We MOVE... on

After searching in several cities in the surrounding area, we finally found a cute little house on a small penninsual in Norwalk. My amazing little brother, Jackson, offered to fly up from North Carolina to help us move. Seriously. He offered to fly here to help us move! (I have an awesome family. I think I was MIA in the blog world to write a post about the time when my sister, Josie, flew out to help me with the initial lice situation. She gets credit for saving me from a looey bin at that time. My family = awesome. THANK YOU JACK AND JOSIE!!).

Adam and Jackson throwing stuff away.

See Jackson's leg? He's hefting more stuff into our trash pile at the dump.

Anyway, Jackson came up and basially moved us into our new place single-handedly. Adam and I, and a couple of people from the church helped out here and there where we could, but Jackson truly bore the brunt of lugging our junk. Half of it went to the dump (the soot half), and the rest went to our new place. It was cold hard work. Poor Jackson was so worn out in the end that he could hardly move. Heroic service, in my opinion. We managed to squeeze in a drive up to Sandy Hook and Newtown. Jackson works as an assistant principle at a school in North Carolina, so the recent shooting there affected him in a unique way. The signs and ribbons were everywhere around town. The elementary school was, understandably, completely blocked off and inaccessible. It was a sobering experience for us both.

This is a fraction of the letters sent from all around the world to the people of Newtown. I took this in the Town Hall there where they were on display for anyone to thumb through. Tears were shed reading some of the heartfelt messages.

Life in our new place has been great in so many ways. It feels so good to be settled, finally - anywhere, but we are glad that it's here. Of course, we miss aspects of our old digs; the history, the gorgeous and spacious yard, the "climbing tree", the chickens (had to sell them as they are not allowed in our new neighborhood), the woods (that's Adam mostly, he loved to trail run), and especially our neighbors and friends. However, we are loving many aspects of our new life; proximity to ... everything, playground across the street, small community beach a block away, nearby community bus stop with friendly kids, more natural light in the house, less house/junk to clean, etc. Even though the street we are on is prone to flooding - usually when there is a high tide combined with a full moon or a storm - we are happy here. We even get to see wild turkey, deer, and plenty of water birds around the neighborhood.

This is deceiving because our place is not as tropical as it looks here. The photo is enhanced. Even so, I can't believe I get to live here!

This is the view from our front yard. When the tide is low, it is a muddy marsh. When the tide is high, it is beautiful with amazing sunsets.

 

This is a video a neighbor took during a recent flooding on our street. We had to move our cars a couple of blocks away to higher land, but it only lasted about 7 hours. No real harm done.

The girls seem to have adjusted to their new school without any trouble. They are happy, and that makes me so happy. We were also happy when Progressive sent us a check for our full policy limit amount a few weeks ago! Things are looking up, and we finally "normal" again (knocking on wood).

We had a pretty big storm a couple of weeks ago. We played hard building a snow man and an igloo. It was the first time in ... ever that I outlasted my kids playing in the snow. It was therapy. They play in the finished igloo for only a few minutes. The next day it was a tiny melted heap on the grass. Yes, grass.

Resurfacing: Part 3 - "Puff Back"

As the saying goes, "When it rains, it pours" ... or clobbers.

A "Puff Back" is what happens when your oil-burning furnace malfunctions and blows oil-based soot all over the place. All over. On every surface, in closets, cabinets, containers, nooks, crannies, crevices, and every place that isn't air-tight (that leaves the refrigerator and... ???).

That is what we came home to after three weeks in Utah. The ordeal lasted about a month, although we are still dealing with a few residual effects of it (there are still a few items of furniture that we need to replace, etc). We were displaced from our home  in the middle of winter. We lost well over 50% of all our belongings.

The short story is this:

Some things got "cleaned", insurance payout was still pending after a month of hassle, we replaced our broken-down car, we continued our house hunt while free-loading off of our neighbors, soot-enduced coughing began to subside, and all of our belongings were stuffed in the garage (the salvageable stuff on one side, and the unsalvageable on the other).

