Day 102

Whew. Another exhausting day. I took the day off from work because we had several workers coming to the house. As I waited for arrivals, I took advantage of the time, cleaning the upstairs bedrooms and getting them ready for the carpet cleaner (we had ground in sheet rock dust in the carpets) whom I scheduled to clean the carpet in Mark’s house and in our upstairs. As I cleaned, I even hung some things on our newly painted walls (after wiping them down from all the sheet rock dust). After the plumber arrived and got to work (he had a long list of items and will need to schedule a second day to finish everything: replace our hot water heater, hook up the kitchen sink, garbage disposal and dishwasher, cap pipes in our half bath and reroute pipes for the sink, cap our wet bar sink since we’re not installing it, and hook up the downstairs bathroom sink, the master bathroom sink and tub) I took out my paint stuff and painted the dining room ceiling. Later, the marble man arrived to give us an estimate of reinstalling our marble bath tub and building shelves on our bathroom counters out of marble. We discovered, to our dismay, that our bathroom cabinets are two inches too wide for our marble counter tops. Thankfully, he said it would be easy to build a shelf and cap the ends to cover the two inches. He also said that he should be able the mold the marble (which has bowed a little since we took it apart) back to its shape. Once he left, I resumed painting and painted our hallway and entry. Like the living room, we were able to get a close enough match on the paint that we do not have to repaint everything. The plumber didn’t leave until late and I finished painting almost as late. But, aside from trim, doors and touch ups, we are now finished painting the house! Hurrah! I am very thankful. We have made very good progress. So many who have had significant damage to their homes are still unable to live them still. The majority of damaged homes I see in the neighborhood are still studs inside.

Speaking of thankful. I remember a some folks I forget to mention my thankfulness for in my email on the 26^th of November (I knew I would forget someone – that is why I asked for forgiveness ahead of time). I’m thankful for my father in law who drove from San Antonio and stayed a week to help Jon on the house. I am thankful that he let Jon borrow his suburban when our van was acting up on Jon’s trip to Texas to pick up our shepherd, Scout. I am also thankful for my daughter Heather, who has scrubbed and rescrubbed kitchen and bathroom floors, removing bayou muck and later sheetrock dust and globs of sheetrock mud. I am thankful also for Jon’s parents and his brother, Bubba and his wife Vonnie, who opened their homes to our kids and Bob’s kids immediately after the storm.

God is good and He works through the hearts of those who love us.

Thank you, again, all of you, for your love for us.

Grace & Peace