His and Hers

A month and a half ago both of our cars drowned in the Great Flood of 2013...not to be confused with the great flood of '09 or '11.

We never lost our cars before. Water was at least a foot higher this time. We found out the hard way that only my car (damn cute little Audi A4 Convertable- RIP) had rental car coverage.

Whatever...we played pioneer once again and shared 1 car. I drove Tim to the Metra in the am and picked him up from the choo choo after work.

About 10 days after State Farm towed my car away, they declared it totaled and gave me a quote . You then get 7 days more on the rental car once you are quoted..thats bullshit!

We kept the rental and Tim started to work his magic

My Tim has an incredible gift when it comes to fixing and knowing how things work...this also applies to the auto industry.

Tim found our recently deceased cars online. He knows every cars worth. He spends 1-3 months searching everywhere for an old car that looks and runs like new for rediculously low prices. That allows us to have great cars wothout payments

He could not find my same Audi, but did find me a  beautiful BMW 330 CI Convertible for less than what SF gave me for my Audi. Holy smokes my car is fast! Not that I need that in a car, but I spend most of my week driving on the highway. With the convertible I don't feel like I live in traffic...Pop in a CD, but down the top and soak up the sun.

Tim wanted the same car that he had, now he got that for a steal so we knew we'd have to pay up. Insurance gave him $1900 more than what he paid for his other car.

After a solid month of searching day in and day out he found the beauty above in Milwaukee...it came from Texas, so no snow or salt.

He took the Amtrak from downtown to WI and drove her home.

We both have new BMW's...a fine automobile and we again have ZERO payments!

We did have to go check out some cars and didn't get them for whatever reason...My worst nightmare I might add. Tim can look and test drive a car and know whats wrong....people can be shady.

It helps that Tim can do the majority of maintenance on the cars himself...saves us a ton of money
Both our new cars are 2001's

We are recovering from the flood. The lower level is cleaned. We are leaving the laundry room gutted, may slap paneling up, but no insulation or drywal/cemant board. The bottom 4 feet of the family room is gutted, Tim will slap up paneling (bottom have of room only)...cheep and easy to pull off and toss next time we flood.  The air, hot water heater, and washer came back on. We bought a new dryer and are dragging our heals on having someone come out to quote the furnace (I think just the computer panel needs to be replaced)

This time we didn't lose as many personal items, because we brought a lot of stuff up prior to the rain

Not a bad way to earn your driving hours (I just hopped out to take picture) TJ will get his licence in November

baby steps

This week brought us nicer weather so we could start the clean up process. I have posted the before and after shots. I called the village and they came out and power washer my walkway and lawn...a regular hose wasn't powerful enough. 

Flood 2013

This picture says it all

For a third time in the almost 8 years we have lived in Lombard Mother Nature clobbered us.

We were able to take some measures the night before the storm hit. Tim and Callahan brought the majority of the important lower level things up. Tim shut off power to the lower level so we would have power in the rest of the house.

I woke up at 1am and the basement was dry. At 4am it was full. This is the deepest the water has ever been.

If you look behind the shed you can see balls barely staying in our yard un agaisnt the submerged chain link fence

Our lower level.
Tim and Cal brought in saw horses and put the futon on them and our couch on top of the futom We believe the couch is okay...can't see aroud corner. You can see Karrick's computer desk floating...computer was brought up. 

our cars were parked on the high part of driveway, it then slopes down to garage,. The miata is completly under water in garage. The water level covered the wheels on both cars. Most likely cars are totaled as computers probably got wet. Miata is pre-computers

I couldn't get any of the boys to school without a motor boat. Tim and I caouldn't get to work

The water when I woke up was down 6-8 inches.

It is cold today, we have no heat or hot water. The house is cool, not awful. We have TV, satelite and internet thanks to Tims handy work ( he was able to reroute the internet cables from laundry room up through Callahan's bedroom window)

So many people have offered help and really made this experience less awful. It is what it is and when the water receeds we will once again clean it up and rebuild.....it is just stuff and time and another story to add to our book of life

TJ's Quest and a flood update

An update on TJ's quest

 TJ has another movie audition.... Hollywood is really taking an interest in him, our problem is he is the opposite of what a 14 year old actor is...TALL and mature looking. TJ looks 16, but can't really book the 16 year old jobs due to his age, a 14 yo is still a kid and usually small young adults play pre-teen and teen roles. I think he is too big for todays role, but experience will be gained and I have been told by casting directors how talented he is, not to mention his star quality looks. Even if he is too big and mature looking for today's role...you just don't know, at worst he will leave a good impression in the casting directors head. Plus this movie is under wraps...no info is given ie: title, synopsis, character breakdown, director, leading stars....usually we get all that info...we only got "boy 2" for TJ's audition info and a 2 paragraph monologue for TJ to memorize

 We are missing a HS ball game, but  freshman ball is not going to pay for college or keep his agent happy. TJ was called last week for a Adam Sandler movie audition, but Karrick just had had tonsils out and Tim was in NY...there was no way in Hell I was dragging that kid downtown, so I passed. They called back and said the casting director really wants TJ and will work around his schedule...with baseball games Mon, Tue and Wed I said during the day would work (miss an hour and a half of school) and everyone's happy....not so much.