During this time, as one might imagine, we relied heavily on others. Neighbors opened their homes to us. Care packages and gift cards were sent to brighten our days and provide the girls with some toys, clothing, and things to do, childcare was offered, meals were brought to us, phone calls were made, etc. We were overwhelmed with the outreach and kindness extended to us. We really have wonderful people in our lives!

Lessons learned? We had way too much stuff. As for items lost? Hey, it's only stuff. I am grateful for the perspective that these events have given me. I'm exhausted emotionally, physically, mentally, etc, but life is great!

*Photos to come soon

The long story is this:

I kept a timeline of events - for insurance purposes.  If you really want to know, here's what happened:

• Jan. 4: We called our neighbor to go over and turn the heat up 55 degree where we left it, so that the house would be warm when we arrived that evening. It was cold and dark, about 9:00 pm, when we got home after a full day of traveling. We were exhausted. We noticed something was wrong when we turned the lights on and saw a grayish haze throughout the house. We opened the doors for a few minutes to help clear the air (good bye warmth), unaware of how bad the situation was. If we had known, we would have just gotten back into the car and found a hotel immediately. We noticed what we thought were cob webs (they turned out to be “soot tags”) all over the house, and areas with small chunks of black ash scattered around, including on the kitchen counter and on the children’s bedspreads. There were also big blackish smears around all of the heating vents.
• Desperate for sleep, we took the bed spreads off, and found what we thought were clean blankets from the closet for the children to sleep with. By this time, everyone had black on their fingers and feet. Our two year old had black on her knees and face as well. Adam called our landlord and explained the situation. The landlord said he’d have someone over tomorrow and told us to call the oil company. We were exhausted, and decided to just sleep and work things out in the morning. I was reluctant to sleep there, but couldn't think of a good alternative. We stayed there, and inhaled the polluted air for ten to twelve hours.

• Jan. 5:
  When we woke up the next day we discovered that black soot lined our noses (blowing our noses was a black mess). I could feel a film in my mouth. I hated to think about the black air that we had inhaled. There was a fine layer of soot lining our lungs. If you ran your finger along any surface of the house, as if to check for dust on a shelf, you would see blackness on your finger. It might not have been obvious to the naked eye, but it was everywhere – EVERYwhere. 
  We ate breakfast with food and dishes that we assumed were clean, but that we now know were contaminated with soot. I got the children ready and took them to the YMCA to get out of the house. Adam stayed to talk to the Mitchell Oil Company representative and with our landlord. After lunch, at the YMCA, the children and I returned to get our unpacked luggage (which was now covered in a fine layer of soot) and take it to our landlord’s house to stay. Thank goodness we had suitcases that were already packed! There are no hotels in Redding. It would have been very inconvenient to find a place outside of town given that I have two children in school as well as four chickens to care for on our property. It was at about this time that we noticed our 5 year old coughing quite a bit.

• Jan. 7: I called Progressive to confirm the claim we filed the night before, but they said that they didn’t have our claim on file. Thank goodness we were required to get renter's insurance!!! I filed again over the phone. I was told to call a mitigation company (cleaning company) to give me an estimate about how much it would cost to clean the belongings in my home.

Also, we began to wonder if our daughter’s cough could be related to the exposure to soot (it seems obvious now, but at the time we didn't know the full extent of what we were dealing with). Our 2 year old was coughing a little as well.

• Jan. 8: We had two different cleaning companies come to the house to assess the situation. I was advised by someone who came by our house to start cataloging all of our belongings. My neighbor, Tina, began helping me do a thorough inventory of every item in our house (down to the pencil, hanger, crayon, thumbtack etc). The inventory included a description, photo, value, and place/date of purchase wherever possible. It took weeks. I cannot overstate how painstaking, tedious, and exhaustive this task was. You don't really have a clue about how much stuff you own until you catalog it in such a detailed way. Tina volunteered her time day after day to do this with me, and others helped watch Sonoma while we worked. We had to use plastic gloves that got black with soot after a while. UGH.

