Maine

We had the best little three day weekend last week! The boys had a few days off of school and we decided to make the most of it and go for a drive. Gone are the days where a drive that takes less than three hours means the Lake of the Ozarks, mayyyybe making it to St.Louis or Omaha. All great trips in their own right, but now I'm spoiled! lol. Now I can have mountains in the winter and ocean in the summer! What more could a girl ask for! ;)

So the downside was that it's off peak season, so some of the things we wanted to do were closed (oh well, we'll have to come back! lol), but that meant less crowds, cheaper rates, and plenty of family relaxation time! We went to see the Nubble Lighthouse, played on a few beaches, visited the science center, checked out the country's oldest jail, went on a nature hike up Mount Agamenticus, and yes we did plenty of outlet shopping! :)  A full but great weekend! 
I wanted to share so many pictures I didn't want to make a ginormous post, so here's a little slideshow for ya!

If you're ever in the northeast, I would highly recommend the trip to York Beach!  We had a great time & I'm sure we'll be back! :)

Parenting Fail

Well, so we thought.

So I'm a paranoid mom.  I'll be the first to admit it.  Especially when it comes to my kids' health.  Being a pediatric nurse will do that to you.  You see a lot of terrible things happen to other people's kids & the irrational part of your brain takes over and assumes that all of those terrible things will happen to *your* child, completely forgetting that the population you see is only a teeny tiny fraction of the number of kids running around.
Having said that though, I feel like I've gotten better at that part.  (ie, not assuming my child has leukemia every time he gets a nosebleed).  However, I am a little extra cautious.  I'll never be able to let that go.

One downside to moving so far away from everyone & everything we know is not only not being able to see those friends & family members as often but (selfishly) a lack of childcare.  It's not so easy to hand over the kids to Pa-Pa when you need a night out or, I don't know, knock down walls in a house built in 1860!  So all three kids, especially little Natalie who is not yet in school, get schlepped to the house quite often while Matt or both of us work.  It's either that or it doesn't get done.
BUT, that bothers me.  A. LOT.  I don't like the multitude of safety hazards that that situation poses for my kids, and the biggest one that has been in the forefront of my mind has been:

Lead Based Paint.

Growing up in a post-1970's neighborhood in St. Louis and living in equally if not more-so recently built homes in Kansas City, lead based paint was never a concern for us.  But this house is old as hell & has been neglected for at least as long ago as when the whole lead-based paint concern came to light.  So it worries me.  Granted, we're knocking down plaster from walls that have never been painted, only wallpapered (about a million times), but still.  It's flaking off of doors & it's on the baseboards & it's on the windowsills where we've been disturbing paint chips to install new windows...  It's enough to make this momma nuts. 

So out of pure precaution, I called our pediatrician and asked if we could test little Natalie.  I just wanted to be super sure that we weren't exposing her & doing everything right.  (Figuring she'd be the most at risk).  No problem.  Tiny finger prick & we were sent on our way.

Well I get a call from the nurse and that's never good.  She told me to call right away.

Me: "Hi, Nancy.  This is Stacia calling back.  How are you?"

Nurse: "A lot better than you're going to be!"

(insert Stacia's pure panic here).

She said Natalie's level came back at 27!  Twenty-flippin-seven!  @$#%^&*(!!  Anything over 5 is not okay.  Up to 45 & we're talking hospitalization for chelation therapy.  @#$%^%^&**!!!!  So she asked me to get a venous test just to be sure (first time was just a drop from her finger, this time will be from a traditional blood draw).  I asked for a level on all three kids so I can be certain they're all okay.  Sure.

Thursday, they all get their blood drawn.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday, & Monday, Mommy is silently panicking that I've poisoned my children!

Well I got a call from the nurse this afternoon, and by some miracle all three of the kids came back less than 5!!!!  YAHOOOOOO!!!! :)  I'm so relieved I cannot begin to tell you guys.  I have no idea why the first one came back so high, but I'm so incredibly grateful they're all okay!

