We got home from our trip to Colorado on Tuesday evening to discover there had been a major hail storm while we were away. We pulled up to the house and noticed the tube for the real estate fliers was busted into several pieces and the fliers were all over the ground. We assumed some punk kid had bashed it with a bat or something, but when we got out to clean it up we noticed all of the tree fragments all over the place and the cover to our motion sensor laying out in the gravel. It didn't take too long to figure out it must've been a pretty ugly storm that passed through. (Which is far better than an ugly teenager, right?!) The whole yard had twigs and small limbs from the trees lying all over it.
This is the gutter above our back door...
Looking up into the sky light in our den... (Both sky lights on the house were broken as well as the one in the shed--lots of stuff out there was wet, but I don't think anything was actually destroyed.)
The boys' bedroom window...
The tarp on the kids' play fort...
The side of the house has several dings and nicks, as well as the window frame--and the shingles along the edge of the roof have lots of nicks out of them, too. The pond was low by the time the storm came through and the liner was exposed in several places, so now there are numerous tears and rips that are NOT the fault of a Hays kid. I threw that in just for you, Brother Dustin. ;-) Seems like there were a few other things damaged as well. I'm sure James will remember what they all are.
The only moment of dread we had was when we saw from the outside (before going in the house) that the sky lights were shattered and the plastic was all over the back yard. We pictured the inside of the house all wet and who-knows-what-all damage might have been done in there. We were so relieved to discover that only the top layer of the sky lights had been broken; the bottom glass was still intact. Praise the Lord! Same with the boy's double pane window--only the outside glass was broken. So in the end, the outside of the house sustained some considerable damage, but nothing inside was touched at all. James is trying to get an insurance adjuster out to let us know where to go from here, but it might actually end up to be a blessing in disguise. I'm sure a new roof would make happy whoever eventually buys this house. :-) I've been so wowed by how well James has handled all of this. He has been so calm and cool about the whole thing--not stressed out or tense over it at all. We had a good friend (one who knows us too well apparently!) call and check on us, particularly interested in seeing how the stress level was around here (ha!) and I was pleased to inform him that things have been sooooo relaxed. It's really not a big deal. First of all, it's just STUFF. It's not of any lasting importance at all. Secondly, insurance will take care of things if it's super expensive (if we need a new roof) and if not we'll be able to take care of most things pretty cheap by ourselves. We're blessed. We missed out on the terror of a killer storm, and we know that it's all going to work out and be okay. Nothing to be stressed out about anyway. And besides that...
God loves me so much. The storm came through on Saturday night. If James would have KNOWN about it there is NO WAY we would have stayed over again on Sunday night, much less Monday--he would have wanted to get here and start getting things taken care of. Just think of all the great laughs and memories we would have missed out on! ~sigh~ I'm so glad we didn't know. :-)
Anyway, as soon as we got home we called Jason to tell him about the damage, then James spent the duration of the night on hold trying to find a real person to talk to at the insurance agency. We were able to get the hole in the roof (from the busted sky light) on the shed covered up so no more rain could get in. (It was sprinkling at the time, still.) We unloaded the van and got unpacked and I started on the laundry and even got caught up on some e-mails. A very eventful first night home, I must say!
We all slept in a little bit on Wednesday, then got busy on school and laundry. James spent most of the day on the phone taking care of hail damage stuff and Alabama stuff. That night I used the left-over pork roast and made some pretty fantastic chimichangas for dinner. Yum. I played a game with the kids, then stayed up and finished up the last of the laundry and did all of the ironing, too. Glad to have that behind me. :-)
Yesterday I was sooooo tired all day long! We did manage to get through school, so that's good. We left the house at about 2:30 to run some errands in town before church: the bank, the Post Office, the cleaners, the car wash--and the polls. James and I wanted to vote early and get it behind us, not knowing what the coming weeks will hold for us. I get so frustrated when we vote here though! I walk in, hand them the slip of paper that came in the mail from them a few days ago and a code of some kind. The lady punches in the code, prints out a paper for me to sign, then hands me a ballot. That's IT! I was really nice about it, but I finally asked her, "Do you guys never check anybody's identification?" She stared at me with a bewildered look on her face and I told her that anybody could grab that slip out of my mailbox (and a hundred others!) and come and vote for me without my knowing it. She stuttered for a moment and finally said, "You can show me your ID if you want to." HA! Yeah, THAT'LL fix the problem, lady! It's not the people who WANT to show ID that you have to worry about!!! Crazy. I told her, "No, that's okay. It really is me." !!! She said with a sly look on her face (as if she was really proud of how sneaky they are), "Sometimes we'll ask for your date of birth." O-o-o-o-o-o-oh, that makes it all good. ?! It's nuts here. That's one thing I WON'T miss! Ha!
