House Update

We've come a long way on the house.

The outside is ready to be cleaned and painted - we've chosen a medium gray with black trim. The front door will be red with black and white trim. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, the front door!!

On to the inside. The kitchen cabinets are being installed now. There was a bit of a glitch in that the cabinet guy got his measurements off so they had to do a bit of refiguring to make everything work out. We've gone back and forth a few times about how to do this, but I think it will work out. The cabinets are really nice. It's just a matter of getting them where they belong.

Next comes the paint! Everyone has given their preferences for the color of their room and we are excited to see the colors finally go up on the walls. This is supposed to happen this week. I can't wait! Our old house was all one color - walls, trim, doors, everything! They gave us no options on colors the way we have now. This is a really big thing for us and the kids are really happy about it.

They have also given us a completion date of ONE MONTH!! So we should be in the house by the time the kids go back to school. I will be so relieved to get out of this little cramped house and this neighborhood and back into our own space.

I miss the peace and quiet of our place. No strange cars driving by at all hours of the day. No pit bulls to be scared of.  No stray bullets. Oh yeah - our neighbor's window was shot out recently by someone. Scary stuff.

Most of all, I miss my crafting space. The only time I get to do any scrapbooking is when I get together with Ms. Pat at church one or two days a month. All my stuff is packed up here at the house and I can't get it out to scrapbook because there is no room. I am itching to get my sewing machine out and sew and get into my paints. I plan on spending A LOT of time in my craft space!!

Vacation is coming up, too. We are planning a trip to Panama City Beach for a few days then going on to Texas to see my dad. That's a lot of time on the road, but we are all excited about it. We LOVE the beach!! And seeing my dad is a real treat. We try to go out at least every two years. I miss him a lot and wished he lived closer. It's really not a bad driving going.......it's the drive back that gets to me. It takes us about 23 hours to get home. We are really hoping that they will tell us that we can start moving in once we are home. That would be awesome!

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New house, Graduation, and VBS

The house is really coming along! We go by everyday to check on the progress and the construction crew seems to be something new each day. We are at the point now where they are have almost finished everything on the outside and are about to focus on the inside. Now comes the fun part - I get to make all these decisions about what color, style, etc., I want everything to be. It's fun, but also so stressful. It feels like deja vu too. It was just ten years ago that I just did all this. Of course, with the company that built our last house I wasn't able to make as many choices as I am with this company. We are using Baker Restoration this time and they are AWESOME!! They have given us such great guidance on EVERYTHING. And they have been available for every little question I have had.

It's been a busy couple of weeks - Becca graduated from high school on the 23rd and we are SO PROUD! She also recognized on Honor's Night and earned a cord for her gown. It was a great ceremony. We tried to go out to eat after, but everything was closed so we ended up eating at the Waffle House. It's okay though - it was good.

Kymberly also "graduated" from Kindergarten. She is a big First grader now. The school had a kindergarten celebration just before school let out and Frank and I went to see her. The kids all sang songs to us. She was SO CUTE! She got "Future Teacher" award.....hehe. I can see her helping the teacher run the classroom.

Now we're making plans for summer and vacation bible school. Malachi, Kymberly, and I have spent most of this week at church decorating my classroom for VBS. Our theme this year is a tropical island so they have been painting and cutting out lost of little fish. Our carnival is tomorrow and the vbs starts Sunday. I'm also in the skit so I've spent a lot of time practicing my lines and getting the sets ready....whew!! It's tiring but fun. We are hoping for a good turnout.

Catching up

It's unreal how much has happened since out last post. We have been through some incredible losses in the last 6-10 months, but with God's help we are still standing strong!

In July, my mother moved in with us due to failing health and she stayed with us until September. At that time she went to live with my brother. Her health got worse and she passed away the 30th of October. I really didn't think I would miss her as much as I do, but I think about her everyday. She used to drive me crazy with daily phone calls and now I would give anything for one of those calls.

Thirteen days after her death I woke up around 6 in the morning after having a lovely dream about her. I even posted a facebook status about wishing I could pause my dream and play it back the way we do our tv shows. Everyone got ready for work and school and left the house. I dozed back off to sleep in the recliner, as usual. I woke up again around 9:30 and went out on my front porch to sit for awhile.I usually dozed until 10:00 - everyone says my mom woke me up.

I was sitting on the porch, listening to the windchimes and thinking how peaceful it was when I realized there was another sound coming from the house. The smoke alarms in the house were going off!! I saw smoke coming from the garage and ran into the house to call 911. I grabbed the fire extinguisher and opened the garage door. The garage was filled with smoke and fire! I sprayed the fire extinguisher anyway then dropped it. I don't even remember going through the house - the next thing I remember was grabbing my little dog from the bathroom and then running to my brother's house next door. I stood on his back porch and watched my house burn.

We live in a rural area so all we have is volunteer fire departments. The first truck got there pretty fast, but had no water. The next trucks that came would not come off the driveway, although we begged them to go around back and use the water from the pool to fight the fire. The fire was fully involved before they started putting water on it, so the house was a total loss. We lost everything.

I think the greatest losses I have in the fire are my little ferret, my scrapbooks, and the things I inherited from my mother. I had over 30 scrapbooks that I have worked on over the last 5 years for my children and grandchildren that are now ashes. I hear people say all the time how lucky we are and how all we lost are "things". But some of those "things" were so invaluable to me. Like the sewing bench that my mother had for years. The Asian statue my dad brought back from overseas. These "things" hold very special memories and cannot be replaced. Neither can they be handed down to my children like I had planned.

We struggled with the idea of rebuilding again. This was not our first fire. Our house burned down in 2004 as well. We just didn't know if we should try again. We prayed a lot. Finally we decided to chance it again and are in the process of rebuilding on the same lot. The house is about 1/3 completed. The builder has told us that the latest it will be completed it October, but we are praying for August so we can be in it and settled by the time the kids go back to school.

People have been so kind to us!! People we don't even know have come out to help us and we are so grateful!! I don't know what we would've done without their help. Done without, I guess. I can't possible thank everyone of them, but I have prayed for a special blessing for each of them. God is so good!!