But we're not going to go back to letting them run around the house anymore.  I'm entirely too paranoid now.  It's going to make things a little slower, but no more Natalie going with daddy to the house while mom's at work.  No more mom & dad cleaning up together while the kids run & play.  Matt's going to have to go solo until it's all cleaned up and no longer a potential danger.  It sucks, but we've gotta do what we've gotta do.  We're tossing around the idea of looking for a mother's day out program maybe for Nataile too.  That way we'd have a few hours a week we could get more done.  I'm not sure.  Hopefully though we'll have it all taken care of soon & it will be a non-issue. Sigh.  This home renovation thing is tough.

(And PS: 3,200 page views at the time I'm typing this post!  Thanks for the love guys! :)  Leave me a comment once in a while so I can know who's reading.  I'd love to hear from you all too! :)) 

Easter Fun

Ahh, Easter in the land of "cute."  It has been such a fun weekend!  And after working every weekend for many many years I am always grateful to have weekends off for holidays like these now.  They're getting so big so fast and I'm so happy to be able to enjoy these moments with my family!

So yesterday was a jam-packed day of Easter fun.  Yep, I kept my husband from more important tasks like building our house, but that's okay. ;)  It was totally worth it.  First up was cake decorating at the local bakery.  For the last two weeks there have been many fund-raising activities for Melissa Jenkins' son, the woman I told you about in my earlier post.  This was one of them, and we were more than happy to participate & have the funds go to such a good cause.  The kids got to decorate a bunny-shaped cake for Easter & take it home.  This is what happens when you let three kids' differing creative visions explode onto one little cake! lol

It ended up a lot busier than this when it was all done! lol

 Once that was done we headed to a fun Easter Egg Hunt.  It was nice because it was divided by age groups so that you didn't have great big ten-year-olds trampling over the toddlers for eggs & candy.  Hard to get a photo op if you have kids in a couple of groups though.  :/  Anyway, they had fun, got some candy, and some prizes too.

                                                

 

After that we went on a Scavenger Hunt.  About twenty or so local businesses participated and we went from place to place collecting stamps on the kids' little "maps" and collecting candy.  Once their "map" was full, they came back to the welcome center to choose an egg that contained a prize.  So cute & fun!

Natalie wasn't too sure about this whole "giant Easter Bunny" business...

 Last but not least, we made it home to dye Easter Eggs.  They are a riot every year with all of their color-combo particular-ness. 

All three hard at work

 

Natalie showing off her fave.  (Pink of course!)

 I do love these holidays!  And now I must sign off to enjoy some of Mathew's delicious Easter ham!  Hope you all had a wonderful holiday too! :)

Two Years

Two years ago today our personal hell began. Two years ago today we were thrown into one of the worst experiences of our lives (and believe me, we've been through a lot).

It was about 9:30 am. We were all having a bit of a lazy morning. It was a little rainy & gloomy out and we didn't have anywhere to go, so we were just hanging out in the living room. We hadn't even turned on the TV yet. It was April in KS~ a yucky windy storm was not at all unusual. Then it all got quiet and an ugly shade of green. We had about enough time to think "huh. That's strange..." and then it hit. The wind was so loud it literally roared and it made this horrible "honking" noise (as my son Mark describes) as the forceful wind nearly popped the windows right out of their frames. We were so stunned we didn't even get the chance to run to the basement or do any of the things you're supposed to do. And within about three minutes it was all over. We were all fine (even the animals outside) and that's what has kept me sane through this whole ordeal. My family is safe~ stuff can be replaced.

So once the storm had completely passed, Mathew and I went outside to assess the damage. The roof was damaged pretty badly, but repairable. Shingles blown everywhere and trusses broken, but livable. Gutters all blown off, 100+ year old evergreen tree knocked down, wood propelled into my windshield of my car and shattered, solid cast iron patio furniture blown 1/2 mile into the corn field and dropped so hard it bent in half, and a barn that was pushed off its foundation and only standing on a splinter.
We're all fine, this stuff can be fixed. No big deal. So we immediately called the insurance company.

