This week started with a whizbang for my little household. Work on the street led to a sewage backup in the basement, which led to two rooms of stuff bagged and tagged in the carport awaiting assessment from our insurance guy. Not bad for a Monday, eh? I’ve been loving Simone Castello’s recent posts on happiness -- enough that on Sunday, I started to reread Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project. Before the flood, I had been inspired to tackle the clutter, and had plans to start purging toys and junk. Little did I know what Monday would bring. As I write, our basement has been emptied, stripped to the studs and disinfected. Stuff that was salvaged is boxed and headed to a storage unit. Everything else is headed to the dump. It might seem strange to say, but I feel weirdly fine about losing two rooms of stuff. It was mostly toys and clothes (like the load my husband left on the floor in front of the dryer, and the stacks of kids' clothes I was sorting .) I am the designated cheerleader in our family, and it's up to me to get our kids through this with a good attitude. In the scale of disasters, this is a small one, so I'm determined we'll handle it with grace. And while I don’t generally go in for things like gratitude journals, here are some of the bright spots:

1. I did not buy a new rug for the basement when I was at IKEA this weekend.
2. We won’t be stepping on LEGO or mini LaLaLoopsies for the foreseeable future.
3. There can’t be a centipede left alive anywhere in our basement. (Shudder.)
4. We have eaten very, very well this week. Very important in a crisis. I have priorities.
5. If you don’t have a vent hood over the stove, an industrial HEPA filter fan makes an excellent (if LOUD) substitute. (See above.)
6. I had been meaning to bring the Christmas decorations up from the basement. Luckily, our decorations were in a dry spot and a crew of nice people in HazMat suits have done the heavy lifting for me.
7. That’s one (okay, four) loads of laundry we don’t have to fold.
8. This song, which I have declared our theme song for the week. And our basement dance floor is totally clear.

Lest this list seems glib, there's a big list of people who have helped us get through this. I'll be paying them with cookies and stew. Have you been through a crisis? How did you keep your outlook positive?