The Latest at Casa Harden

If you read my everyday blog Wild, Wicked & Wacky, you know about last week's basement flood. DH and I need to sort and inventory the irretrievably damaged items for the insurance company over the upcoming Memorial Day weekend.

I'm not sure yet what this will do to the release of A Cup of Conflict.

The writing has been on a damn good roll over the month. It's Anthea, and I swear she squats on my brain until her books are delivered to you. But we're both cursing up a storm at this latest interruption because it was beyond either of our control.

(And the chief justice of Orrin really wishes she could manifest in my reality and electrocute the people who are actually responsible.)

Anyway, for those of you checking the Release Schedule and the Justice Series pages, that's why I haven't set up the preorder for Book 10 yet.

I promise to keep you updated. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed it won't be delayed. It might mean going to a hotel after we've dealt with the damn basement.

Heat, Reclamation, and Writing

This is a quick note to say I'm still alive. We finally were able to get a service in to clean out the basement and treat it on Friday. The only things left downstairs are the wood framing, the structural supports, and the stairs. The reclamation folks seemed fairly certain they could save the stairs.

One happy note: one of the guys discovered my Jack Skellington inflatable was sealed in plastic within the box, so it hadn't been soaking in sewer water. I need to test it outside to make sure the electronics work.

[P.S. we tested Jack before submitting the final inventory of personal property loss to the insurance adjuster. It's alive!]

The bad part is this week is one of the hottest weeks of the summer, and we have no A/C. I need to get Bella into a groomer and get her shaved down. We've resorted to sticking an ice cube or two in her water dish.

In the meantime, I'm trying to finish A Hand of Father. Between the heat and the noise, I really wish I could go sit inside a Starbucks like I used to do before the pandemic.

So I imagine I'm on this beach and reading. What are y'all doing to cope with insanity?

The Unwanted Swimming Pool

As y'all know, DH and I were in Texas for the birth of our first grandchild Adorable Spawn. We'd worked in a couple of extra days for the trip and a couple of detours to visit friends in Houston and St. Louis we haven't seen in years.

Everything was going fine until we hit Memphis for the second time. We were woken on Saturday morning with texts from one of our neighbors. The home town had two inches of rain in less than an hour. Water surrounded our house and filled the street.

DH checked the security system, and sure enough, there was water in the basement. He called one of his sisters and she went over to check our place. By then, the yard and street were clear. She guessitmated about a foot to eight inches of water. It was lapping the second step, but she could hear the sump pump chugging away. However, she was smart enough to NOT walk through water that's obviously at the level of electric outlets. But she couldn't see into the rest of the basement.

We debated for a few minutes before we threw everything in bags and headed home. I called our friends in St. Louis and apologized for blowing them off, but they totally understood. DH and I thought we'd spend the day scrubbing everything with bleach. Besides, we didn't have much down there besides the lovely turquoise area rug for the family room. We had unrolled it downstairs and set boxes on the corners so it would lay flat.

We arrived home shortly before midnight on Saturday night. Alarms were ringing in the basement, but the standing water was gone. We crept downstairs.

I wanted to cry. The water line was over my head. The water heater and furnace had been underwater. In addition to losing the beautiful brand new rug, I lost the two brand new Halloween yard inflatables. Stuff I never got to use.

And in the middle of dealing with insurance, restoration firms, and contractors, I need to finish A Hand of Father.

Somehow.

Wish me luck.