Back To Normal... Almost

We finally moved in to our new house Wednesday. Almost. We still have all our appliances over at the old house, and anything that we haven't needed for the last few weeks that we're going to be able to salvage from the old house.

I never thought that I could get exhausted from shopping, but it is possible when you're replacing things that you need for your house. We've spent probably more than $2000 in the last couple of days. There are the obvious things... like cribs, mattresses, televisions, entertainment centers, a couch to sit on, lighting, but then as you try to go on about your daily life, you discover that you are missing other things too. Good thing we live close to Wal-Mart!

You never think about the little things that you use on a daily basis and only replace when you are dissatisfied with what you currently have or it breaks. Things like... a colander. Or pot holders. I made spaghetti and rolls last night... then I discovered that even though I had a pot to put the spaghetti in, I didn't have potholders to take the food out, didn't have a colander, I didn't even have a large spoon to stir the spaghetti in the pot. I found things to make due, but I realized how you just get so used to having things and you take them for granted.

There are food staples that I know that I always seem to have that I'm finding need to be replaced. Like soy sauce. I usually pick up a bottle when it's on sale and I have a coupon, so I always seem to have one in my pantry by the time I run out. But it lasts a long time. If I want to make stir-fry vegetables, I just take it for granted that it's there.

We got our phone service and Tivo back up, finally. That's another thing that I tend to take for granted. Getting those back up hinged on getting the internet working, since we use Vonage, and Tivo needs either a phone connection or an internet connection (through your router) to work. The internet, what do you know, decided that it wanted to have problems our first two days here, so we had neither internet, nor phone, nor Tivo... and since we hook our cable through the Tivo box, we didn't have television either.

But slowly, it's all coming together. We've assembled the futon, entertainment center, crib, new adult bed, and dd is sleeping on a Ready-bed on the floor until we can get the rest of our insurance money. We have a little bit of food in the cupboard and enough utensils to make a couple of things. The phone, cable, internet, and Tivo are back up. Tomorrow our church has assembled a moving party, and we'll get the washer and dryer, freezer, desk for me, and even dd's play house is coming... that's going to be a fun one to move... my dad made it and it's made out of wood, it's big enough that I can stand up in the very center (although I'm short).

After tomorrow, there will still be moving tasks... primarily going through the house and getting the things out that we wish to keep... but the big stuff will be done. And life will return to a new sort of normalcy.

It Just Figures

We've been drooling over the Wii for more than a year now. We finally decide to buy one (previously I've been trying to win one)... and it doesn't work. The sensor has serious delay issues.

I'm not sure which would take longer... sending the Wii to Nintendo to get repaired or replaced, or taking the Wii back to the store and trying to find another one. The one that we got took more than a month to find. You would think that finding a Wii would be pretty easy, considering that both dh and stepfather-in-law work nights at Wal-Mart, when they get the new shipments in (dh works on the stocking team, although in food, not electronics)... but so far a working Wii eludes us. Oh well, back to looking.

But all is not bad... we have some wonderful news. We hooked the Tivo up today to our mother-in-law's tiny TV in the kid's temporary bedroom, and it still works! We were afraid that the heat, smoke, or perhaps an electrical surge might have damaged it. Our Tivo wireless modem thing we bought also works. We haven't had the chance to try the TV yet, but we're probably going to replace that anyway with the final insurance payment, but if the Tivo didn't get destroyed, with the hard drive in it, the simpler (electronics wise) TV should still work too.

And we have our new address. We get to move in 5 days.

Listmania - Best and Worst of House Fires

I'm writing a list post for a contest over at Networkbloggingtips.com. The prize is an external hard drive and you can join too.

Since the biggest thing preoccupying my time right now is the house fire, I'm making a list on the best and worst things of having a house fire. I'll save the best for last by getting the bad stuff out of the way first.