• Jan. 10: We moved from our landlord's house into another neighbor’s home. The home belongs to our friends, Jake and Erika. It was originally the final home of Mark Twain, and he actually passed away in the room where we slept!  
• We decided to use 'Service Master' for the professional cleaning of our salvagable belongings. My landlord was getting concerned that things were taking so long to get started on the cleaning because it is winter, and they were worried that pipes would freeze. Their insurance company was putting pressure on them to get the house cleaned so that they would not have to pay too much in “loss of rent”, but they didn’t want to have the structure cleaned before the contents as the soot might then spread again.

• Jan 14: A field adjuster from Progressive came to the house. He walked through the house, assessed the damage, took pictures, and discusses our situation. He recommended that I throw out the food items in our kitchen, and anything made with plastic from the kitchen. He recommended that we throw out our many plastic buckets of food storage. He recommended throwing out our sofas, mattresses, and bedding, along with many other things. He said he would recommend that Progressive set aside the full $25,000 from our policy limit because the damages would add up to more than that anyway.

• Jan 15: We took Ruby and Sonoma to the doctor’s office because of our growing concerns about their coughs. Adam was coughing now as well. They had no other symptoms other than a dry cough. The doctor didn’t seem to know anything about exposure to puff back soot. She called poison control from the office, and they were not too sure either. Neither party seemed very concerned. We were sent away without any medication or anything advice other than that there were a lot of illnesses going around.
  • Tina, along with people from the church continued to help with cataloging, moving, child care, etc.

• Jan. 18: Service Master finally came to start cleaning the house, but needed to re-evaluate and requote the amount that it would cost to clean the items left in our house. I was told that I would get a new quote later that day (which I never received). So, the cleaning was postponed.

• Also, six ladies came from church and worked to clean the Mark Twain “pool house” so that we could move in there and be in our own space until we could have a home again. They worked for about 4 hours. My neighbor and I cataloged items from 8am until 6pm. Progressive was hard to get ahold of. I left a messages explaining that we were getting very anxious about the fact that we need to replace so many items, and that we had not received any money from them yet. We were in great need of bedding, towels, mattresses, appliances, toiletries, etc, but didn’t have the money to just go out and buy everything. Later, I spoke to another adjuster with Progressive. He told me he could advance us $1000 until we were able to make other arrangements with our adjuster. I felt that $1000 was not enough, especially since the field adjuster had submitted a recommendation that we get the full $25000 from our policy limit.

Ruby‘s cough became so intense that she began throwing up coughing so hard. We had been treating her with over the counter medicine as well as honey, and Vick’s Vapor Rub on her chest and the bottoms of her feet.

• Jan 19: Adam and I worked on and off at the house cataloging and cleaning items that could be cleaned with Dawn dish soap. I also took a huge bag of laundry to the dry cleaners. Most of our textiles were destroyed, but there were a few items that, although damaged, I just wasn't ready to part with, such as a quilt that I made with my grandma, etc.

• Jan 20: Adam and I worked at the pool house to finish some of the cleaning. We also continued inventory of the house, moved things into the garage, etc. All of our storage bins, even on the inside were affected (photos, seasonal decorations, camping gear, keepsakes, etc).

• Jan 21: We did more work over at the neighbor’s pool house to make it ready to move into Tina and I worked on finishing up things for the cleaners in the house for about 6 hours (they still hadn't started cleaning). During that time, we discovered that even the mattress inside the leather pull-out couch had soot on it.

• Jan 22 - 24: We finally moved into the pool house! We continued to move, clean, and organize, day and night. It was all-consuming. The cleaners began working on the structure of the house, but could not begin cleaning our contents because the insurance company required a quote from them.
  • • • They required that the cleaning company itemize everything that they were going to clean. I explained that I didn’t want the cleaning company to do that because I had already gone to the tedious trouble of itemizing everything, and I didn’t want ot pay them to do it again.
  Finally, I decided to bypass that hassle, and pay the cleaners out of pocket so that they could get started cleaning our stuff (the oil is corrosive and has been sitting on our stuff for weeks if not longer than a month).

