Who would have thought that after I moved to Georgia that I would continue to deal with flooding!? But I guess the flooding issues I experienced in New Orleans, while at Tulane, did follow me to Georgia, but took a few years to surface. Although Rian and I are VERY lucky that our house was not one of the houses that was completely flooded, we did experience some issues with water coming into our basement. The small crack that the water entered the basement through seemed to cause some major water damage. On Monday morning Rian and I spent our morning ripping out carpet soaked with water and taking turns changing dripping towels that we used to stop the water from running through the basement.

The week was filled with numerous calls to AllState and lots of waiting on hold for agents to answer. We also experienced a great deal of trouble as many of our friends, getting out of our neighborhoods and finding open road to get to work. It took both of us double the amount of our regular commutes to get to work, when we finally made it out on Wednesday!

My parents came into town on Thursday night. They had already booked the flight before the flooding, but it was perfect timing. We spent a good deal of the long weekend, ripping out drywall and carpet, purchasing fans to help dry out the foundation and house frame and taking TONS of pictures of the already growing mold.

I learned on Friday that the AllState mold adjuster was not going to be able to make it out to do an inspection until half way through October! What were we supposed to do? leave all of the wet carpet and drywall in the basement to continue to mold and infect the house?! Well that is what they suggested so the inspector could assess the room to determine if there was mold from the leak. Sounds like a shotty plan to me.

My parents were such a HUGE help, that we are now in a much better place, no more molding materials in the basement, and we are ready to call Busy Dog to come give us an estimate on possible solutions to stop the water from entering the basement in the future and for the mold inspector to assess the room. Boy, he did not know who he was talking to when he told me to take pictures documenting anything that we did to the room to "show evidence of molding". I think I am going to burn him a CD of about 200 pictures of mold in our basement. HAHA!

Taste Buds

I think it is amazing to look back at what my husband was doing professionally when we met a few years back compared to today. In the past few years Rian has started to make his dreams a reality.. he has published his own cookbook, started his own business, and is really starting to make a name for himself in the world of culinary. I am so proud of him! Although sometimes it is difficult for me to deal with all of the extra work that comes along with a small business and helping Rian, I have to frequently remind myself that it is all worth it.

Recently, Rian has been working almost every weekend at a book signing and cooking demonstration. This does not seem like it entails that much, but in reality it starts on Thursday night with the grocery shopping, continues on Friday with all of the food preparations and continues on Saturday with the event itself.

The past weekend Rian did an event in Country Walk, which we thought was going to be well attended due to the exposure and interest he has had at other social events in the neighborhood, but ended up being slightly disappointing. The Mayor of Powder Springs stopped by and made a few calls to some neighbors, who stopped by as well, but overall, the attendance was not what was expected.

This weekend Rian is doing a cooking demonstration at the Decatur Book Festival. He is very excited about the opportunity and slightly nervous at the same time since he does not know what to expect. If you do not have plans for Sunday, come on out to the Book Festival and see what it is all about.