Murphy is Lurking

We will heed the warning and stop him!  

Clocked wind gusts of 70 miles per hour, pelting rain and dime-sized hail, no electricity for 10 hours, no internet for 16 hours, no heating pad for 10 hours, no running sump pump for 10 hours and worst of all, water in the basement!  Murphy  Mother Nature, we will heed your warning!

Yes, that is exactly what I dealt with in the wee hours of Monday morning and throughout the day.  When this kind of stuff happens, inevitably it is always when my hubby is away.  Yep, Every. Single. Time.  I know my hubby genuinely feels bad that I have to deal with these kinds of things on my own, and then I feel bad that he feels bad.  Ugh, it is a vicious cycle of who feels worse!  But things must be taken care of and with me being the one at home, I know it is up to me to get it done.

I had been relying on using a heating pad for my aching back a few hours each day ever since returning from seeing my dad.  The pullout couch with the bar really did a number a number on my back.  It is not the first time my back has gone out.  Usually, with the help of a heating pad and over-the-counter pain pills, it is (pardon the pun) back to normal within a week or two.  With no electricity for the heating pad, my back and BENGAY became very good friends during the outage.

The worst part of the storm was having an inoperable sump pump.  Just 2 hours into the storm, I heard the alarm going off indicating rising water levels.  We did end up having some water in the basement, but it could have been far worse than it ended up being.  Other than two area rugs, our basement is mostly tile in the finished area and cement in the storage/unfinished area.  Since downsizing from our previous home, we also do not keep much in the basement and what we do have is mostly kept in plastic storage bins.  It could have been far worse.  During the power outage, I got a lot of use out of our mop and bucket.

While not what some would consider a dire emergency, we are going to heed the warning of Mother Nature and hubby will be installing a battery operated backup sump pump the next time he is home.  We tend to lose power a lot where we live but this is the first time it has triggered the alarm for our pump.  I’m just glad I was home to take care of it.  There are times that taking a little prevention can save you from a dealing with a much worse (and costly!) expense later.  I’m not yet entirely sure where the money will be pulled from, but more than likely our snowball will be taking the hit.  We like to keep our emergency fund at the level it is, so something has to give.  My seasonal job will be starting next week and we also have an election next month so there should be more money coming in.  I also work as an election inspector a few times during the year which makes for nice snowflakes providing something (like a sump pump) doesn’t come in the way.

Has Murphy paid you any visits while on the journey to get debt free?  If so, how did you handle it?  I will say that even with the extra expense, it is peace of mind no longer needing to reach for the credit card.