We enjoyed a good BTI service last night, then enjoyed visiting with the Clarksons once more afterward. Is anybody else tired of me saying things like "I sure am going to miss those people!" and stuff like that?! Ha! I'm the one SAYING it and I'm getting sick of hearing it! I'm thankful for whatever time we have left though we are getting increasingly anxious to get to Alabama, especially now that we've made our farewell trip to Colorado to see everybody.
James took Joe to town with him today, so Kate and Sam and I were here for a few hours working on school and house stuff. James came home and worked on some outside stuff--trying to get the rest of the broken window OUT (it looks so tacky to have a broken window!) and I went around and cleaned all of the unbroken windows :-) that had mud splashed all over them from the hail storm. I used the very last of the pork (that hadn't made it into the chimichangas the other night) and made barbeque sandwiches for dinner. And then...
Jason called to tell us that the lady who looked at the house on Monday (a DIFFERENT lady than the one who finally got approved for the loan and who we are hoping to get an offer from on Monday or Tuesday) wants to come back and look at it again tomorrow with her husband! Wa-Hoo! That's a good sign, right?! She liked it well enough she wants to show it to her husband. :-) Maybe both families will really want the house and get into a bidding war over it! Ha! No, I'm really not interested in anything like that--though we have joked about it. We're not trying to get rich, we're just trying to get the thing sold so we can get moved and settled where we're supposed to be. We just need one person--the right person--to buy our house. No need for several offers. But it is exciting to have some interest in the place! Wa-Hoo! KEEP PRAYING. God is surely moving and answering all those prayers. :-)
So I've spent most of the evening dusting and vacuuming and trying to get the house looking extra nice for the showing tomorrow. :-) In the morning I'll touch up the bathrooms and wood floor and call it good. And that's it from here. I think I'm all caught up now. :-)
2 comments:
You had some SIGNIFICANT damage from the storm! The adjuster will take all that into account--even the damaged tarp on the kids' play fort, and the pond. I can almost guarantee they'll replace the roof. You'll be surprised at how much they'll pay you for the broken windows. People like us are a rare breed--most people hire everything out and pay other people to do the work and that's what the adjuster will allow for. You're going to get some major $$$ for all the damage, I'm sure. Make sure James points out every little detail to the adjuster--the rain gutters, the dents in the siding, the pond liner...EVERYthing. That's what you PAY insurance for--things like this.
You win the "Best Blogger of the Month" award. The competition isn't just real fierce these days.
I'm praying for your house sale. I reminded the Lord this morning that you guys are just wanting to be about the business the LORD has called you to do and that you need to sell your house in order to expedite that. I'm praying the lady and her husband who are coming this morning will make a good offer.
We're still waiting for the insurance people to get somebody out here to take a look at things. They are SWAMPED, as you can imagine. And don't worry about James failing to mention a single, piddly thing to them. I really can't even believe you would say such a thing. You know JAMES! He'll probably show them the leaves and petals from the flowers that are lying on the ground. ;-)
We just got home from our get-out-of-the-house-for-the-showing outing. Jason usually follows up with the other realtor to see what the people thought of it house, then calls us with an update. If he hears anything favorable I'm sure we'll be hearing from him. Wouldn't it be cool if THESE people loved the house, too, and want to buy it?! We're expecting great things from God! Thanks so much for the prayers. Surely God is getting tired of hearing so many prayers from so many people about this one crazy house--maybe He'll send the answer soon so we can all move on to something else, right?! That's biblical. ;-)
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