The Worst Things About Having A House Fire

1. Losing your stuff
   
2. Having to make an inventory of everything that you own and lost for the insurance company
   
3. Having to live an hour across town because your old house is no longer inhabitable
   
4. Cleaning out the refrigerator after it's been without power for a week
   
5. Cleaning everything else in the house that's covered in soot and ashes
   
6. The bank putting a hold on the insurance company's advance check because they're not used to you depositing so much money in the bank at one time
   
7. Throwing away all the plastic baby toys that they can no longer use, remembering your kids playing with them
   
8. Seeing your baby's destroyed pictures
   

The best thing about having a house fire

1. Getting to shop for new things
   
2. Getting the opportunity to take pictures... you never know, maybe they'll be a contest for a picture of the "worst bathroom" and you'll be in the running!
   
3. Discovering things that are still usable even after the fire
   
4. Starting to resume a normal life again
   
5. Having less stuff... easier to declutter!
   

So that's the best and worst that I can think of so far.

Getting Back To Normal

I don't know about other people that have been in house fires, but I'm just glad to see some things start to get back to normal.

I only managed to teach school 1 day last week. I felt bad about it at first, but realistically, if dd was in public school and she had a house fire and had to move an hour away from home, do you think that she'd get any school done last week? I don't think so. Tonight dh is going to work, and he'll be gone for most of the morning, and we'll get school done like normal. That will be good. Then maybe I'll take them to a park so they're not bored out of their minds.

I'm glad that dh saved my computer. It's amazing how much of a difference having your own computer makes when you're trying to get things done. I do a lot of sweepstakes, and I have specialized software on my computer that remembers all my passwords and helps me paste all my information in. I tried using dh's laptop the other night to do this and it was so much less efficient. But I'm getting back into entering my sweepstakes as well, and getting back to normal in that area is helpful as well.

There's only so much adventure you can take before you want to see a return to normalcy. Even if that normalcy involves staying in a strange house and being in different surroundings than you were before.

Life In The Museum

Since we had a house fire last Sunday, we moved in with the relatives. I'm thankful that they have two rooms to spare (one for me and dh, one for dd and baby ds), but I'm going to be really glad to move into our new home. Dh applied for family housing at his college, and they said that it would take a week or two to get the background check taken care of so we could move in.

My mother-in-law is great (her husband is okay), but living here is like living in a museum. They have a formal dining room that is always set with a nice place setting, but nobody eats on it except perhaps Thanksgiving... but not every year, just some years. They have lovely candles and decorations, and the house is always showroom ready, like Better Homes and Gardens is going to run through and do a photo shoot or something.

This is not the sort of house that Kindergarteners and toddlers who just lost nearly all of their toys like to run around in.

Both of them are in nearly a constant state of boredom. There is just so much Noggin and Nick Jr. that a kid can watch. We only accomplished one day of school last week (out of our normal 4) because I had to put together an inventory of everything we own that was damaged or lost in the fire. The most fun that they had this week was when we drove across town to check the mail (we're staying about an hour's drive away from our old home) and I discovered that UPS had left a note saying that I had a package to sign for... so I called UPS and asked them to let me pick up the package, and I had to wait 4 hours for it to arrive back at the warehouse. They got to spend 4 hours at the park waiting.

It's still hard to tell exactly how bad the fire is and how much we actually will end up losing. Some things are obviously smoke damaged beyond repair, like couches and mattresses. Some things will be able to be saved with some chemicals and hard work, like clothes. Some things were lost and I'm going to have to look to see what has become of them... my college class ring was in the area where the fire was the worst, and I have to find it first to see whether it is still intact or has become a melted hunk of gold. But everything is still in something of a holding pattern while we wait for our house. We don't have much room here, and we can't really go through our things and clean them up without having a place to bring them to.

In the meantime, the kids are going crazy in this lovely museum. Please pray that the housing department approves our move in the next few days and we can actually have a place of our own again. A place where the kidlets can run around, yell, and not have to worry about getting yelled at for touching the knick-knacks. Well, they aren't really allowed to yell all the time at our house either, but I don't mind a little of it... most of the time.

