Goodbye 2012

It's almost midnight on the eve of the new year. I've never been so happy to see a year pass. Though our fire happened in the fall of 2011, 2012 will always be the year I remember as 'the year we were in fire recovery.'

Seriously, 2012 can suck it.

We're so close to the end of this year. We're so close to a clean slate, a fresh year, blah, blah, blah. Alas...two hours before this year could slide on by, my oldest daughter had to say goodbye to a dear friend.

Mr. Joy, Tuna's lions head rabbit, has spent his last holiday season with us. He was incredibly sick a few weeks ago and the vet had little hope for him, but he gave him some antibiotics and fluids and the little guy bounced back and seemed to be doing just fine. Yesterday he seemed fine. This afternoon he seemed fine. Then tonight, gone. Losing a pet is so hard and watching your child endure that hurt is terrible.

What an icky way to end the year. 

Sigh. 

Other than that, we are spending the end of the year exactly the way we wanted. We are at home and we are together. It's snowing outside, but inside it's warm and cozy. The kids are eating chips and dip, drinking punch, arguing over Wii games, and waiting on the stroke of midnight. 

Next year, our son will be living in his own home and likely won't celebrate with us. Our oldest daughter will be in London, preparing to march in the New Year's parade. We will be snuggled up at home with our little ones worried sick over our big ones who aren't with us. So, this year...we're going to savor the moment for all it is worth. 

In a few minutes, I'm going to watch the ball drop. I'm going to watch the clock change to 12:01 and I'm going to welcome in 2013 with a deep, cleansing breath. 

Happy New Year!

95% Complete and Okay

This was my living room September 22, 2011.

The white areas are where the Big Guy hit the ceiling with a water hose trying to put out a fireball of super heated particulate matter. Bless his heart. He was trying to save our home, but it was too late and he needed a much bigger fire hose. 

This was my living room in May. 

The white areas in this photo are due to a coating of shellac, applied to seal the smoke into the wood so we wouldn't smell it once the home was rebuilt. The more natural wood color is new lumber, added either to bring the structure to current building codes, or to replace or reinforce heat damaged boards. 

This was our home in August. 

You could look right through the structure to the outside. This was about the time I began to cry and cuss things every time I visited the house. It was when I began to internalize that this whole mess wasn't coming to an end any time soon. It was when I knew that we weren't okay. I also knew that we weren't going to be okay for a long time to come. We were just putting one foot in front of the other, going through the motions. 

Fall brought this- walls and windows.

I was seeing possibilities again. 

Home, it was not. 

By November, we were living at home again but something was missing. 

The rest of the furniture. It was MIA. Held up in customs. BLARGH!

Well...today, December 27, 2012...15 months after the fire...

THE CABINETS ARRIVED!

How awesome is that? 

I have my living room back!

I can unpack things!

This room is...um...95% complete now. It needs base boards and a ceiling fan. It could use something to decorate the walls. But, it is homey again. It is a place I can sit and say "ah." 

Little Bean walked in, took one look at the new furniture and said with wonder "is this our old stuff?" I had to laugh, but there was a little twinge of pain. The new pieces are just a bit different than our old ones and there are things missing that will never come back again, but our house is a home again. We're back. And guess what? We're okay. The road home was just way longer (and far more scenic) than we ever could have imagined. 

  

  

Is a Fairy Tale They Say

Every year we go visit Santa and buy candy and fudge and look at the downtown Christmas lights. Every year. As in, we ALWAYS do it.

This year, we couldn't seem to find time to fit it in. First, there was the 4th grade musical. Then, the 7th orchestra winter concert. Then winter guard practice. Scholarship volunteer hours. Anime club. Teen Advisory Board meeting at the library. Band concert. And on and on it went.

I was complaining that all of the kids' activities were starting to interfere with our Santa visiting time when it hit me like a mean brick- the kids? They grew up. They aren't little kids with open schedules and visions of Santa anymore. They are teens and tweens with extra curricular activities and visions of X-boxes and iPods under the tree. No need to ask Santa.

