Saturday, August 29, 2009

Excitement at the Box, not really

Well, the Jones family has had some excitement in the box since we last blogged and some of it has not been good. On August 14th, Elsi, Emily's 5 year old Pekingese decided it would be fun to play in the road and was hit by a car. This is the 1st dog we bred and kept, and she has never left our side when outside, so it was a shock to us that she went toward the road. We have decided that this fire has not only altered our lives, but our dogs lives also, so we are trying to be sensitive to their needs. After a not so small ER bill, we have found out that Elsi has a dislocated jaw, 3 broken teeth that have fallen out, her pelvic bones are broke in 3, maybe 4 places and she has compression in her spine that is keeping her back legs from moving. But she is alive, and that is an answered prayer. I kept thinking how horrible it would be for this dog to survive the fire, just to be hit by a car, and for Emily to lose everything she owned except her dog, then lose her dog too. But God is Good and kept Elsi alive to see another day and Emily happy.


Sunday night my car starting acting up with the windshield wipers and then on Monday we noticed that the windshield is cracked. The windshield has a range sensor that tells the wipers when to come on, so with it being cracked the wipers stay on all the time. Jay has pulled the fuse to make them stop (working on getting that fixed???? when some money comes in). Then Thursday afternoon a terrible storm came by. Jay had gone to pick Emily up from volleyball practice and had a flat tire on the way home (in the rain and remember the wipers would not work). So Jay and Emily were stranded on Melvin Hill while Meredith and I suffered through the storm in the box. Needless to say, the power went out not once, but twice, and the rain itself felt like it was going to knock the box over, the wind added to that fear. We managed through it, my dad came and helped Jay put on the spare and he finally got home around 7pm.


To cook a meal in the box is stifling, so we are using our grill outside to cook most of our foods. Thursday after Jay got home, he was cooking hamburgers (in the drizzle) when he came in and said a power line/transformer was on fire across the street. I called 911, told them my address, they wanted to know the address where the fire was. I said, just tell them my address, they will know where to go, they battled my house fire just a month ago. Sure enough, just a few minutes later the great Green Creek fire department was at the scene of the electrical fire. Before they arrived, we watched in amazement, the white and orange colors of the fire, so unlike a regular fire, and the humming noise was very loud. It went out, then started back again and about 30 minutes later we were without power and phone. We decided to go on to bed around 8:30pm after opening all of the windows in the box that will open. I told Jay that we were REALLY roughing it now, without power/air/water. The power came back on around 10:30pm, so we managed okay.




On Friday, as Jay was taking the girls to school the transmission went out on the Suburban. This is the same car we had the transmission replaced in just 3 years ago when it stranded us in FL and we had to pay 3 times the normal amount to get it rebuilt. So we are down to one car, and that car has a cracked windshield and the wipers do not work. PRAY FOR US!

We have decided that we should change our last name from Jones to Job. I have been reading in Job the last few weeks trying to keep his attitude, trying to remember no matter how low we go, God is always with us, taking care of us. Pray that God will continue to teach me patience throughout these trials, and that I will be open to listening to what He has to tell me. On the bright side, the house is moving along, some of the floors have been torn out and the burnt pieces in the walls and where the roof goes has been replaced with new wood. It is nice to see new stuff being done, the carpenter told us this week his goal is to have us in the house by Christmas, so we are praying that things continue to go smoothly and the time line keeps moving up!! haha

After re-reading this blog, it seems like we have had a rough 2 weeks, and we have. Know though, that God IS WITH US, and we feel His presence in our lives even while we are down. Have we asked, what else can happen? Yep, but we are taking each bad thing and looking toward the positive and knowing that God has something good in store for us, as long as we continue to look toward Him for our needs.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Things NOT To Say To Someone Whose House Has Burned Down!

This is my Top ? List of Things NOT To Say To Someone Whose House Has Burned Down!
It has no number right now because I will add to it as people say stupid things...
The Number 3 thing that you do NOT say to someone whose house has burned down is...the contractors say 6 months to rebuild, hah, you better plan on 9-10 months.
The Number 2 thing that you do NOT say to someone whose house has burned down is...oh, I know how you feel, my house has burned down twice!
The Number 1 thing that you do NOT say to someone whose house has burned down is...my buddy, his house burned down, not once, not twice, but 3 THREE times. He just rebuilt everytime!

Fire Update

Good Morning, I wanted to update my blog on the progress of my house demo. This picture was taken the day the fire happened on 7/21/09.


This picture was taken 8/13/09, my house has no roof at all, only my chimney.