I had also been slowly submitting receipts and inventory sheets to my adjuster. I called everyday at that point, just so that our claim wouldn't be ignored.

• To save money on cleaning costs, I spent hours and hours washing silverware, pots, pans, mason jars, hangers, etc, etc, etc. in a bathtub. We also asked that our oil paintings not be sent out to a special cleaners. We moved all items that were unsalvagable out into the garage so that the remaining items in the house were the only items that the cleaners needed to clean.

• Jan 25: I paid the cleaners over the phone and they agreed to start cleaning our stuff the next day. Whew.

My youngest two children (and Adam) continued to cough all of the time. Sonoma was now coughing so hard that she would throw up as well.

Adam did a little work at the house and decided to work from there because there was internet there (not at the pool house). He got thirsty and took a big swig of water from the faucet, only to realize that it was bleach water. Our landlords, thinking that it was safe because the house was not being lived in, poured bleach into the well to clean the system (something you do every couple of years apparently). Adam looked up poison control. He didn’t have milk or water or anything like that in the house to flush his system. He tasted bleach all day, but seemed fine. Luckily it was quite diluted.

Meanwhile, I was running an errand when the engine light went on and said “Transmission service required”. I took it to the Volvo shop and learned that we needed a new transmission and radiator, and the all-wheel drive was out. It would be around $6,000 to replace - which was more than the car was worth.

Later, I went over to the house to pack and move more boxes into the garage only to get dripped on with bleach water (Seriously???). I looked up and saw that the ceiling to the garage was dripping water onto our stuff - but mostly the floor. I guess that something happened with the bleaching of the water, and pipes freezing or something. I went upstairs and found that the shower was clogged. I called the landlord and they came over and took care of it. They were quick to mention that they could not be liable for any damaged items due to the water because we were not living there.

I finished submitting 35 inventory sheets (each with 60 items) to our adjuster. There were a few more sheets that I could have filled (which I explained to her), but the work was tedious, and if we had already reached our policy limit of $25,000, then it wasn't worth it.

• Jan 26: We added car hunting to house hunting. We hoped to find a new place to live and a car to trade with ours. Adam and three men from our church came to help move out big furniture items into our garage.

• Jan 27: We cleaned, packed up, and moved as we could while the cleaners worked on our things (they would clean, then we would pack it up).

Often in the evenings and afternoons we would go look at potential houses to live in. The rental market was not great because after Hurricane Sandy, many people were displaced and had taken up a lot of the available rentals in the area.

• Jan 28: The cleaners came and finished cleaning our items (Yea!). Although, when I was packing up the "cleaned" items, I still got sooty. It's just impossible to get things all the way clean after a disaster like that.

Adam gave our Volvo (with new tires, mind you) to a dealer for a measly $1500 off of a hybrid Toyota Highlander. Goodbye paid-off car, hello car payments... and hopefully a much more reliable vehicle!

I submitted a few more receipts to our adjuster. She, naturally, was unavailable. I left a message asking her for an update (as I had done in my email to her on Thursday, and in a message to her on Friday). I tried to get ahold of her supervisor. Her answering machine states that her supervisor, Mike Fernandez, may be contacted if she has not responded to your call within 24 hours. I tried to get ahold of him a couple of times, but he was never unavailable. The first time I called him I left what I consider to be a desperate email asking for help, but he never responded. Not cool. It had been a month since the disaster, and we had only managed to squeeze $1000 out of insurance. Their behavior was cliche - an insurance company that was not responsive and difficult to work with? Where is the creativity, Progressive?

• We got a much-needed check from our landlord for $3500 from our deposit. We couldn't afford to make a deposit on another house without it. It should have been for $5000, but because Sonoma wrote on the wood paneled walls with permanent black marker (grrrr!), they were withholding the remaining amount unless we could get it cleaned. Awesome. Incidentally, the trick to getting permanent marker out of stained wood without damaging the wood is SOS pads, hairspray, and orange oil. We got it cleaned!