But wait a minute! I still want to see Santa! I'm not ready to give up this yearly tradition. Not yet. Our youngest child just turned eight and it can't be over yet. Not yet.

We finally managed to squeeze a visit in this week, but we couldn't convince the Boy to go with us. We did manage a quick shot of all of us with Santa and Little Bean told him that she really wanted a puppy this year. Oh poo. (Santa handled that really well. Thank you, Santa.)

Hey, I think I see a future Santa there on the left. 

So, we're barreling toward our first high school graduation and we probably just made our last visit to Santa. This year is really kicking my butt. 

This week kicked particularly hard. My sister was in a bad car wreck. The Big Guy picked a fight with black ice and the ice totally won. We had another less than enjoyable visit with a contractor. Our hardwood furniture is still held up in customs. The high school was put on lock down for a doomsday bomb threat and later evacuated (in mid-20s temperatures) for a potential gas leak. By mid-day Friday I was functioning in one-crisis-at-a-time mode. Some folks say life marches on, but I don't think that is really true. I feel more like life is coming at us like a steam roller and if we don't keep running, running, running...we'll get run over. 

Friday night was movie night with 4 extra kids in the house (because we don't have enough kids in the house) and Saturday night was cookie night with 5 extra kids in the house. The house has been a little bit insane and we are completely exhausted. Movie night with the younger kids sounded more like a stampede of buffalo and cookie night required a mad rush to the store and resulted in me burning my finger and teaching my 10 year old the new word "mofo" which I yelled out in my best outdoor voice. The stress of the week has taken it's toll and I had to wonder why we would commit to having all of these kids over to hang out at our house at this crazy time. 

Then I looked into the kitchen tonight and saw 7 teenagers laughing and decorating gingerbread men. They were eating pizza rolls and cutting out cookie dough and drizzling melted chocolate over peanut butter balls. They were all crowded around the new island in our newly remodeled kitchen sharing some fun down time after finals. What a great way to kick off winter break. And in that moment I thought "yeah...we're home...we're going to be ok." I knew, this is exactly what we were fighting for all those long months since the fire. We're home for the holidays and all of the crazy is a whole lot easier to cope with from the comfort of our home. 

We're carrying on our new tradition of the countdown socks. This whole week, according to the kids, the countdown socks contained crappy surprises. They are right. In all the rush and stress of the week we resorted mostly to candy. The night the Big Guy fought with the ice we didn't put anything at all in the sock. Tonight, we figured it was time for something fun. We set up a sort of scavenger hunt based on Frosty the Snowman. Each clue corresponded to a set of lyrics in the song. The clues were found on a can of corn (corncob pipe), a Cinderella DVD (a fairy tale they say), a broom (a broomstick in his hand), etc. They led to container of self-stick snowman parts for snowman building. 

We confiscated their cell phones so they couldn't look up the song lyrics but that was useless because Rough Stuff is a displaced elf and she knows the lyrics to every single Christmas song by heart. She sang the lines one by one and the teenagers landed the clues in nothing flat. Next time we play this game we'll have to confiscate her. 

Now that school is out and the performances and parties are all over, we're looking forward to a very calm, quiet Christmas. 

Shhhh....

You hear that?

It's the universe laughing. Who are we kidding?     

      

The Twelve Days of a House Fire

I seem to be having a difficult time finding my Christmas spirit this year.  I’m not sure why. I’m back in my warm, cozy home. This whole house fire mess is behind me. It’s Christmas for heaven’s sake. Where is my spirit?  

I thought perhaps it had gotten packed into a moving box but I checked every box and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I bought some jingle bells for my purse because you know…every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings and all. That didn’t help.

Then I remembered what brings out Christmas spirit. It’s singing! I need to sing!

