we're officially in a state of emergency here. and while there are bad things happening (anthony's parents had a flooded basement yesterday his granny's house has 3 ft--at least--of water sitting in it) i'm choosing to focus on the positive
(the walmart a mile from my place--saturday mid-day)
i don't have any firsthand sensational pictures to post like many of my friends do and at first i was kinda bummed about that then i quickly realized how silly that is
(on the other side of me, less than a mile away)
the fact that i don't have any awesome storm pics no waves going through my backyard no rivers down the street
(another major intersection--this one about 3 miles away perhaps)
it means that i'm safe secure and dry
many that i love aren't so lucky
(downtown street)
i will say that i don't know the status of the storage unit just yet (and am oh-so-thankful i secured renter's insurance on the contents of it just friday!) but the things there are just that--things. emi is safe i am safe anthony and his family are safe
we're good :)
i'll leave you with a couple of more humorous things from the storm (because as you can see above there is much in the way of seriousness but i--we--need to laugh)
facebook status from a friend: K, now we know it is bad. Naomi Judd just called the TV station to report that her fence has been knocked down and that her buffalo are now roaming wild! Flooded house, yes, but wild buffalo, lookout!!
and further proof that nashville not only doesn't stop the music for water--it also doesn't stop creativity! "Tennessee's Not Landlocked Anymore"
this one's not funny...just poignant. i love this photographic proof that you can't stop the music here, no matter what. i think there's a whole blog post just in that statement
no one on facebook can stop talking about the rain and there are reasons why
namely this one
it's supposed to get worse less than a mile from my house is a walmart that is nearly submerged people are using boats to get stuff out of their flooded houses inSANE
Um, I haven't done these for awhile. First up, a bit of a wordle...
and
i have two.
i'm so glad April is OVER! (lost the house, car got banged in parking lot, er/hospital visit...yeah, i'm glad the month is gone. may has to be AWESOME after all this.)
and: reminding the weather: it's APRIL showers!!
yep, it's raining cats, dogs, chickens, etc in nashville today i've gotten out in it once--to teach a voice lesson this morning. i have another voice lesson to teach late this afternoon. and this in-between rainy, thundery day? i'm parked on my couch with the remote in one hand, computer on lap, and a cup of coffee next to me. it's a good day for all that.
bummer too, because cheekwood, one of my favorite nashville spots, is free today. however, i hardly think "botanical gardens" and "torrential rain" is really a good mix...so i'll suck it up and pay the admission on a pretty day soon!
emi is sacked out on the bed, i'm feeling rather snoozy myself...considering the earlier events of the week...this may just be the perfect way to spend my day after all.
1. packed and got overwhelmed by all the packing to do 2. called in the troops, and between the army and i we got the entire house packed and cleaned by 10 pm sunday night! 3. witnessed anthony's little sister hailey get baptized at church on sunday 4. was hit by a car in the wal-mart parking lot on sunday 5. said goodbye to my house with more than a few tears as we locked everything down on sunday. thankfully, at that point only anthony and his parents were there to witness that. (and jiminy the cricket came back in from the backyard one more time.) 6. turned in my keys to the real estate agent on monday and received a check in return 7. went to dinner celebrating hailey's baptism at maggiano's on tuesday night 8. followed dinner with an er visit. i'd been short of breath all.day and between anthony and his parents was forced...ordered convinced to go see a doctor 9. was admitted to the hospital overnight (with the threat of it being more than an overnight stay). turned out to be asthma exacerbation--a flare up of a condition i thought i had grown out of at the age of 12. anthony says i gave him quite a scare--i'm sure the oxygen mask, ivs, my incredible pain at being stuck the first time they drew blood, and the fact that i still couldn't catch my breath even by the time they got me into my hospital bed didn't help in that at all. 10. was released approximately 14 hours later (noonish wednesday) and taken to anthony's mom's house until she deemed me fit to go home. she came and vacuumed all my furniture and did a little extra unpacking too when she dropped me off onto her couch. amazing woman that she is :-D
so they say bad things come in 3s. i'm thinking starting with anthony's granddaddy's illness and death, the foreclosure, and this er visit and hospital stay we're due for a run of good things.
can i get an amen?
(for those of you who are new followers from monday--thank you! i promise i'll get to each and every one of your blogs if you commented--i had internet for approximately 5 hours before i started feeling really bad)
Hello all! I'm being featured today at a new favorite site of mine--I discovered it about a month ago and have been so grateful to find a little niche of the blogging world that I can wholeheartedly support and love!
