4:00 A.M.

Went a little something like this. Gwen came into my room and whispered, "mommy, mommy?" I half opened one eye and said,"What Gwen?" "The toilet is dripping onto the floor." Still mostly asleep, I said, "Thank You Gwen, wash your hands in my bathroom and go to sleep." She did. I forced myself to wake-up, got out of bed, walked toward the bathroom, took 3 steps into the kids, long bathroom, and found myself still 4 feet away from the toilet and standing in an inch deep of water. The back of the toilet was running continuously while the water gushed over the edges. Just then, Brad, who had fallen asleep on the lovesac downstairs, now ran up the stairs, and poked his head in the door with a bit of panic on his face. I thought he had heard Gwen, until he said, "Why is there water dripping down from the light fixture in the kitchen??" I realized it was the dripping that had woken him up. We spent the next hour using every towel in our house to mop up the mess, both upstairs and downstairs, trying to figure out how to drain the water from the ceiling as quickly as possible, and trying to figure out what was wrong with the toilet. In the end, we decided we've got to replace the toilet. On a number of occasions, Brad and I have said, "We love, love, love everything about this house, but the toilets are horrible!" They could practically get clogged on two pieces of toilet paper. We spent the next bit of the early morning trying to go back to sleep. We have the following damage: .5 inch water ring on the ceiling around the light fixture, a 2 inch wide x 3 foot long wet spot in the ceiling about 4 feet way along the drywall seam, and a house full of dirty, wet towels. These are my thoughts.

• It really stinks (not literally) that our new house now has some damage... grr.
• In the last year, Gwen has never woken me up in the middle of the night
• Brad sleeps downstairs maybe 4 times a year.
• If either of these things hadn't happened, I can only imagine the increase of damage we would have had this morning. At the rate the water was gushing out, it would have been at least 5 more gallons of water damage in the ceiling, not to mention the 1 inch x 5 ft x 3 ft of water that I sopped up off of the floor in the bathroom, and whatever of all the water that would have continued to fall all over and sit on our hardwood floors all night.
• You could say Brad sleeping downstairs and Gwen waking up were a coincidence, but I'm sure the weren't. God was giving us a little warning, and preparing the situation to keep us out of more problems.
• God blesses us every day. Even though he didn't keep us from the situation all together, he warned us about the problem early enough to keep us from having major damage from it. As I was going to sleep, all I could think is that I am so grateful to God for that early warning. It is a good reminder, that if I listen, he will always warn me of any danger before it is too late.
• I'm confident we'll be able to fix any damage we have.
• I forgot to mention, that when the water dripped through the light, it dripped right onto the pile of Library books we had just picked up (about 10). Lovely.

Happy Sunday!

-Betsy