ashamed. But I'm not. And next time I'm in that part of town and see that beautiful, magical sign, I'll be stopping again!

NOW ON TO THE MEANING OF THE FIRST PART OF THIS POST TITLE:

The boys had been bugging me this past week to let them take a bath in my and Chris' bath tub. They tend to be a little messier in that tub because they have more room to play around. But Chris was hunting and I thought, aw, what the heck. How messy could they be? I had them all in the tub playing when I got a call from Chris asking if I would check on something for him. I only left them for a minute but when I headed back to my bathroom, I was met in the living room by my Three Stooges all in towels, ready to play with the toys they had gotten at their school Christmas parties that day. We had not even had time to bathe off yet but they were so excited to play with each other I put their pajamas on and went with it. I'm usually so good about making sure we've drained the water. It's so gross to me to have to stick my hand down in a cold tub of bath water to drain it if we forget. But I got so busy with putting pajamas on everyone then everyone was hungry, etc., etc., that I didn't give it a second thought. Boy did I regret that! Chris called to say he was in the neighborhood but was stopping by a job to check on it - said he would be home in a minute or two. Being that C and I take a bath every night, knowing he was almost home jogged my memory to go check and see if the water had been drained - it really would have made me ill had we finally gotten the boys to bed then had to wait on a whole tub of water to drain before we could even start ours. IF ONLY! I walked in my bathroom to see water cascading over the top of the tub and looked down to see I was standing in 1/2 inch to an inch of water. No exaggeration. Water was everywhere - EVERYWHERE. Not only had we not drained the tub, but the water had been left on - for about an hour. What we think happened is that when one of the boys got out, their towel got caught on the faucet turning on the hot water by mistake. The type faucet we have is very easy to turn off and on. I'll even turn it on without meaning to just wiping around it. It was one of those times where I had no idea what to do. I waded through the water pacing back and forth about to vomit. To put a towel down would have been like throwing a paper towel in a sink full of water hoping it would soak it all up. I called C and told him to get home pronto. After standing in the doorway shaking his head looking at it for what seemed like an eternity, he said a few colorful words that likely would have made a sailor blush then C, Mondo and I got down to business using every single towel we had in the house (bath, beach, hand, kitchen, all of them) and were able to get all the standing water off the floor. Only not before the water was able to completely saturate the carpet in both our closets. Mine was so bad it soaked all the way through to the hardwood floors in the hallway and inside office. It also soaked the carpet about two feet coming out of the bathroom into the bedroom all the way down the wall to the doorway leading out of our bedroom into the hallway. We ripped up the carpets and are letting them dry. In this weather who knows how long that will take! We will have to replace the pads and won't know the full extent of the damage for another day or so as far as the baseboards or quarter round goes. This is what it all looks like now:

Part of my closet:

Standing in hallway looking into bedroom:

Standing in doorway of bedroom looking toward bathroom:

Our insurance agent told us to take a picture of the wet towels. This was about half of them:

It's never boring around here, that's for sure! I think I'll go have another donut now! Because don't you know they make everything better!