Turning Lemons Into Lemonade

Just hours before my house caught on fire, the Lord told my pastor to change his message from Jude to one on Psalms 18:30, which basically says that the Lord's way is perfect, and he protects those that trust in him.

While I was in church listening to this message, my house was on fire, unbeknownst to me. The smoke detector woke up my dh, who saved my computer and the pictures contained inside (my hero), and put out the fire with the help of my neighbor who brought along a water hose after he used up our fire extinguisher on it.

When I got home and discovered that our house had been on fire, I was shocked. I still find it a little hard to believe. Isn't that one of those things that happens to other people? After finding out the real important information, that my husband was okay (and yes, the pictures), in a way you just have to let it sink in and figure out what to do next.

It looks like we've figured out what to do next, and I'm pretty happy about it. We're going to move to a new house, whether or not our house ends up being totalled or repaired, and we'll sell whatever house/land remains.

Our insurance company should give us the full amount that we are insured for for the contents of our house. The area that caught fire was the most expensive part of our house, with our computers, (musical) keyboard, a TON of software, etc. in that area. We also have to toss all of the baby's plastic toys because they could be toxic to him, all our plastic dishes, utensils, and kitchen tools, and there was smoke damage to everything in our house... some of it we will be able to clean, some of it is not cleanable. Anyway, we did a partial inventory of what was lost, and it easily adds up to our insured amount.

We put together a budget for what we plan on doing with this money, and we decided to turn our lemons into lemonade. As a fan of Dave Ramsey, sometimes I hear people call up and say "We're debt free! We sold all of our stuff on eBay, did this, did that, etc.". Well, we're not selling our stuff on eBay, but we have decided to NOT replace all of our stuff. We will replace some of our things, and use the rest of the money to pay off our car, pay off my student loan, and start an emergency fund.

We will have no debt payments, and our expenses will be lower because we will be living in family housing at dh's school. His job is right by our house, so we will save on gas because he can walk to class and is within minutes of work. The housing includes high-speed internet and cable television, so that will save us $100 a month as well. Since the house will be smaller than the one we were living in, we should have lower electricity bills as well. We're going to put together a budget, and for the first time in years, we will actually have a little money left over after paying for necessary expenses. So we should be able to slowly replace some of the other things that we lost over time, even if we don't buy them right away. And we won't be paying interest to the banks any more!

I don't recommend having a house fire to get out of debt, but at least in this case, we will be able to take a bad situation and use it for good.

What's Next?

I've said it before... after dh lost his second or third job in a year, "what's next, is our house going to catch on fire and burn to the ground?"

Uhhh, that wasn't a good thing to say.

Because that's exactly what happened last night.

I was on my way home from church with my little girl and baby boy. My husband was sleeping because he was going to go to work that evening. On my way home, I saw a police car sitting by the road. I thought it might be a police car pulling someone over. As I got closer, I saw that the car was right outside our road. Then as I pulled onto my street, the police officer stopped me. After a short conversation with him where he treated me like an idiot for not knowing what was going on or where I was supposed to park, he directed me to park by the fence at the end of the street, and I walked down the road with the baby in the stroller.

There were fire trucks on the street. I asked the first people that I came to if they knew what house it was. Was it the blue house? They didn't know, but it was on the same side of the street as ours. When we got farther down, the fire trucks were dangerously close to our house. It was either our house or the neighbor's house. It was our house.

Was my dh okay? I kept walking to the fire trucks and told them the house was mine. "Your husband's over here" the fireman said. Well, at least he's okay. Were my pictures okay? I found out my really great husband had saved my computer. He's such a sweetie.

It took us a while before we could get in the house, and we couldn't see much stuff that night. We went back today and everything is covered in soot and smoke. All throughout the house. Not everything was burned, but everything is covered in smoke.

I guess that something electrical caught on fire, around my husband's computer system.

It looks like we will probably end up debt free from all of this, because we can take some of the money that we're going to get and pay off the car. We'll probably get money from selling the property as well. Not the way I had hoped on becoming debt free.

I hate to ask what's next. There's not much left, except for our lives and health.