The site is called WOW (Words of Wisdom) and I'm today's featured BON (which sounds like a delicious candy but is actually the abbreviation for Blogger of Note). I'm so incredibly honored to be chosen for this!
I'm supposed to introduce myself. The first post I'm linking to should do a rather good job of that, but here's a quick peek!
I'm Lora, recently turned 29, living in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm a Jesus-lovin, wonderful man dating, liberal, slightly crunchy, healthful (kinda) cooking, recycling wanna-be guru, yogi, clotheshorse, fun loving, just plain loving, living in the moment, eclectic gal. I embrace my ancestry wholeheartedly and try to remember my roots--midwestern (known as a yankee down here in the south though!), German and Irish. Sláinte!
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
I truly believe life is all about the journey and those you choose to share it with. And what an incredible ride I'm having! If you've been around the last couple of weeks you'll understand why I'm keeping this intro kind of short (yup, this is short for me! :0) If not, I invite you to read the posts starting March 31 or so on to now. I firmly believe that this is part of my story to share with people at large because GOD deserves the glory for the amazing things that are going on in the midst of a situation most would deem hopeless. A.m.a.z.i.n.g. things girls and guys!
Ok...so I'm literally sitting in a McDonald's parking lot for the wifi signal...and it's 11:42 pm. And my wonderful amazing boyfriend is worried sick that I'm crazy enough to do this, and I promised him I'd leave at midnight. Soooo I'm going to link you to a few posts that will give you a glimpse into who I am...and I will visit you all very soon! (I should have my internet up and running by 4pm today thank GOODNESS! I'm an addict y'all!)
having to be out of this house in a 10 day turn around the first two days of which i spent working all.day.long making it an 8 day turn around quite plainly, sucks
don't get me wrong--i'm still so grateful for God's grace and abundance in this situation
but it still hurts to say goodbye to this house that i cherished painted, decorated, loved repaired, bought furniture to fit, cherished, planted gardens
and right now my muscles are screaming my body aches and i can't remember the last night i slept for more than 4-5 hours
i've had some help more "troops" coming in tomorrow (quite honestly i'm embarrassed by what a disaster zone the house currently is) swallow the pride accept the help accept the not knowing what's in each box because i don't have the time to lovingly, luxuriously pack each one and others are kind enough to do it for me
right now i really worry that i won't be done in time
but i know it'll happen even if i take most of this crap to the dump!
prayers for my stamina, strength, and patience would be much appreciated and mourning--i haven't mourned the loss of this place just yet and i'm not positive when i'll be able to do that.
off to bed now--perhaps i can get 5 hours of sleep tonight :0) troops arrive at 9 am must.be.up.
although i feel kinda awful because i've spent the majority of it filling up trash bags to go to the dump or trash bins. ah well. i DID make a recycling run too. and i'll make another one tomorrow. and likely another one saturday.
ah well. once i get moved i'll go back to my normal good-girl cloth napkin, cfl, recycling bin ways. and maybe even come up with a few more ways to help out this earth God has put us in charge of :)
I know we're not all in the same situations right now, so adapt this to what you're doing right now (things i'm discovering through pregnancy, mommyhood, running, new job, whatever)
mine?
Ten Things I'm Discovering Through Moving (some of which i already knew but have been reminded of)
1. I'm a horrid packrat. 2. No one needs this many buttons, safety pins, or receipts. 3. Help is golden. 4. I don't care nearly as much about being organized when I have a deadline to meet. Throw it in a box and sort it out later! 5. Dishwashers breaking when one needs to wash a load and a half of dishes sucks. However, if you no longer OWN said dishwasher...oh well! :) 6. Breaks are golden too. 7. No matter how prepared I am, or how much time I have to move, I am STILL in panic mode at the end. This move I wasn't prepared at ALL (literally found out 10 days before the moveout day that I had to be out that day) and I'm not nearly as stressed. Why? Because I'm prioritizing. Those things that are precious and valuable to me are already packed or earmarked to be with me. Those things that aren't I couldn't care less about. Dump and Nashville Rescue Mission--both will be bursting at the seams with my donations on Friday! (I guarantee you I won't be such a packrat in the future. Sentimental? Yes. But for scrapbooking and stuff. Not for stupid things that don't matter.) 8. Ellen playing on the DVR while I'm packing in the living room = priceless. 9. There isn't enough caffeine in the house. 10. I'm going to be a much better person for this move. :0)
allow me to recreate a conversation that happened yesterday, between a friend of mine and me. you'll play my friend.
