Water. What lessons do we have to learn from water? I ask that because a few weeks before school let out we had a pipe burst in our hall. Luckily the hallway was the only part of our wing that got wet because several years ago we had a pipe burst over one of our classrooms and the water took out three of our classrooms including mine! So I thought that was it. No harm done and very little damage that was repaired within a few days while school was in session. Then on the last week of school it happened to my family. I was at school while my wife was at my daughter’s school for an end of the year barbeque. My wife returned home after only being gone for 45 minutes to find four rooms under water! One of the toilets overflowed. Neither the septic guy nor the plumber knew for sure what did it but that was very fortunate for us because, being an act of God, our home owner’s insurance was able to fix everything. Fortunate indeed because they had to tear out a couple of feet of the bottom of all the walls and tear out all the carpeting and flooring. They dehumidified everything and sprayed sporicide to kill any black mold. We lost all of our furniture and were asked to leave our home.
We bounced around from hotel to hotel for a few days until my wife found us a house to rent that luckily accepted dogs and was only a five minute drive from our home. That was quite the blessing because for one we needed to be handy for workers while also not linger, and who was to know that our dogs were fine at the rental until bedtime. They couldn’t sleep and kept my wife and me up all night. So we started having the dogs sleep in their crates at home while we slept at the rental. That meant getting them up in the morning, my wife, and bringing them to the rental then driving them home at night, me, to sleep. And now, almost two months later we are still in a rental waiting for our home to be put back together.
Counting our blessings there are many. Safeco Insurance has been paying for everything. We could not have afforded any of what is happening so they have literally saved our lives. Because of that we are getting our walls replaced and repainted. We are getting all our carpets and floors replaced brand new. And we are able to replace all of our lost furniture. That all has been a huge relief. Still, it has come at a price. Stress. It has been very stressful.
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And although this next part is not important it still takes its toll. All our summer plans have gone out with the water. Not really a big deal in light of all that is happening but still a huge pain. None of the hikes, beach trips, pool trips, practicing for the 4H rabbit showing at the fair coming soon, or bike riding have happened. We’ve been spending our days mostly indoors. It has been cloudy and rainy here a lot this summer so that has helped us get over not doing all those cool outdoor things. Our days have been wasted driving back and forth from home to rental taking care of animals and letting workers in and out. At times we just sit by the phone waiting for a call because one time we missed a call and the work was delayed a couple of days. I haven’t been able to even begin to think of all the blogging I had planned to do. All plans of reflecting on my first year with a 1:1 ratio and with iPads flowed right out of my head. I’ve fallen way behind on my Google Reader and all the books I planned to read just haven’t seemed a top priority. I haven’t been on Twitter as much as I would have liked but at least I try to get on every day and read a little and keep up with all the wonderful things my PLN is doing, sharing, writing. At least I managed to attend RSCON3 and even present! That was a nice escape for me. It hasn’t been easy to connect here though because the rental has NO internet. NO wifi and 3G from AT&T is really poor here. Calls are dropped, internet is dreadfully slow and choppy. Our mantra has been, “it comes and goes.” On a positive note we have spent a lot of time sitting together and talking. And since there’s no TV or cable or satellite at the rental we’ve also just finished watching every single episode from all six seasons of Highlander the series! Yeah, we’re fans.
This week we are going to make more trips to start putting things back in order IF the workers get all the doors put back and all the trim replaced. We also have to mow down .8 acre of knee high weeds! Yay. We are also hoping to be able to move in for good next week because we still have to await delivery of all the furniture and set it all up so that we don’t have to do all this during the start of school. Bother. On top of all that I have to get finger printed again because I let my WA State teaching certificate expire while distracted by all this mess. I have my National Board certification so never worried about my WA State one but since it expired I have to re-apply and pay all the fees and wait for finger prints to come through, which could take weeks! Nice.
Not the post I intended to write this summer but I felt like I had to write this to process it myself and to explain why I just haven’t been as much a part of things as I normally would have been.
