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We have our Kingsdale house nearly cleaned out of everything we own. It is all stashed in 2 PODS which are in the driveway, or in a storage unit or in our new 'vacation' home. Not much of it is in the vacation home. It is a tiny house. It's adequate and fairly comfortable, but whoever wired that house didn't believe in using electricity. It only has one outlet in each room, with the exception of the living room which has two, the kitchen which has 3, one dedicated to the fridge, and the bathroom which has NONE!! It is just crazy to try to blow dry your hair and then unplug the drier to plug in a curling iron. The only way to be able to do that is to take out a light bulb and put in one of those screw in sockets. Then you can't see. Something will have to change there before this is over!!
Everything is such a mess. Boxes and boxes of stuff had to be gone through, separated, the missing parts of whatever found and put together and then repacked, labeled and then Jim took them either to the storage unit or to the PODS. Once they go into the pod, we won't get into them again until we move back into a house. I'm thinking by that time we could just set a bomb under the pod and blow it to kingdom come. Already I have no idea where stuff is!
This is the craziest thing I've ever been through. I keep thinking I can get the work done and things will go back to normal. I know that isn't ever going to happen. Life will normalize, but it will never go back to what it was. This is my new life. I'm not adjusting as well as I'd like to. I guess I'm not very trusting and deep down I'm afraid that someone won't do what they should and we'll end up losing. Losing what I'm not sure, and who it might be that will do this I don't know. I'm just so unsettled. I said afraid, but that's not really a good word for what I am. I think I just need to be medicated!! haha.
Matt and Jaime are still living out at my friend's house. They have been there so long that Matt started paying them rent. My friends have two grown boys, both live down in Arkansas. So they are just in love with James. of course like all little tiny children James is a cute as can be. He has this beautiful blond curly hair that just makes him darling. Blue eyes and a sweet way about him. He is talking now and loving it. Some 2 or 3 word groups, but mostly he likes to say things in threes. Like "Mike, Mike, Mike".. or "truck, truck, TRUCK!!" He loves trucks and motorcycles and Papa and of course MIKE. Mike is Kathy's husband. I think they are wanting to become a part of our family just to get closer to James! They think he is the best thing since sliced bread. Neither of their boys are married so they don't have any grandchildren yet.
Dianna and Frank are also working through this mess. They have a house they are renting, but both are as scared as I am. The trouble is none of us know what the heck we're doing. They have put a building moratorium on new construction for 90 days here. Supposedly to allow time for the people to get all the debris cleared and cleaned up. They were paid off on their house, but they have to itemize their contents. What a joke that is. How in the world are you supposed to have any idea what all you have?? No one knows that. Even though they had their house just blown away, it's surprising how many things they were able to get out. Things that meant something to them. Her dishes and pots and pans were all sitting in the cupboards like nothing had happened. It's crazy what happens in these storms. Earthquakes are like that too. Everything in a big heap and there in the middle of all the junk will be a fragile wine glass or something like that. I found the crystal dome to Dianna's footed cake plate in a rubble pile at the curb. Somehow it had been thrown out of the house, to where no one knows. Then after the kids had taken the stuff they could get their hands on out, they came and pushed the debris out to the curb with a tractor like thing. nothing gentle about that. It pushes trees and bricks and cinder blocks like they were pebbles. They had all the debris pushed up into big piles for the grabbers to come load. In the middle of that I saw this piece of glass that looked like it wasn't broken, so being the curious person I am, I went to look. I dug around it carefully and pulled it out of the pile without a scratch on it. Amazing. They are trying to figure out how to find a house they want to build and how to get things going. Of course there are a million contractors about that will be more than happy to tell them just how to do everything. Both of the kids are much to savvy to just jump into something.
This is going to take a lot of time to figure out. I really don't want to just fix it back to what it was.. We need something that's different than what we needed 25 years ago. We don't need those 2 front rooms, nor do we need an upstairs. It was great when we moved there, but now our family is different and we have different needs.
Anyway, Joplin is becoming a city with a huge swath of bare ground right through the south side. Those poor trees that are still around are trying to leaf out. They have leaves coming right out of the bark that's left. Some right out of the wood. Our tree experts are telling everyone that the trees are dead, they can't be saved. They are doing that because there is enough energy from last year left for them to produce leaves, but they won't make it through this next cycle. Next spring they will all be dead where they stand. They all have to come out. The one that came down at the Pearl house has a base 46 inches in diameter. It was a HUGE tree. It is solid all the way through too, a very healthy and old oak tree. It's a shame it fell. We have always been afraid that it would come down on the house. Had it done that, it would have squashed the house like it was made of cards. Trying to get that stump out has been a real trial. So far we have not been successful at getting anyone who will come grind it or take it away. There is a big machine here that comes along and gets it's giant claws around stumps and just pulls them up and sets them on the back of a flat bed truck. It's something to watch.
We were told today that phone lines are in and that they should be able to hook us up again tomorrow. I went out and looked. I didn't see any wires up there that weren't up there when I asked that guy if they were there. That was a week or so ago. He said there weren't any phone lines up. I haven't seen them out there working so I'm not sure the gal on the phone knows what she's talking about. We'll see tomorrow. If they don't come and do it I'm afraid Jim will be on the phone again with them. He is not very understanding with the ineptitude of the people we seem to get on the phone. I'm hoping they do get it in pretty soon. We have work to do for the reunion we have coming in September.
Jim is done with his computer, so I guess I should sign off and get finished up too. Talk to you again when I can. Hopefully that will be soon.
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