In December 2007, Steve decided to quit smoking. With his mind set to it, he started building bird houses as a distraction project. It was a rewarding project during the withdrawal time and now we see progress from it. This year in the bit of time we were home, we have watched mommies and daddies raise a flock of baby purple martins in ours. Daily they bring food and nesting materials to the homes - tolerating my pictures rather well.
Steve made one for my dad, his mom & Stephenie. I don't think birds ever took to mother and dad's, (do purple martins live in Oklahoma?) but they sure did to ours - how much fun it has been to watch them! While sitting outside eating a sandwich after working on the house, I looked up and saw a few sparrows had moved in. The babies were all gone and I only saw a couple of purple martins. I need to read up on that, but the bird houses were definitely a good investment - both for our viewing eyes, and my hubbies life.
He did indeed quit smoking. I am so proud of him for stopping a 3-4 pack a day habit, and I love his distraction project; like him, the bird house will give me many more years of viewing pleasure. Thank you honey :-)
The news for our house is not good - or maybe it is in the long run, but for now it is not. I went over today to check the damage. The water mitigator had already called the insurance adjuster about the walls in the living room. They decided to pull the walls out immediately in there as he they are concerned about more black mold growing. My scrap room walls go tomorrow :-( I am most upset about that - it is my pride and joy, being newly remodeled, yet I have not had time to enjoy it much. Today we noticed warping and water in the kitchen - so I am sure it is next. One of the bathrooms has some water in the wall, but the insurance guy has not seen it yet. A crew of guys came in and tore the walls in the living room and hall while we were trying to get stuff out of the way. They were told to do the scraproom tomorrow and I think the kitchen will be next. The kitchen cabinet doors are warping. We still have a lot of moisture in the house so I have no idea how much more damage will be done. We still have a lot of moisture pulling on the dehumidifiers and dumping into buckets, so we are not through yet.
I know in the long run this will all work out, but right now saying I am overwhelmed is an understatement.Steph and I emptied the closets, tomorrow I need to pack the rest of the scrap room, fold the clothes to pack away, empty the book shelves, empty the top of the closets, empty the kitchen cabinets, pack the computer desk and computer away, and pack the stuff in the curio cabinet.I went to the storage place and got a storage building for our furniture and belongings. Now to figure out how to get it all over there.
The hardest part of it all is giving my key out to everyone that walks through the door - how scary is that?
I am tired thinking about it all. What a huge job! At this rate we will have a new house - and I am not excited about it at all. Between now and then there are a lot of decisions that I need to make. Today I had everyone asking me questions - after it was all over and I was on my way back to Steph's and our son called. I started bawling. He listened to me cry and told me he needed me to get to a computer and watch something he sent me. If you look carefully, you will see our son, our grandson and our daughter-in-law on HERE . How did they do that? He couldn't have timed it better - I sure needed to hear that.The last thing Jeremy said before he hung up was, "Mom, you are strong, you can do this; take a deep breath, be strong and get it done - I know you and I know you can do it." Sarah said the same thing about getting it done. I hope I can do it - right now it looks like climbing Mt Everest. The thing I have to remind myself is people have actually gotten to the top of that mountain and claimed victory. Tata for now.
Today the insurance adjuster came and saw the house for the first time - and he assured me it would not be the last time. He called the living room and hall immediately as needing gutted and walls replaced. He is unsure of my scraproom, so he is waiting another few days to see. It was very 'iffy' today and he said what looks good today may look nasty in 2 days. We already have black mold. It looks very much like this page - pretty blue walls with black spots. We may get more. We shall see.He was glad all the carpet had been removed and told the water mitigation team to remove the bottom 2 feet of all of the walls he had not yet called because they are saturated with water. He took pictures of it all, took samples of the carpet and padding to get evaluated for cost value. After answering all of our questions he made sure I had a place to stay and let me know we could get a hotel room or he would rent me an apartment for the duration of the time it takes to put the house back together. He told me he fully expected this to take 3-6 months. He will come with the first figures Monday. Then he left. Talk about shocker - it is all starting to hit me. I tried shopping at Lowe's (a home improvement store) and immediately got overwhelmed. Do you know how many types of carpet, tiles and wood floors they have? Do you know how many paint chips there are? I usually work on one room - not a whole house! I need an interior decorator to help me :-( What a job this is going to be.I don't even know where to start - but I won't be able to do a thing until Monday when the water mitigator finishes his job and the insurance adjuster comes back for his 5 day check-up. Saying it is overwhelming is an understatement. I need a handy man, a mold mitigator, a plumber, an electrician, a carpenter, and a sheet rock floater. I need a painter, will need to buy carpet/wood floor/tyles/kitchen cabinets/bathroom cabinets and pick out wall paints and trim paints. I will have to buy furniture and drapes... yeah, this is going to be a huge job.I am going for one last look at it, then I will go sleep it off. Tomorrow is a new sunshiny day.
I finally made it home - that plane ride is not worth one soul getting on a plane and coming to see us. It is miserable! 13 hours on ONE plane sucks huge - let alone being in the air for 24 hours!Yes, our house is in a mess. Yes it is worse than I thought, yes I am sick when I see it, and yes I know it will be ok; but right now it doesn't feel like it. The insurance adjuster comes out tomorrow morning - wish me luck. He did call today to be sure I was not going to stay there - isn't that amazing?In the mean time, I came home to this on the chalkboard :-) Be sure and read the writing...
Isn't that precious? SHE might be worth that ride.And this is for papa:
Off to rest after 'resting' 24 hours on planes - at least we didn't get a view of Anchorage today.
