the full story...

whew! Just when you think you've got things figured out, life throws you a curve ball. A month ago, I was sitting at my desk starting my day, drinking green tea, opening email, etc. I received a call from our alarm company telling me that the glass break sensors were going off at my house. There was a high wind advisory that day - the wind was so strong it was rattling the windows on the 19th floor of my office building. I was sure that this stiff breeze had rattled the poor windows on my 90 year old house so much that it set off the sensors, so I was not that worried as I drove home to check it out. Just to be safe.

This is what I saw when I pulled up to my house:yep, that's our adorable little house under there, the one we just purchased and moved into 7 months ago, the one we had nearly finished painting and started some front yard spruce-up.

Several of my neighbors were outside and had called 911 and were trying to get in touch with me. A very nice man who lives down the street helped me climb over the branches (in 3 inch heels) to see the back yard. At this point my biggest worry was Jackson - I needed to know that he was ok and get him out of the house. We got around to the back and I saw that the stairs leading up to the deck - and both back doors - was completely crushed, no getting into the house that way. But I could also tell that the room where Jackson's crate sits was not crushed. By the time I got back to the front yard, Cary was there and he climbed over the side of the front porch and went in to get Jackson who was shaking and terrified but otherwise ok.

Honestly the rest of the day is a blur. I was outside talking to neighbors, the gas company, firefighters, etc all day and kept just hoping that this was a dream and I would soon wake up.

The next two days were some of the most stressful and emotional days I've ever had. We hired a tree removal company to come out to remove the trees from the house and yard. Because these trees were so huge, this required a 70-ton crane sitting in the front yard.

This process was really quite amazing - especially considering how close the houses are to each other. Here is a piece of the trunk from one of the trees, with Cary standing next to it to demonstrate how big it was.

Here is one of the biggest sections of trunk from the largest tree. You can see that it is hollow in the center - that's a sign of a diseased tree.

And here is what the house looked like once the trees were gone. See my pretty navy dining room? (This was taken from the roof of our neighbor's house)

Now we're all moved out and renting a condo nearby. We've met with 5 contractors in the last week to get ideas for design and price and hopefully we will pick someone in the next week or so. The estimates so far are 6-9 months for the re-construction. sigh.

The bright side of all this is that no one was hurt and we now know all of our neighbors (including the awesome couple from Virginia who let us stay with them for a week!)

We will also get a brand new, renovated kitchen, new bathrooms, all new wiring (this makes me really happy because, call me crazy, but I did not feel comfortable with the close to 90-year old wiring in our house), new heating/AC, new windows and we're adding on a bit. As my grandmother said, "God works in mysterious ways."

Sorry this turned into a novel and congratulations if you made it through my ramblings!