Come on! Sing with me! Ready? Here we go:

♫♫♪♫ ♪

On the first day of Christmas the house fire gave to me:

A stair with no carpeting

♪♫♪♫

On the  second day of Christmas the house fire gave to me:

2 belligerent contractors and

 A stair with no carpeting (One stair?)

♫♪♪♪♫

On the third day of Christmas the house fire gave to me:

3 unfinished rooms

2 belligerent contractors  (Seriously?) and

A stair with no carpeting (What the??)

♫♪♫♪

On the fourth day of Christmas the house fire gave to me:

4 useless insurance reps

3 unfinished rooms (The shower door didn’t come in?)

2 belligerent contractors (That behavior is totally inappropriate!) and

A stair with no carpeting (But…why?)

♪♪♫♫♫

On the fifth day of Christmas the house fire gave to me:

5 cabinets not installed

4 useless insurance reps  (Why won’t they call us back?)

3 unfinished rooms (What do you mean we can’t install the toilet yet?)

2 belligerent contractors (You didn’t finish the job, dude!) and

A stair with no carpeting (ONE STAIR?)

♫♪♫♪♪♫

On the sixth day of Christmas the house fire gave to me:

6 court cases pending

5 cabinets not installed (Where are the drawer pulls?)

4 useless insurance reps (That’s not even half the money!)

3 unfinished rooms (He didn’t bring the other cabinets, why?)

2 belligerent contractors (You don’t get paid for incomplete work!) and

A stair with no carpeting (You’ve got to be kidding me.)

♪♪♪♫♪

On the seventh day of Christmas the house fire gave to me:

7 weeks waiting for an insurance check

6 court cases pending (You can’t withhold our deposit!)

5 cabinets not installed (Um…what about the office shelving?)

4 useless insurance reps (No water in the basement?)

3 unfinished rooms (Well…when will the caulking be done?)

2 belligerent contractors (I’m not paying your materials fee!) and

A stair with no carpeting (Was he drinking?)

♫♪♫♫

On the eighth day of Christmas the house fire gave to me:

8 months of storage fees

7 weeks waiting for an insurance check (What do you mean you won’t do the inspection?)

6 court cases pending (No, you don’t get full pay for an incomplete job.)

5 cabinets not installed (No backsplashes? Didn’t we order backsplashes?)

4 useless insurance reps (How can a pumper truck of water not leak into the basement?)

3 unfinished rooms (Oh my gaawwd, the house will NEVER be finished.)

2 belligerent contractors (We already paid you $3,000, buddy!)  and

A stair with no carpeting (How do you not carpet one stair?)

♪♪♫♪♫

On the ninth day of Christmas the house fire gave to me:

9 windows without curtains

8 months of storage fees (Unlimited free storage does not end in August!)

7 weeks waiting for an insurance check (Three weeks for another inspection date?)

6 court cases pending (That wouldn’t even pass inspection.)

5 cabinets not installed (They forgot to paint that!)

4 useless insurance reps  (What is taking them so long?)

3 unfinished rooms (I’m not looking at them anymore.)

2 belligerent contractors (You ran over the neighbor’s mailbox!) and

A stair with no carpeting (Oh my gaaawwwd. Why? WHY?)

♪♫♫♪

On the tenth day of Christmas the house fire gave to me:

10 psychotic meltdowns

9 windows without curtains (The neighbors can see everything!)

8 months of storage fees (We’re storing crap that still smells like fire!)  

7 weeks waiting for an insurance check (But the check didn’t come on the Fed-X truck today.)

6 court cases pending (Unbelievable.)

5 cabinets not installed (You’ve got to be kidding me.)

4 useless insurance reps  (What do you mean heat doesn’t crack wood?)

3 unfinished rooms (Out of sight, out of mind.)

2 belligerent contractors (This is harassment!) and

A stair with no carpeting (It’s one freaking stair!)

♫♪♪♪♫

On the eleventh day of Christmas the house fire gave to me:

11 temper tantrums

10 psychotic meltdowns (I just want to cry.)

