One Month Later

I am slowly unraveling. Living in furnished temporary housing is much, much harder than I thought it would be. It feels really odd to be laying on someone else's sofa, eating off their dishes and sweeping their floor. It's better than a hotel, but not by much. So far, the dryer has broken down, the television no longer works, and we've nearly locked ourselves out more than once due to a faulty door lock. Sigh.

A bit of good news - the remediation service finished their side of things, and our contractors started work today. It was such a relief to see them start tearing out all of the burned carpet and drywall. It's almost as if with each smoky piece they carry away, they take a little bit of residual fear with them. I'll be so happy when they are all done and we get to move into our house again. Being responsible for two homes that are on opposite sides of the city from each other is wearing on me. But enough whining from me - tomorrow is a new day.

The Aftermath

It's been two weeks since I stepped into our house to find it swirling with ashes and smoke. It's still hard to wrap my head around the fact that what was essentially a very small fire has caused such an uproar in our lives. I still shudder every time I think about the fire inspector telling me that if I'd arrived home minutes later, everything we owned would have been gone. I am so thankful - we were very, very lucky to have escaped with only a few rooms of damage.

At this point we've secured temporary housing, and are hoping that we'll be able to get back into our house in a month or so. It is a very surreal feeling to watch folks in haz mat bunny suits sifting through your stuff determining what should be saved and what should be deemed "non-salvageable". I'm trying not to think too much about the stuff we've lost.

I do want to say a giant THANK YOU for the outpouring of support from each and every one of you who commented and sent emails about my last post. It really helped to know you were out there thinking about us during this rough time. And to Dee, if you are reading, I don't think you can really know what this is like until you've been there. I'm so sorry you have, and if I can help, just ask.