A Time to Reflect

It's Christmas Eve and I'm feeling a bit reflective. It's been 4 months today since our home and property were flooded---the time has gone by quickly--unfortunately, the clean-up hasn't been quite as quick---there is still a TON to do!

For me, I have been trying to get some chores done around the house. We are having a few people over for Christmas tomorrow and our little house is in dire need of cleaning. If the dust bunnies get much bigger, we'll have to start feeding them! So, you know what I should be doing rather than typing away right now... ah well....sue me!

Dave is busy trying to install our dishwasher (from our "swamp" house) into our rental house since the one here in the rental actually makes the dishes dirtier! Believe it or not, the dishwasher that was flooded actually started up without a problem after four months of drying out. Of course, it has been cleaned up and all the insulation has been replaced. Unfortunately, the installation is being more challenging than one would think---but Dave is continuing to battle the beast. Hoepfully, the trip to Lowe's will help Dave get just what is needed to complete the task.

I have finished wrapping the gifts and decided to take a moment to update our blog instead of washing the four dogs (which I will do when I am done). Believe it or not, it's almost 3pm EST and I'm still in my pajamas! Yep, it's true! And, it's been nice.....

We've had an interesting couple of weeks. The appraisers have been out and both were so nice. They extended their condolences and have given us some ideas. Sadly, they have both confirmed that our loses our huge and that our former home has very little value. Not much of a surprise.

Dave's had this week off so he's been out there cleaning, clearing, and re-working. He has made several trips to the dump, finished tearing out much of the subfloors and removing bad crossbeams. Yesterday he looked into the workings of the 5 year old air conditioner to see if maybe by some small miracle it might work again (it was under about five feet of water). He still needs to do some work on it, but he came home a little hopeful. He and our friend Derren also spent yesterday pulling out all the ducting and stuff from under the house ~ yech, not a pleasant job. It's a huge task. We're thinking, if we rebuild, we will have it all put back in in the ceiling rather than under the house.

We are still waiting on the mortgage company to make their final decision on the monies from our insurance. We hope that maybe by the end of the year, we will have an answer. Then we'll need to figure out what it is that we will be doing with the property. We still find it difficult to consider throwing good money after bad to rebuild and restore, but who knows. Anything could happen. In the next few weeks, we will have a couple of folks out though, to determine if raising the house 6-8 feet is feasible and what it would cost. But enough on this house....

We are blessed. No doubt about it. We have the love of each other, family and friends, our animals, our jobs, our health, and the comforts of life...is there really anything more we could ask for? No, these are the things in life that matter, not the "stuff" that crowds our lives. We are grateful.

THANK YOU to the generosity of family and friends who have helped us throughout our trials. Your thoughts and prayers have been felt, and your gifts have been truly appreciated. Thank you to each and every one of you!!! Your help and generosity has not gone unnoticed!

THANK YOU to the generosity of strangers too. Apparently the cellphone case that hangs on my purse detached from my purse and a complete stranger found my cell phone in the parking lot at Walmart. What's strange---I haven't been to Walmart in over a week! What's even stranger---no one made any calls or sent any text messages from my phone. The blessing: the person who found my phone went through my contacts list and called me at home. Dave picked it up today. Yes, folks, there are still good, honest people walking among us. Funny, I hadn't even realized my cell phone was gone until he called!

As you can see, we are blessed! As we ponder the true meaning of Christmas, we are amazed at all the gifts we have received this past year!

Thank you for being one of our greatest blessings!!!

Merry Christmas!