Well, the rumor is that we should close on the construction loan by the end of the month! The appraiser should be done with his part by Monday or Tuesday, then it goes to Underwriting, which should have their part done by next Friday, and then we move to closing! Woohoo!!

I cannot wait!

OK…the journey continues…or does it?

I last left you all with the news of my father’s passing on May 31st. I flew to Syracuse, NY on June 13, and met Kristi there, and we drove to Auburn. The memorial service for my father was on June 14, and then we flew home on the 15th.

The memorial service was beautiful, my step-sisters/brothers did a great job of setting it up. It was emotional for me, realizing that he truly was gone. I did see cousins I hadn’t seen in 20 years, which was nice, but sad too – other than those cousins, for me, that branch of the family tree is gone. Dad was the last of three brothers to pass.

Kristi and I drove to Ovid, where my father’s family lived, and to Seneca Falls, where my mother’s family lived, and I showed her some of the things I remembered from previous visits. When you consider that my last visit was in like 1989, that’s pretty amazing – towns so small that nothing ever changes.

All in all, it was a whirlwind of emotions for me.

Fast forward two weeks:

We still haven’t begun building yet. The general contractor took so long to put in his bid, that the appraiser got backed up. Now watch, he’ll get his part done, and all the subs will be busy because they took other work while we farted around. Yes, I’m feeling slightly pessimistic. Trailer life is starting to suck, and I’m dying to get going, but it’s one delay after another. :(

On the other hand, Scott and I are looking at another wedding anniversary next week, and doing well, thank you very much. If we survive this trailer thing and rebuilding the house – I think we can survive anything!

Oh! And some cool news - One of the girls in the bird forum I used to hang out in read about the fire after I posted there, and she has a 2 year old Quaker Parrot she's going to give me! Of course, we can't take her until the house is built, but I'm very excited about it!

More later.

Last night, Shannon graduated from high school....We're so happy for her! Tomorrow, she starts her new job as a camp counselor and will come home on the weekends. We'll miss her a lot :(

Then tonight, I received a phone call telling me that my father had died from a motorcycle accident today. The doctors think he had a stroke.

I think I've had enough loss for the year. Everyone else in my life will please enter the large protective bubble over to my left.

I go through most days taking this whole thing in stride. We lost everything, but we're getting all this good stuff coming out of it, and that's a blessing. So is it really wrong to want it to be done in say...4 months?

Scott told me tonight that he truly believes it's going to be 6-8 months. I've been thinking October...we'll be ok. Now we're looking at what...Christmas? Oh.My.God!!

*sigh*

I bought my appliances last Monday. They're being warehoused until we can take delivery....but when I made that arrangement, I wasn't thinking 6-8 months. I don't know if I can get them held that long. I saved us a fortune by buying them when I did (no sales tax weekend, 10% off, and gift cards coming back to us). I'm just hoping the fortune saved won't be eaten up by storage fees.

*sigh*

This is a big setback to my sense of well-being. Trailer life is ok...my parents lived in a smaller trailer when I was a baby, but...come on...it's not the lifestyle I'm used to.

*sigh*

I've put off this blog entry as long as I could, because it's just too hard...April began badly, and never let up.

Scott's mom, Linda, had been in the hospital since late January, and the doctors finally said there was nothing more they could do for her without exploratory surgery, which they didn't think she would survive. So we found a beautiful hospice care and moved her over in the last week of March. On April 1st, she quietly passed away.

Our lives were just beginning to settle back down from the time off work and travelling back and forth to Fort Worth that Linda's hospitalization and passing entailed. On April 12th, Shannon and I went into Terrell to get manicures, while Scott attended a crawfish boil at a friend's house four houses down from us. They had just finished Shannon's manicure and my pedicure, and were moving me over to the manicure table when my cell phone rang. I asked Shannon to grab it, which she did. The next words she said changed our lives forever - "What do you mean our house burned to the ground??"

My eyes welled up with tears as I looked at her. "Katie??" She shook her head no. "Misty??" Again, no. The manicurist finished putting on my sandals and helped me to the checkout desk. As I handed over the payment, my knees buckled and I started crying. I just couldn't grasp that my beloved parrot was gone...our cat was gone...and our house was gone.

I drove us home as fast as I could - in fact, the Terrell Fire Department was behind us and I left them in the dust. They were obviously on their way to our house, but as slow as they were driving, I wanted to stop and tell them just to go back - they'd never make it in time.

We pulled into the community and manuevered around the fire trucks and saw the charred remains of the house. Scott walked up to me and put his arms around me and I just broke down.

When the fire had been put out, and the smoke had cleared, this is what was left:

We handled the things that needed to be done, but I don't remember a lot of the next few days. The Red Cross was there, and put us up in a hotel room for a couple of days until our insurance could kick in. They gave us a debit card with money to replace our medications and buy some clothes, and to eat with. Some friends took us out to dinner the next day and gave us Kohl's cards to buy clothes. Thank God for these things...you just don't know how bad it is to be standing there with nothing but the clothes on your back.

On Monday, our insurance company sent an adjuster out, who declared the house a total loss, and gave us a check towards the contents to start rebuilding our lives with.

The insurance company moved us to a nicer hotel until more permanent arrangements could be made, and we were there for 2 weeks.

A week ago, we moved into a 37 ft. travel trailer on the property next door. This is where we'll stay until our house is rebuilt.

This has all been incredibly difficult. I'll be fine, and then all of a sudden, I'll break down. I alternate between anger and grief, and then back to hope.

People have said I've been handling this so "bravely", but really, what choice do you have? You grieve for what you lost, and then you move forward.

The insurance company was incredible...we were treated with kindness and respect, and at the end of it all, we'll have a brand new house....one that will be specifically designed to minimize the risk of fire. The official cause of the fire was "electrical". We suspect that animals got under the house and chewed the wires...we saw a mouse fleeing from the ruins, could have been him. But the new house will have its wiring encased in piping of some type, so the critters can't get to it.

We plan on building a log home. The company we're going to use, Satterwhite, is located about 90 minutes from here and we drove over there last weekend and really liked what we saw. Their representative came out this week to see the land, and make sure that we could actually do it...and of course, we can. It's our hope that we'll be in the new house by the end of summer, at the latest. The official build time is 6-8 weeks from when they actually begin, and then of course, there is the finish time required to do the interior.

Our annual BBQ will go on...it'll just be a bit more difficult, but hey, we're up to the challenge :)

So, work has begun on clearing the land, in fact, they're almost finished.

Rusty has grieved for the loss of his friends....he looked in the ruins for days for them. But as we try to get back into our routine, we've started running him again, and he's coming around.

I'll keep the blog posted as we progress through the build.

Scott's mom, as most of you know, has been sick for a very long time. This week, her doctors told Scott there was nothing more they could do for her.

We located a beautiful hospice facility that actually looks like an upscale hotel, and she was transported there last night. After being in the hospital for two months, where we all know that you just don't get any rest, she was utterly exhausted. She wasn't in the hospice for 5 minutes when she fell asleep. The RNs at the facility assured us that she would be kept comfortable - no more lifesaving methods - only keeping her as pain-free and peaceful as possible.

They are guessing that she has 5-7 days left, although with her bad heart, it could be less. We'll keep you posted.

Please pray for her peace.