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Six Weeks After Our House Fire

It’s hard to believe that more than 6 weeks has passed since our house caught on fire.  It’s one of those experiences that feels really slow and really fast at the same time.  For the first few weeks it seemed like recovery was creeping along.  We were lost in the jumble of decisions and how to deal with all of our belongings and where to turn for wisdom and help.  We couldn’t be in the house for more than a few minutes, even though we wore masks.

So many people ask immediately, “Do you have insurance?”  Yes, we do.  And I have learned a ton about how that works and some day I am going to write a booklet for others who go through this mess after me.  I won’t be an expert, just a human being who learned a thing or two about what to watch out for.  Even though we do have coverage, there was no one helping us understand the process or how to make the best decisions for us.  Do we send all of our clothes off to be cleaned?  They just told us to do it and now we’re looking at those bills and wishing we had understood more about what our options were.

Speaking of clothes, we are still without ALL of our clothes except what we were wearing when the fire happened and a few simple things we have purchased.  And since the fire happened in January and now it’s coming on spring….that’s getting difficult.  Last week it was 90° outside and all we have are winter clothes.  But since we don’t have the money yet to replace things OR our stuff that went out to be cleaned, we have to make it work.  There are things like that which could, in my opinion, be better handled by whoever is in charge of this mess (which we still haven’t figured out who that is!).

The good news is that things are moving along on the home repair.  The section where the fire happened has been gutted down to the frame and is being rebuilt.  The rest of the house is empty (literally everything I own is gone to some mystery warehouse) and is being cleaned and painted.  A few cool things about the project are that they had to scrape my popcorn ceilings (something I’ve wanted to do for years!) and I’ve been able to tack on a few small projects (at our own expense) while the workers are here.  These guys have been so great I want to keep them for about 6 months.  My house would be AMAZING!  But alas, I have to settle for a few small, but meaningful changes.  I’m happy with that!

We sure have learned what we really need day by day and it doesn’t fill a whole house!  We each have a Rubbermaid box of clothes, just the food we need for a few days, blankets and air mattresses….and my oils and supplements of course!  I’m  not kidding, they have been my lifeline some days.  Since I lost most of them in the fire I’ll be slowly rebuilding my stash.  I’m even working on some ideas to better organize those since we have to rebuild from nothing anyway.  May as well make it better, right?!  🙂

I’ve been making YouTube videos each week to show the process and so y’all can see tours of the house.  It’s come a long way already and I think by the end of next week we might be able to start slowly moving back into the part that didn’t burn.  But I’m not really sure how that will work since there will still be workmen there and we have no furniture.

I’ve been spending a lot of time researching things like thermostats and beds and window coverings.  There are a million decisions to be made and I want to improve where I can, so I stay up late into the night doing searches and reading reviews.  Then I get up early the next morning to exercise a little before getting a few hours of homeschool done.  Then we work on what we can at the house and back to our little empty rental for dinner and family time.  It’s simple, but busy.

Honestly, this whole thing has been such a reminder of how good God is and how much He loves us!  I feel so safely nestled in His loving arms through this trial and I trust that He will see us through to the end.  There’s nothing like a literal beauty from ashes story to show you how precious you really are.

Here’s my last video update sharing how the work is going and a quick tour of the progress.  Be sure to check out the other videos from last weeks on my YouTube channel!