You can actually stand in the living room and see my bedroom window and closet.


This is starting to get to Jay, pray for him. He has tried to be strong through most of this, but I think it is really hitting home now. He is worried about the brick being structurally sound, I try to tell him the contractors know what they are doing, but he is still worried. He is outside the box now with the contractor and building inspector. I hope he is getting all of his worries out and they will reassure him. I know that God is in control and He would not have left the brick for us if it was not safe.

School started for the kids on Monday. We are trying to get into a morning routine that works for them to get ready. They seem to be okay, they like school.

I have tried to start inventory on the stuff in my house that was ruined by the fire. Boy, this is a hard task. I lost so many pictures of my babies! I try to keep in mind that my babies are still here, so that takes some of the sting away. I am a very sentimental person, so it still hurts.

I hate the camper, but I love the Lord so I am trying to be a trooper about this. Countdown to the end of the year is always in my mind, just 5 1/2 months to live in the box. Pray for God to make this go by very fast for us.

Pray for my mom and sister also. We have no way to wash our clothes and they have taken this task over for us. I thank them so much for doing this, as I know it is a chore. I will probably start going to the washerette soon to relieve the burden.

All in all, we are still surviving, but still requesting daily prayer for God to get us through this and be with every day, all day...to let people see that we are trusting in God and not letting this get us down.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Thankful Thursday

I have many things to be thankful for!

Today I am thankful for SHOWERS!

It has now been 2 weeks and 2 days since our house fire. Slowly we are getting into a routine living in the camper. We (on Tuesday) were able to take showers in the camper. Do not take advantage of having a shower in your own home. We have for 2 weeks gone to my Dad or Mom's house to take showers. Yes, lugging all of our toiletries back and forth is a pain! Our camper shower is tiny, but functional. So for the past two days I have been able to take a shower here, and it is a joy! We do not have permanent running water from our well, but Jay turns it on when the camper holding tank needs refilling, so we are managing! We got power on Saturday, so yeah, we are no longer needing the generator.

Lord, thank you for the modern luxuries of water and power, things we have taken for granted for so long. Thank you for continuing to give me strength to live through this ordeal, even though some days I get so down. You are so good to me!

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Smoke Detectors

Okay, so the weirdest thing happened this week at the Jones Box. I have heard different reports from different people regarding smoke smells. Some believe that you will get the smell out and some say it NEVER comes out. The restoration people took every stitch of clothing we owned last week after the fire. They say that they have a special way to clean them, and they guarantee their work or we do not pay. I have been excited hoping that our clothes could be saved. High hopes, I know.

So, on Thursday, they brought out the emergency set they took 1st to sort through which mostly contained my clothes. When the delivery driver started bringing them into our box the smoke detector started going off. Jay thought that maybe the battery was old and took it out. After the driver left, I told Jay that I had just purchased and replaced the battery, (of course I wanted to know that we had a good smoke detector), so he put it back up. When we started opening the bags of clothes, we noticed the smoke smell, but the detector noticed it more. It started going off and would not stop. So Jay and Emily took the clothes back outside and the alarm quit going off.

Now, Jay thought that it was funny. I was depressed. My hope is wavering on the restoration of my clothes. We kept one pair of my pants out and my sister washed it in the normal wash cycle and the smell was still there. She is going to rewash it tomorrow after soaking it in vinegar and see if that works. PRAY FOR THE VINEGAR! I do not want to go shopping for new clothes, it is not fun for me.

Also, I understand that in the end of all of this I will have a great house! It will be all new and I will love it. I want people to know why I am not excited about this. I LOVED MY HOUSE!!!! God gave me that house 9 years ago and I loved every piece of it. It had its flaws, like any house, but it was mine and I was proud of it. I know that God has His reasons for this, and in the end I will probably come out better, but please understand that right not that does not make any of this better. For example: Jay and I went to Lowe's last night with the girls to get pickets to fix the dog fence where the fireman had to cut it down. While there, we just stopped by the kitchen department. Let me rephrase that, Jay MADE me go to the kitchen department to look at cabinets and counters. Do you have any idea how many choices they are? How do you pick the right one? How do you know that when you put it in your house that it will look okay? How do you know your choice is right and that you will be able to live with it for many years to come? SCARY, SCARY!

So, while you look and listen to me, and think that I am handling this pretty well, know that inside I am asking those questions about everything we are doing right now. I am second guessing everything. I pray for God to give me guidance, please pray that I will be patient in seeking His will in this MESS!