9 windows without curtains (How did we run out of money before we bought curtains?)

8 months of storage fees (Our clothing multiplied!)

7 weeks waiting for an insurance check (You mailed it when?)

6 court cases pending  (You can’t charge your personal tools to our materials account!)

5 cabinets not installed (You will not get the final payment up front!)

4 useless insurance reps (A fabric care expert? With a Master’s degree? In what? Stink?)

3 unfinished rooms (Ugh!)

2 belligerent contractors(Get off our property!) and

A stair with no carpeting (Ow! There are carpet tacks exposed on that blasted stair!)

♫♪♫♫♫♪

On the twelfth day of Christmas the house fire gave to me:

12 pages of contents inventory

11 temper tantrums (I just want this !@*! to be over already! Stupid freakin’ crock pot.)

10 psychotic meltdowns (Do not eff up my packing system! I will hurt you.)

9 windows without curtains (Who are those people and why are they slowing down to stare at us?)

8 months of storage fees (Surely, we did NOT own all that!)

7 weeks waiting for an insurance check (You mailed it where?)

6 court cases pending (I will be more than happy to file suit on you too lint licker!)

5 cabinets not installed (Dude, seriously. No more cash until the job is complete.)

4 useless insurance reps (Speak to our public adjuster!)

3 unfinished rooms (Damn contractors.)

2 belligerent contractors (Yes, we will see you in court!) and

A stair with no carpeting (Where is that carpet guy? I’m fixing to take a carpet tack strip to his hide.)

Merry Christmas.

It's Beginning to Look (a tiny bit) Like Christmas!

What's up with us this week?

Well...there's this:

"Rudolph! Quick! Santa's on fire!"

You can't say we don't have a sense of humor. 

We've been waiting on a check from our bank for a painfully long time. A check we desperately need to finish projects in the house and do other important things, like pay our contractors. Without the check (which thankfully arrived today, at the wrong address) we haven't been able to get the rest of our furniture delivered or put up curtains in the living room windows, which means we haven't put up the Christmas tree yet.

Seeing the first day of December pass without a Christmas tree in our home is MAKING ME BATCRAP CRAZY.

So, this morning afternoon I ventured into our new attic space (which by the way, is pretty stinking cool) and started digging for decorations I could put out right now.

I finally found what remained of my Grandma Nonnie's Christmas decorations. I plopped them (very, very gently) right into my favorite glass bowl.

Just seeing something of hers at Christmas time makes me immensely happy. 

Being the first of December, we also hung the countdown socks. This was a new tradition we started last year. Tuna made these and stitched them all by hand. We put something fun in the socks for each day of December and they have the added bonus of ending the question "how many days until Christmas?" That is a question Rough Stuff would ask at least 75 times in the month of December alone. 

We have warned the kids that the socks will not be quite as exciting now that we are not freshly post-fire. It was really easy to spoil them when they had nothing. They got candy and trinkets last year, but they also got some bigger gifts, cash for shopping, and even (gasp!) a treasure hunt on Christmas Eve that ended with them finding live animals, 4 guinea pigs and a lizard. There will be no such excitement this year. 

We are focusing instead on activities we can do as a family. 

We're kicking things off with cookie baking. 

We may not have a tree up yet, but we are going to Christmas it up 'round here.   

And for the 'CAUSE WHY NOT?' file:

Our Christmas tree has been recalled. Apparently it is a fire hazard. The foot pedal that controls the lights catches on fire. We have been warned to cut the cord off and return it for a full refund.  

Well of course it is. 'Cause why not?

How Do We Do It?

I hear, all too frequently, "I don't know how you do it." Well folks, the key to raising 5 kids is being organized.

Please note: We. Are. Not. Organized.

