Row row row your boat....

This is not my week. It all started Monday while I was doing the dishes the old fashioned way (by hand) because my dishwasher has decided to go on strike. My how dependant we become on these modern appliances. I never had a dishwasher until 3 years ago, and now, to do them by hand is downright painful. Anyway, I ran out of hot water half way through. That was strange, because we never run out of hot water. I can be running the dishwasher, doing laundry and have one of the kids in the shower all at once, and still have hot water. Then 3 or 4 hours later I go to hop in the shower and waited.....and waited.....and waited for the water to warm up. No hot water still. So I sent Mr. Fix it to the basement to wave his magic wrench so I could have a nice hot shower after a rather long and stressful Monday. A minute later, he resurfaces with a look of aggravation. He then tells me the basement is under water. I said WHAT?!! Apparently our pump stopped working, and from the 2 feet of snow that melted off all at once, it was just too much for the pump, and it went on strike with the dishwasher, leaving my basement submerged in several inches of water, which of coarse affected the hot water heater, leaving us without hot water. I reluctantly went to the top of the basement steps and peered down, and there it was, a lake in my basement. I've never seen such a sight. We had been in the process of finishing the basement a few months ago, then progress stalled, and as every basement becomes, it was our catch all and storage. So several things that were on the concrete floor were ruined, such as my daughter's baby crib, a nice wood kitchen cabinet, some of my husband's tools, etc. So there my husband went, with camera in hand, pant legs rolled up, looking somewhat like a photographer on National Geographic. There he went into the freezing cold water to survey the damage and record it. And there my heart went as it sank. Some things were spared, whatever I had in totes, but the thought of my daughter's beautiful crib sitting in water getting ruined just made me sick. He got the pump working again and pumped the water out, then began the process of drying it out. Fast forward to today. Today would've been the day we would be able to turn off the fans and dehumidiers and begin the process of clean up. Except for one tiny snaffu. As we began down the steps, there it was, another lake in our basement. Once again our pump failed under the pressure of all the ground water and massive rains we had yesterday and last night. Our system is set up so that all the ground water comes in under the basement and then gets pumped back out. A very backwards logic, whoever decided this was a good idea when building our house was mistaken. And there my daughter is yelling up to me "mommy, the basement's floating again!" At this point I am disheartened. The remedy we think is to install another pump and have it double pumped. The ultimate fix would be to have the pump OUTSIDE of the house, but that will come later, as that will be a costly endeavor. So here we are back to the drawing board, dehumidifiers and fans blazing, hoping this time it has the chance to dry so that we can begin clean up and then my husband can install the new pump. A brook runs through our yard, beautiful as it is, I believe that also contributes to our current plight. The walls are fully sealed, so our only problem is the this indoor well system and the fact that what is outdoors is being brought in, and then being pumped back out. Absolutely ridiculous if you ask me, but what do I know about building a house? I guess if there's a bright side it would be that at least we didn't have the basement fully finished with nice furnishings yet. Still, my baby's crib is ruined and God knows what else. I had to share my pity party tonight, its just been one of those weeks; one of those weeks that a kind word and some water wings are worth their weight in gold.