Resurfacing: Part 2 - Christmas and New Years

The holidays, after I had adjusted my expectations a bit, turned out to be great. We were able to get a handle on the head lice, and although we were understandably uninvited to a family party here, and scared away a few friends and family members there, we still managed to squeeze in some good family/friend bonding, and some fun winter activities.

Hanging out with Beckham at Jenny and Tim's house

USU Aggie game with Grandma Cozy and Grandpa Mack

Ice skating and LOVing it!

Tennis at the Rec Center with Grandpa Mack

Hungry Hippo at the Morse home with Ian, Beckham, and Aunt Jenny

Christmas morning line-up. Notice the fort they slept in the night before in the background.  Sonoma doesn't know how exciting the morning is about to become!

I was especially grateful for those who endured and tolerated us, at their own personal risk, by allowing us into their presence. I say that, but I also completely understand those who kept clear of us.

I was touched by my Aunt Maxine and Uncle Terry. They were so kind to me. They could see that I was having a hard time with ... life, and they also remembered how I had complimented Aunt Max's colorful and fun socks. The day before we flew back to CT, I found a big bag of new colorful socks with a note telling me to put on my "happy socks" whenever I was feeling blue. It meant so much to me, and I wear some almost daily (not that I'm always blue, but because they mean so much to me). I'm wearing a pair right now!

Viv and Noma looking through Aunt Max's jewelry box with Josie

Viv getting the traditional "Bug Juice" (mostly poison, but they love it) from  Uncle Terry and Aunt Max

The New Year Party line up: Elena, Juancito, Ian, Gideon, Cozy, Ruby, Sonoma, Eliza, Isaac, Navy, Olivia, Peter, Leif, Chloe

Happy 2013!!!

Shortly after ringing in the New Year (at 7:30 pm with the kids who didn't know/care that we were 5 hour early - and time is relative anyway, so we will likely always celebrate "early"), it was time to head east.

Classic Christmas afternoon nap. Aren't they cute?

Resurfacing: Part 1 - Lice and Newtown

I have wanted to write for a while now, but trying to document the events of the last few months has seemed altogether overwhelming. I'll do the best I can before too many details are lost in my memory, ...and before more crazy things happen.

Our trip to Utah over the holidays was a ball of emotion including happiness, love, anxiety, depression, fear, sadness, joy, disappointment, shock, confusion, and more.

This was the first time on an airplane that Olivia could remember, and it was Ruby's first time at all. They were SOOOO excited!!

It was, of course, just wonderful to see and reconnect with family. It was therapy for our souls to hug grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. It is a beautiful thing to love and be loved. We are so blessed to have the network of people that we do in our lives. Our excitement was peaked and our joy was full for the first 24 hours or so of being in Utah. It was euphoric. Truly.

Josie, Aunt Sharlene, Kristen, and me

Grandma "Kiddy" and Sonoma

....then I discovered that we had brought some very unwanted guests with us via Sonoma's head (insert dark cloud of despair and depression). LICE. AGAIN. AAAAAARG!!!! I promise to the world that I had been very vigilant about making the children wear lice spray to school each day. I still checked them periodically after I thought I was rid of them. I knew that it was still going around at the school, so I thought I was very careful. Somehow, Sonoma had gotten them. It may have been from Olivia's original case, or it may have been a new batch that one of the girls brought home on a backpack or something. Irrelevant. The point was that we had them. Again. At my very tidy in-law's house. On a holiday vacation that I desperately needed. Plus, Adam had to work on this vacation, so I was to handle this largely alone. Again. He was already at work when I discovered them on Sonoma.