We do keep a schedule though. Scratch that. I keep a schedule. And I make the family live by it. For several years now we have lived, succeeded, and failed, by the schedule. If ever we are where we are supposed to be, it is because it was on the schedule. And probably because a cell phone alarm was set to remind us. And maybe because someone I was nagging everyone. If we forgot a kid and left them standing at the stadium without a ride, it was because someone forgot to look at the schedule.  

Here is how our whole schedule thing works-

• Everyone in the family has an assigned dry-erase marker color. 
• The schedule is created on Sunday, when Mom gets around to it. 
• If you want something on the schedule, it must be given to Mom or Dad in writing by Sunday. (It can be on a post-it note, placed in Mom's planner, or texted. Absolutely NO verbal submissions- because really...we aren't actually paying attention when we're in traffic and they're rambling on about 55 different topics per minute.)
• Anything added after Sunday is added at your own risk. If you forgot you need a cheesecake for the Great Winter Guard Cheesecake Bake-Off of 2012 and it gets added to the schedule the night before, you will get a verbal smackdown. Just put on your big girl/boy panties and suck it up. (My son will read this and point out to me that boy's don't wear panties. It's my blog, Son. My blog.)

One of the very first items I purchased after the fire for our hotel room was a giant whiteboard. I simply could not fathom how to manage our lives without the visual schedule we were accustomed to. The big, ugly board has been a staple in our lives, but...it does not fit with our new decor. No way am I putting that hideous thing in my brand new old home.

So, I went off to the craft store and made a beeline to the custom framing department. I explained what I wanted: something that matched one of my paint chips, a rustic frame, about yay big. The friendly workers promptly quoted me a price and I nearly peed myself.

I headed right on over to the pre-assembled frames and set about finding an affordable solution.

Here is how I made my prettified version of the family schedule aka 'the board':

I started with a mat board that was an excellent match to one of my wall colors, a nice frame, and a big yardstick thing. That's a technical term right there- yardstick thing.

I took a quick trip to the automotive store to buy this cute tape that I call automotive tape. Because you know...it's tape, for your auto. The Big Guy informed me that this is in fact, PIN STRIPING. I stand corrected. (eyeroll)

Use the giant yardstick thing to make your marks and then apply your auto tape pin striping. Plop the whole thing in a frame and...

Voila!

I now have a prettified family schedule that is dry-erase-marker-friendly. 

Chaos, as we know it, can now be organized, by color, down to the hour on a board that coordinates with our new decor. 

That's how we do it, folks. 

I also want to say here...in my mind, all of my photographs are beautiful, rich, and vibrant. I really believed that when we moved back into our home and there were actual lights (not work lighting) that I would be able to take fabulous photographs for this blog. Nope. Turns out you actually need some photography skills too. Blast. Photoshop does help, but the Big Guy's computer has never met Photoshop and my computer is still awaiting it's new power jack which is stalled somewhere on the East coast. Double blast.  

Thanksgiving Reflections

As we sat around our new table in our newly painted dining room on Thanksgiving, after preparing a meal in our newly remodeled kitchen in our old home...

We began our yearly round of 'What I'm Thankful For.'

You know that old saying 'you don't know what you've got until it's gone'? Too true. But, I'll do you one better: You really know what you've missed when you get it back.

What we were thankful for:

The ability to sit around our table as a family and have a meal in our own home.

Having space to invite friends and family to enjoy a meal with us.

A huge refrigerator and double oven.

A pantry.

(Yes, we seriously appreciate the ability to store and cook food for a family of seven.)

Being home.

All of us, together.

Insurance.

It's hard to really explain what it means to us to have a meal in our new/old home. Just try to imagine our situation. On September 21, 2011, after the firefighters and the Red Cross and neighbors, family, and friends had cleared out we drove to a hotel that would be our home for the next 14 days. Imagine for a minute what it was like to live in 3 separate hotel rooms with our 5 children. This was not a vacation. We did not arrive with luggage.

