Two days after my last post (see April 22, 2012), our house burned down. As you can see, it's been over six months. I suppose most bloggers would have kept a close account while going through a tragedy, but it's not me. When chaos strikes, I'm consumed by it and work towards healing from it. My husband and I are starting to heal, we're getting back into a "normal" routine. A lot has changed. We've, well, obviously moved. We hadn't planned on moving on April 24th, but suddenly half of our belongings were crushed (bedroom collapsed into the living room), or damaged by water and smoke, and the remnants were in the lawn. Family and friends came with cars and trucks and helped load our belongings. For a couple of weeks, everybody cleaned and sorted. That smoke is TOXIC. Not campfire cozy smoke smell. It took five or more times to wash clothes, and some materials--well, they still smell like smoke after six months. We lived with family for a few months while we searched for a new home-- this time buying a house (yay!). During those months, the belongings we could save were divided between about four different households. Now everything is in our new home. We still have things to replace, but for the most part we are settled.
I miss writing, but I'm back now. I'm planning on getting back into my writer's group on a regular basis and going to their writer's conference next weekend. I will be getting back into writing my stories and poems.
We were fortunate. No one was hurt, we had tons of support, and we were able to save most of the irreplaceable things like photos, memorbilia from grandparents, and some of my writing. I could care less about losing my Ipod, but I still mourn losing half of my journals. I've kept journals since I was in second grade, and I lost most of the journals I kept as a young girl. A few flew out the window and one of the firemen brought them over to me (yes, we watched a good portion of when it was burning down). They were in rough condition, but you could still read them so I wiped off the debris and used a hair dryer to dry them off. They're still in a box with cedar chips to get rid of the smoke smell. (I'm quite savvy on fire clean-up now!)
It feels good to be back. Thank you for your patience!