Running through my head were the people with whom we had come in contact. The hugs we had already exchanged. The poor saps on the plane ride next to us (especially the nice lady who let Sonoma watch a movie on her laptop). You can see a bit of her here in this photo:

I dreaded telling everyone, especially my in-laws. I also thought about all of our big plans that would most likely not be happening. Skiing, sledding, ice skating, holiday parties, visits with old friends, etc. It was time to quarantine. What a nightmare. So, I began to carefully de-louce my 2 year old daughter's head - a head that doesn't hold still very well, while trying to keep my severe disappointment to myself. Adam would spend hours that evening checking for lice on the heads of those who had been near us (thankfully, no one else would be traumatized this time around, except for the trauma that comes with the very mention of lice, and the inevitable itchy scalp that follows).

Josie gave Sonoma a haircut to make lice removal easier.

 She wore a shower cap or hat to keep the lice and/or treatment on her head and no where else!

I was in the thick of dealing with this... and then my phone rang.

Adam was the first to give me the news about the school shooting in Newtown, CT, a town about 20 minutes from where we were living. A town that was home to a number of our friends. The same town we drove to every Sunday for church. When he told me that several children had been shot, I burst into tears and had to hang up. Even now, when I think about that moment, I begin to cry. It is still something indescribable, so tragic. There just aren't words.

As the day unfolded, amid keeping my children at bay who were desperate to go visit friends and family (but of course, I couldn't allow that with the lice), and checking their heads, I learned more unnerving details about the shootings. The most heart-wrenching of which was that one of the victims of the shooting was Emilie Parker, the cute little girl who sat in primary classes with my girls at church. The girl whose mom had mentioned to me that we should get our girls together for a play date soon just a few weeks earlier. A little girl that my children knew and would miss and would wonder about.

Earlier that day I had thought to shelter my children from the sad news. I was grateful to be in Utah during this tragedy, removed from the horror of it all, just a little bit. Had they been in school that day in CT, which is in the same district as Sandy Hook Elementary, they would have gone into lockdown. It would have been confusing for them - scary. Although we were on the other side of the country, we were effected on a personal level, and I would somehow have to tell them about what happened.

When I did finally tell them, I was careful to only divulge what I thought they needed to know:
There was a man who made a really bad choice... his brain wasn't working properly... your friend was killed.... she is with God now...
Viv was quiet and got a little teary. Ru didn't really acknowledge what I had said. She changed the subject. I gave them the opportunity to ask questions, and we hugged each other. The next day, I asked if they wanted to write about their feelings in their journals. Viv declined, but Ruby drew this beautiful picture of her friend.

The next days are a bit of a blur in my mind. I remember being very emotional. I feel I was in shock. I went through the motions of checking my children for lice, doing copious loads of laundry, vacuuming, dousing everyone in tea tree oil,  etc. I'll admit that the shootings in Newtown really put my lice calamity into perspective. I kept repeating to myself that at least my children were alive. I made a conscious effort not to watch the news or to read too much about the details of what happened in Newtown. Each time I did, I was in tears. I received many, many emails from friends and the church in CT. I was so close to what had happened with the connections we had made, and yet we were so far away. While we were overcome with sadness by what had happened, and while we, as a nation - and around the world, mourned the loss of so many who had died, we didn't have to go through the deluge of sorrow and shock that swept over the entire community of Newtown and surrounding areas. Their experience, I learned, was even more personal, raw and ... well, again, there just aren't words.

Adam and I were fortunate enough to be able to attend the viewing (me and my sister, Josie), and the funeral (Adam) for sweet Emilie Parker in Ogden, UT. It was such an incredible experience. I loved seeing all of the pink ribbons around the town in her honor. I loved watching an amazing slideshow of her life. I loved the feeling of peace that was present amid the sadness. I loved embracing Alissa and sobbing with her for a moment when time stood still and emotions ran freely. I loved seeing Emilie's two little sisters, dancing around in beautiful pink dresses, too young to fully comprehend what was going on. I loved taking a small part in an event that reminded me that there is something out there grander than us all, that this life is not the end of the story, that our relationships are precious, and that love is all that matters.