The kids had never stayed in a hotel so it was really a novel thing in the beginning. "They have FREE breakfast mom!" Thank heavens. Because we had no idea how far our money would last in this situation and no idea how soon the insurance company would pay. By day 14 we were mostly having hot chocolate for breakfast because those continental waffles were no longer appealing. Wonderful people lifted us up and kept us coasting on a constant supply of gift cards, cash, and donations and we were able to take most of our evening meals in a sit-down restaurant.

We began to consider dinner a sacred event. We banned visitors during the dinner hour and made a commitment to just having dinner alone with our children somewhere with a table so we could all sit together. Our days were filled with contractors, insurance agents, good people checking on us and helping us with various tasks, vet visits for the rescued pets...complete chaos. Our kids were grieving and they needed us but we were so busy trying to rebuild our lives that they felt left out. Dinner was our time to be a normal family, if only for an hour.

We kept some snacks and cereal bars in a small plastic tub in the hotel room and made our kids order milk and juice at dinner but really, nutrition was seriously lacking and we were all getting sick of eating out. We were thrilled when we moved into our first rental house. We had an actual refrigerator! And a stove! We could cook!

The excitement wore off fast as we realized we didn't own anything to prepare a meal with. The insurance company supplied a few primitive kitchen staples which might have worked fairly well for a family half our size. It was sort of like camping. We could, theoretically, prepare a meal but it wasn't fun or easy. Gradually, we purchased new pots, pans, and various utensils and meal prep got easier. We enjoyed some food in our home and even invited extended family over to enjoy some meals with us from time to time. It didn't last.

We moved to a new rental house in March and we were suddenly what you might call downsized. The new refrigerator felt like an oversized dorm refrigerator and we couldn't purchase enough food to last more than a few days at a time. In the new rental, the dining room table served as an office for me and as a home base for Operation Rebuild. We installed a large whiteboard to track construction progress and hold lists of items that still needed to be purchased. There were carpet and tile samples scattered everywhere. The kitchen nook held a table that did not hold all of us. Most meals involved sitting wherever you could find a spot and balancing your plate.

Our evenings were also packed with visiting the house to approve things, shopping for things we once owned, supervising contractors, and picking out an endless supply of construction materials ranging from paint and carpet to roofing shingles and faucets. We still considered dinner our sacred hour to regroup, but having dinner at home felt like a massive chore. No one had time to shop every few days and since we couldn't eat together eating at home just was not very appealing.

We all tired of restaurants and we seem to know the managers and waiters at every local eatery for 15 miles. We don't even need menus anymore. We had to create new family rules for ordering at restaurants to make sure the kids were getting some kind of nutrition. No soda. No fries. The vegetarian must order a protein. Fruit is your side option. Chocolate chip pancakes are not a meal. Honey mustard is not a side dish.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving.

We are living back in our HOME. There is no construction progress board because what is left to complete is extremely manageable. We have, according to the kids, a giant refrigerator. We have a pantry. We have a deep freeze. We can store an adequate amount of food for a family of 7 and not spend half of our week at the grocery store. Seriously. We can buy 4 bottles of milk and still have room to store a 22-pound turkey. Squee!

We have a sink and a prep sink. That means 1 kid can peel potatoes and 1 kid can rinse dishes without touching each other. (Can you hear the angels singing?) We have an island where several of us can prepare food at once. That means 1 kid can peel potatoes, 1 can make a crust for the dessert, 1 can mix pumpkin pies, I can make deviled eggs, and the Big Guy can put together a vegetable casserole, all while facing each other and talking as loudly as possible about 4 different topics so no one can hear themselves think. Yep. We're HOME.

When we've put together a fabulous home-cooked meal, we can all gather around 1 table and enjoy that meal together while we reflect on what we're thankful for.

I never knew how important it was for us to be able to prepare a meal together and to be able to sit together in a place we call home and eat that meal together. I'm thankful that we've learned that lesson. I'm thankful that we had each other to learn that lesson with. I'm thankful we've come through this ordeal together. I'm thankful it's over.

I'm thankful we're home.