Stike one against the McGinty's

So the next day when this audition came about, I couldn't tell the agent no and keep getting future calls. So, my starting A baseball player had to tell his coach he wasn't going to make todays game...luke warm response Coach E in his mobster voice

 "but yer playin!"

TJ quick on his feet "yeah, but my mom didn't know and confirmed me..."

After thinking on it for 24 hrs  Coach E. came up to him and said 

"So, Mcginty gonna be in movies?" "I can see it, you do have those movie star looks" 'what's dis world comin to, when mcginty's gonna be a movie star"

 Love Coach E, possibly the funniest guy out there...says it like it is and always has the boys in stitches and all the boys share Coaches words with their parents...freakin hilarious

I have no idea where all this is going to go...at some point someone is going to get mad. All I can do is take it one day at a time

Thank God TJ wants to be a doctor and has something to fall back on...can the kid really have 3 harder dreams to achieve?

Well I was wrong, just received a call that Cal and TJ are auditioning for the Adam Sandler movie tomorrow at 3pm. And yes, I am going to shoot downtown, hope all goes quickly and I can get TJ back in time for his home ballgame...Crap, I dread the phone to the coach...there are 12 kids on the team...maybe they can 'bench" TJ for the 1st inning? Oh, did I mention it's tax week at work? Since karrick can't go back to school yet, I will go to the office 2 hrs early..

Notice to Universe: I am really doing the best I can and am not trying to take advantage of anyone...just let me make it through this week with my job intact, TJ still on the baseball team...is A team pushing it and my children still in good graces with their Agents

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THE ENDLESS FLOOD SAGA

This was the scene at the end of last summer, after the second flood in 2 years to wipe out our entire lower level. 3-4 feet of raw neighborhood sewage filled our basement. It happened the 1st time 2 years ago and we thought it was a fluke and used that gutting as an opportunity to redo the lower level to our liking.

It wasn't a fluke and it felt like a kick to the gut. We gutted again...family room went out the front window and hauled right away. Laundry room went out the back deck window and sat for 9 months. I mentally couldn't deal with it, it was late July, hot-hot and we were finishing up travel baseball season and the back was infested...AGAIN with hornets. I would stick a needle in my eye before taking those suckers on again, so our warped smelly, moldy, shit covered basement cabinets sat on the deck until this weekend.

Mother Nature gave us weary Chicagoans a weekend gift of 80 degree weather.  Tim was in NY for a week, so I slapped on my bathing suit, some oil, and some rubber gloves and got to work. Whoa, one would think the smell would be gone, but I was blasted back in time to 9 months ago by that smell.

I filled 12 large construction bags and filled many bins of moldy smelly wood and personal items. Hauled them to the curb. I need to buy many many sheets of garbage stickers and hope our garbage mans hauls it away.

When did garbage men become so uppity? What in the Hell did they think they were gonna do when they became a member of the Waste Management family? You are going to pick up people's garbage. Garbage being, the nasty crap that people no longer want or need. Some of it so nasty, smelly and disgusting that an animal won't go near it.

Seriously "GET THE FUCK OVER YOUR SELF"

I do have one guy that always takes everything w/wo stickers with a smile and I have tried to give him money during the year, but will only take it around the holidays. Then there is "the other guy" that gives me shit about taking extra stuff...God help me if each and every item is not plastered with a visible purple Lombard waste sticker. I have literally gone outside while "the other guy" was tossing stuff in the truck, mumbling under his breath about stickers and tossed in the non-stickered items myself. I'm sure there is some union rules about that and my patience has worn thin on the damn garbage situation.

Seen this sight before...once or twice I mean

It's a start, the deck needs a good power wash and a good sealant, not to mention some color.

No, not Callahan's Science experiment, just a close-up of what was once a laundry room cabinet.

The lower level is clean and has new walls and furniture ... again (paneling and a futon, no more top of the line stuff) the laundry room is frozen in a gutted state. We just can't get excited or attached to a new beautiful lower level...how many times can your heart be ripped out? Sure, we were insured  and FEMA came through financially again, but the emotional damage stays with you. 

The Guest That Wouldn't Leave

A month later we are still feeling the effects of Mother Natures wrath. The basement is coming along. We now have walls and a lot of dust. We were able to dry out most of the pre-digital pictures. All right we may have taken an a few pictures of TJ as a baby

there were pictures covering a large portion of our deck. Our deck being 600 sq feet !

A new built in closet to house all electronics above sea level