remember how i told you on friday that i felt like the answer, the solution, was something that no one had thought of yet? that no one had imagined yet? do you also remember that i told you i felt like someone in my network of churches had a property that they needed taken care of? that somehow we would work out a mutually beneficial arrangement? well
yesterday (saturday) morning anthony called me after i taught my first voice lesson of the day he said "when you come over tonight, dad has a proposition for you of a living arrangement...that could include emi" (emi and i being separated has been the hardest part of this whole thing for me. many tears shed) he went on to say these exact words: "it's a scenario i had never even imagined would be a possibility"
it was at that point that i said, "um, i need to tell you something. i told laura and meghan both last night that i felt like the solution to the problem was something none of us had thought of yet." he got really quiet and after a moment said "ok, that's really freaky."
so i went on about my day, met my friend lajuana who was in town for a wedding reception--and she brought me boxes from their move, taught another lesson, and then anthony and i headed to his parents for dinner.
after everyone had cleared out from dinner and we had finished watching...whatever sport was on that night (i believe it was the twenty (20!) inning baseball game...) anthony's dad proceeded to tell me
how his father (anthony's grandfather) has an early form of Parkinson's as well as a dementia they are certain is Alzheimer's anthony's grandmother is already in an assisted living facility and while the family knows that eventually he will probably have to move there as well they also want to honor his desire to stay in his home as long as possible
however, he's been doing some dangerous and scary things lately which could just be stress with his wife's recent health scares and with anthony's other grandfather's sickness and death (they were friends) or it could be his dementia worsening
there is a doctor's appointment soon first part of may to do some testing and analysis to see what exactly is going on
he has a caregiver who comes to the house daily through the week she cooks breakfast and lunch for him and leaves him a dinner that he doesn't have to cook (normally a sandwich) and she takes care of his bathing, dressing, etc he loves having her around (she's been there for at least 2 years) and they are even going to increase her hours a bit while they figure out exactly what's going on
so david (anthony's father) was quick to tell me that what they really need is someone to act as a caretaker for the house not to keep an eye on his father necessarily (although i would be there to know if something crazy happened in the middle of the night!) but to keep an eye on the house and take care of it
are you getting the picture? someone closer to me than i would have imagined described to me the exact scenario that i KNEW would happen i just had no idea it would come this quickly or from a source so close
anthony's father went on to say that if his father has to be moved to a facility in the near future they would still appreciate it if i would stay in the house because with the way medicare and all that works they can't sell the house until after both his parents pass away
he went on to say that even if i start working full-time again they would like me to stay because that way they won't have to find someone else AND i can squirrel away my money and start rebuilding what was lost to me over the last 20 months.
isn't God amazing? on the way out to the car i looked at anthony and said "um, i have to tell you something else i also told laura and meghan that i felt like someone had a property they needed taken care of..." this literally stopped him in his tracks as he said "you've GOT to tell mom and dad this"
well, i haven't had a chance to tell them but i will and i didn't want to leave you hanging :)
anthony and i went to the house yesterday i'm going to have a great setup where emi and i will live in the bottom half of the house they're moving furniture out so that i can move my stuff in and feel right at home we'll even have our own entrance next to the carport (it's a tri-level split level) i'll have to go upstairs to cook and stuff but the top floor will be all his so he doesn't feel like i'm closing in on his space i like that :)
OH, but i will have to go to the tip-top floor once in awhile you see, there's this great deck on top of the carport and on that deck i can put my patio furniture including my chaise so that i can sun ahhhhhh oh and my herb garden? it can live there too or under the carport depending on how much sun the deck gets all day long
and i'll grow my vegetables too (his grandpa is actually kind of excited about that)
all the things i was mourning the loss of emi--restored my garden--restored the use of a piano--restored--it's in the portion of the house i'll be living in, and his grandpa is looking forward to it being played again :0)
i'm so thankful for a God who asks me to be obedient to put down the pen and paper and stop with the formulas
because He has one in the works that is SO much better.
(ps...david was awakened at 4 am on saturday with this idea. so it truly was an idea that had never been thought of on friday :)
(titans stadium)
(the walmart a mile from my place--saturday mid-day)
(on the other side of me, less than a mile away)
(another major intersection--this one about 3 miles away perhaps)
(downtown street)
