What a weekend!

It was a VERY long weekend here!

This past Thursday evening, we took our van to the repair shop, to have the air conditioning fixed. We had decided that being "stuck" at home for the weekend would be wonderful. There would be no errands to run, just lots of family time. Happily, the van should be ready tomorrow. We were blessed to be lead to a wonderful mechanic who is fixing our van for a fraction of the original estimate.

Late Friday night, a line of severe storms moved into our area, bringing strong straight line winds, large hail, heavy rain and tornadoes. We spent approximately 30 minutes huddled together in the laundry room, after hearing that a tornado was on the ground 8 miles from our home. At one point, the whole house shook violently. The kids and I were scared, by Steven was fascinated by it all.

When we emerged from the laundry room, we discovered that we were missing nearly 70 feet of our wood privacy fence. Our power was out and the rain just kept coming.

Saturday morning, Kathy & her family stopped by to check on us, as did my in-laws. Our neighborhood didn't look too bad at first glance. My in-laws took all three kids and we stayed behind to do some cleaning up.

By late Monday afternoon, we still didn't have electricity, phone or internet service. Thank goodness we had our gas grill! We did A LOT of walking and a good amount of cleaning. All of our utilities were restored Monday night, 68 hours after the outages.

I did stitch a bit on SMO's I Love Carrots, but it was too humid to stitch most of the time. Instead, I decluttered my son's room and thoroughly cleaned my refrigerator and freezer. It was a good time to do it, as I had to throw away most of what we had stored. Thankfully, the food replacement costs will count towards our homeowners insurance deductible.

We also discovered that we are missing a few shingles and the whole back section of our roof appears bubbled. It could be 2 to 3 weeks before an adjustor gets out here. However, the insurance company told us to call if we end up with any additional damage from more rain before the adjustor makes it out here. There is a possibility of more rain this coming weekend.

To top it all off, we had some problems with the service we hired to pump out our septic system. After a week of phone calls, they finally finished the job today. Now we have a different (and highly recommended) company coming out to do a full inspection of the system, just in case. We're in prayer that the system is fine and that if it does need repairs (pump, float sensor, etc.) that the cost be minimal and the repairs easily accomplished.

We've also found a great way to increase our income. Starting tomorrow, Steven & I will be running a commercial newspaper route. One of us will pick up the newspapers at 3 AM, drop them off at various business and then come home. It's seven days per week, but should take no more than 20 hours per week. The pay is wonderful, as well. If, at any time, we are ill or need to go out of town, we can have someone sub for us. My mom & my MIL have both volunteered to help us, if needed. Isn't that great?!

One last item of interest before I go. Last week I finished up a model stitching project for San-Man Originals. It is a GORGEOUS design and I predict it will be a big seller! As soon as it's released for retail, I'll post a picture.

That's it for now, I hope! LOL