Buying a house has been one trauma after another but Ike definitely topped them all! We moved back to Houston on July 1st, then Rick and Stephen left for their Philmont trip (already discussed in an earlier post) and were gone until the third week in July so house-hunting couldn't really begin in earnest until then.
We finally found a house in mid-August and closed within fourteen days but the sellers wouldn't move out before closing. I can't really blame them as they were frightened by the number of closings that have failed. Anyway, after they moved out we finally were able to get into the house to clean and paint. The house didn't LOOK dirty but it was filthy. They had 3 cats and a dog and the place had a distinct litter box smell that we couldn't seem to get rid of. After having the carpets cleaned once, and enzyme treated twice we finally just pulled it up and replaced the pads underneath (and seeing the pads pretty much convinced me that those cats NEVER used a litter box) so finally the smell was gone. The paint looked great and we've purchased a new beveled glass front door that will be installed later so....fast forward to Monday the 8th of September.
Our sea freight finally arrived and the entire day was spent unloading the shipment. On Tuesday two of the guys returned to the house and we started unpacking a LOT of things (but not all since nothing gets put away, it just lays around on every available flat surface). Tuesday I began organizing my kitchen (always the first priority) and then Wednesday morning was the first BSF intro class. The timing was bad but if I didn't go there was a good chance I wouldn't be put into a BSF group so I went to the intro class and then back to the house to finish the kitchen and begin on Paul's room (the number two priority). Wednesday night we got the last of the things from the apartment we've been living in since July 2nd and cleaned it from top to bottom.
Thursday morning news "Hurricane Ike Aimed at Galveston!" so a great deal of time on Thursday was spent in a fruitless search for water and D batteries. I got up at 6 a.m. on Friday and finally found the water but the batteries continued to elude me. We did a few moving in things on Friday afternoon and evening, set up the TV and game room and Stephen got his entire room unpacked but that night....here came Ike.
Saturday rained ALL day, no power, hot, damp (we're in Houston what else needs to be said)! It wasn't sunny enough outside to be able to see inside but sustained minimal damage, part of our fence is down from a falling limb but otherwise just scattered winds and some water in a few downstairs windows, the windows didn't break, just seeped in with the 100 mph winds but of course that necessitated pulling back carpet so the pad and foundation would dry making any kind of moving in/putting away exceedingly difficult.
On Sunday we decided we could deal with a hurricane or we could deal with moving in but dealing with both was just beyond our abilities to deal and the entire mess wasn't going anywhere so we buttoned up the house and headed to Fort Worth and my parents where we've had a bed that isn't damp, air conditioning and laundry facilities. Thank you LORD for great parents!!!!
Anyway...today we're heading back to Houston to actually move into our house and settle down, hopefully with some power soon. So...any of you who've been wondering what we've been up to...you're up to date! Once life returns to some semblance of normal I promise to blog more regularly and on more important topics. Can't wait for BSF to really get started, I'm sure there will be lots to talk about!
For now, I'm going to listen to something by Tina Turner (another Ike survivor) and count my blessings!
