Flood of July 2010

It seems that when it rains it pours which is kind of an ironic quote because our basement flooded this weekend. All in all we got about 3 ½ feet of water in the basement. The rain started Friday night (6/23) and ended sometime in the early hours of the morning on Saturday (6/24). Daryl and my father were at a gig Friday night and Daryl ended up spending the night as they had another gig the next day out of town in Minnesota. However due to the water in the basement my father decided he wouldn’t be joining Liz and Daryl. I woke up early Saturday morning to hear that our basement had flooded out. My father asked me to take our elderly neighbor who lives across the street to a doctor’s appointment as her families were all dealing with the flood. So Maria and I went to the ophthalmologist for her follow up on her cataract surgery. We stopped at the grocery store on the way back and got some tomato sauce and puree as I assume she was making her infamous spaghetti sauce that night. After I took her home I was back out in search of razors for my father’s box cutters. The trip proved to be a success so I headed back to the house to do damage control. We had just enough water in the basement to mess everything up. The things damaged included old family photos, mementos, news paper clippings, wooden furniture, a couch that belonged to my Nani, and a bunch of other odds and ends. Dad ended up asking me to take Daryl to meet Liz at the Des Plaines Oasis on I90. That trip in normal conditions would take maybe 15 minutes at the most but ended up taking almost 2 hours just to get there. Every way we tried to go ended up being flooded out. Thankfully Grand Ave. was a clear shot although it was the only route for about a billion people trying to get to where they had to go as well. I got sick from all the stop-go action. The trip back from the Oasis ended up being a lot faster and I got home within 30 minutes. By that time my sister had returned home from work and was working on carpet and furniture removal. We finished clearing everything out around dinner time (6:30pm) and decided that was about as much as we had the energy to do. Dad, Cat and I went to dinner at Kappy’s and tried to maintain any kind of humor we could latch on to. Throughout the day I was in contact with friends and family who were also affected by the flooding. My friends Mike and Brandon who live in Bellwood got about 6 ft of water in his basement along with the additional flooding of their streets. My friend Emmanuel who stays in Berkeley also got hit in his basement although I’m not sure of the exact amount. Our neighbors (the Serio’s) were such a blessing as they kept checking to make sure we were okay and to see if we needed anything. Sunday I was able to sleep in as I didn’t fall asleep till the early morning hours because of my energy drink consumption. I ended up running to Menard’s shortly after I woke up in search of mops. I wish I had thought of that the day before as a lot of the stock for the stores was out seeing as so many people were affected by the flooding. I finally came across some decent mops at Home Depot and headed to Jewel for some bread and lunch meat for the family. When I got home I started helping with the basement some more and remembered I hadn’t ate anything since the night before. I made myself a sandwich and then started cleaning the upstairs. My father and I ended up getting into an argument and my temper got the best of me. I stormed up stairs like a child stomping around and crying. Like an idiot I kicked a hole in my wall not realizing my strength. Needless to say that didn’t go over so well with my father so I went out for a cup of coffee with my friend Brad and managed to calm down enough to come home and apologize to my father for blowing up. I should have kept my cool as I’ve known since I was a child that my father can get worked up in situations such as these. I managed to rearrange my room though and clean up which made me feel better. It’s just amazing at how bad the flooding really was. The Eisenhower express way was closed half of Saturday as the viaducts were flooded that water was higher than half the cars that were going through there. It was just absolutely treacherous this weekend. I’ll be uploading pictures to my facebook today or tomorrow which should go nicely with my Tornado pictures from June. One disaster a month it seems! God Bless everyone affected from the storm.

~*Peace, Love, & Prosperity*~

July 18th, 2010

I’m starting a new phase of my life. This phase will ensure that I am taking better care of myself both mentally, physically and emotionally. I must focus not on what others bring to the table but more so on what I have to offer. It’s a painful transition I must withstand but in the end it will have been done for the better. I’ve grown so comfortable to the lifestyle I currently exhibit and complacency can do nothing more but stunt your growth. It’s time for a better me, with a more promising tomorrow. It’s time that I start respecting myself because what I’ve over come and not beating myself up for the mistakes I’ve made. This thing called life is very precious and the time we have on this earth is limited with every breath we take. Give praise for your blessings big and small, and hold onto your faith.

Quotes for Life

July 8th 2010

For some odd reason I have this lingering feeling that I’m missing something very important. As I pray for guidance I continue to try to keep my mind clear of negativity the best I can. For the most part I feel like when I’m on my own things are care free and peaceful. I feel like when I start to incorporate friends into my life I often take on their stresses although I don’t mean to. I guess it’s just my nature. It drives me insane to see my friends being used, hurt, or not living up to their full potential. The question I have to keep asking myself is, “How much can I truly worry about everyone else, when I in fact am too distracted taking care of everyone else’s problems to acknowledge my own?” So badly do I want to maintain a love life and a social life but lately it seems as if I’m too easily distracted to juggle those things all together. Don’t get me wrong it’s not like I’m messing my life up completely, but I find myself sacrificing my wants and desires so I can get my friends and family on the same page. I suppose it could be my fear of being alone that drives me to do the things that I do. Honestly I don’t know what to do. There are so many things that I have to work on within at this point. I guess it’s really just where I am at with my life that I’m frustrated with. I feel that I’m not living to my full potential. I’m still not sure how to fix that. I suppose I need to start implementing more of my ideas and start doing more things for myself as opposed to trying to do things for others all the time. It’s just hard because my heart tends to drown out anything my conscious has to say at times. My heart can drown out even the loudest of voices such as my Father. Things are getting better though don’t get me wrong. I’m not nearly depressed as I sometimes may seem it’s just that sometimes when I’m overcome with all these different feelings and I don’t know how to sort through them, I get overwhelmed and frustrated and usually appear to be having a breakdown. I suppose it’s my dysfunctional way of coping with things although currently I’m re-evaluating those coping mechanisms so as to not go crazy. I think I just have way too much time on my hands that I’m not using to do things for myself. This needs to change immediately!

This Is My Symphony