The Great Loss

At about 3 in the morning, my eyes shot open in horror as I started shaking Scott awake next to me: "Scott!!! I just though of something TERRIBLE!!"

It was Sunday morning, 3 1/2 days after we'd left Galveston for a Kansas City Christmas. A restless few nights it had been, being out of town, sharing a room with Syd (who, at the time, had just come down with a fever and was up throughout almost every night we were gone). I couldn't help but lay back down for the 4th time that night after taking Syd potty and checking her temp. and think about my sister's new stand up garage freezer and comparing it with our recent chest freezer in our 3rd and extra bedroom.

One thought led to the next and then it hit me: In taking fireproofing precautions before leaving town, we'd flipped the power off on the power bar that our deep freeze was powered on by!!! It was a routine thing before leaving town! I've never had to unplug my TV, toaster, computer etc. and worry that the same power bar that the iMac is hooked up to is also the same that our DEEP FREEZER is plugged into. Not normal. I'm used to extra freezers in garages. We clearly just weren't thinking and were in a big rush to leave town.

 


I should have taken a picture of all the grocery bags Scott filled up last night, with precious, unopened packages of food and took to the dumpster.
I had only gone to Sams club to stock up days before we left, so we'd be prepared upon our return. Quite the opposite. We lost all of that food, and the food that was already in there.

 Our hand-picked bag of blueberries from this summer melted

and leaked all over the bottom. Where you see the silver break

at the bottom is where 6 precious Digiorno 

pizzas once stacked up side-by-side.

Among the other losses was

everything you see in this pic that we have yet to clean out,

and among what Scott drug out to the dumpster last night:
a bag of shrimp,

chicken breasts,

ground turkey,

2 sams sized bags of

frozen veggies,

salmon,

cheese,

frozen fruit,

whole wheat flour with blueberry juice soaked into it.

The list goes on.

:(

If you know me well, you know how big a loss this for me. Not just money.

 This is FOOD we're talking about!

The food was refrozen by the time we returned home because we had the emergency maintenance for our apartments go in and turn the power back on to prevent total rottenness and terrible warm raw meat smells from welcoming us home after 2 weeks of no power.
We did try and see if there was anything possible to salvage, but we tried one thing out last night, and I mentally could not enjoy it- at all. That's when Scott started taking out grocery bags full to the dumpster. He hasn't finished (=pick above).

On the down side, we have to clean it out and start all over. 

On the bright side, our apartment didn't burn down while we were gone!! (=a biggest fear of mine) And it's all thanks to unplugging literally, everything... and then some. :) Next time we won't be so dumb. :)