And we're still not sure if this was a micro-burst or a quick touch down of a tornado. We called the weather service and the closest location was 30 miles away. They never did get an accurate measurement of the high winds in our area at all much less this. (I'm sorry. 40 mph wind doesn't do this kind of damage).

So if that was the worst of it, I'd just add it to the list of unfortunate incidents in our life and move on. But oh no, of course it can't be that simple.

Insurance company didn't come out for a WEEK AND A HALF! The guy was a jerk and didn't do anything to help us. And so began the fight. We had to purchase and place our own tarps in the mean time to futilely try and keep the water out of our house. The guy tried to claim that the storm couldn't have caused the magnitude of damage to the trusses (as he's looking at this massive tree twisted and broken in half in our yard) and wouldn't give us a dime or aid yet. Mathew was on the phone constantly trying to get help. Meanwhile storm after storm after storm rolled through. It's April in KS after all. The water literally poured into the house. The shop vac couldn't keep up with the water and the floors needed to be ripped out. Then the drywall couldn't hold onto the massive amounts of water anymore and the ceilings caved in. In some places right above where we stashed furniture in an attempt to salvage it from all the water.

After SIX weeks we finally got the manager of our insurance company's branch to come out and he brought along with him a representative from ServPro. They took one look at the place and said "you can't live here! We're going to pack up all your stuff for you and give you a place to stay while we repair the damage.". I was so relieved I cried!! Thank God we're finally getting help!!

Nope. Of course not.

We stayed in a hotel room... All five of us in one room... For 3 weeks. No house to stay in on the horizon. No money coming in for repairs. Nothing. Mathew, the real estate agent had enough, and in one afternoon found us a place to rent. (And yeah. During all of this phase we suffered yet another miscarriage. Why not add insult to injury).

So we moved into the rental house. Only a very few of our belongings given back to us so we could function. Insurance company, even though they weren't giving us enough money for repairs and we were handling it almost all on our own, said that we had enough time to fix the house come December and quit paying for the rental.

From there we had to hop from place to place. Friends houses, multiple hotels. Ten "moves" I had to put my kids through while we fought for our home. Meanwhile Mathew had to fight with insurance day in and day out to no avail. They were pulling crap like dividing our claim into two separate claims: storm damage, then water damage. Even though the water was because of the storm and because of their negligence.
(Oh, and did I forget to mention we were robbed THREE times at this point in my story? Oh yes. They left two trailers full of tools and supplies in the yard so we could work on the house and people saw that as an open invitation to help themselves. Thousand and thousands of dollars lost. Awesome.)
Then they said they wouldn't cover the barn because it wasn't on our policy until Mathew had to prove it to them. They would only pay for a tenth of the water damage because the basement started to grow mold... But the mold was because of the water and it sat because of their neglect, and it got there because of their neglect...

Omg I'm starting to feel panicky again just rehashing all of this. Let's just say that I could go on and on for a week with all of the insurance stuff we had to fight for.

So come August, we realized that we could no longer afford to keep the house and finish the repairs with what we used from our saving and with what little they gave us, so we essentially gave up. But decided to start our life over in Vermont. Now was as good a time as any. And I'm so glad we did!

Now we finally have a home again. Our own beds. My kids have their toys back. Little things we very much missed that we couldn't have for the longest time. We have our life back.


So now, at the two year mark, we think we're at the point where we've gotten every dime from them they'd be willing to give and it doesn't add up to more than a fraction of what we are owed. So now, two years after the start of our nightmare:

WE ARE SUING THE PANTS OFF NATIONWIDE INSURANCE!

I hate this guy.  :/

Word to the wise: if you have nationwide, drop them now!! They are NOT "on your side."

So, now we are hoping this is the beginning of the end. That we can finally finish all of this and put it behind us.
Wish us luck!
 I don't think I have much more fighting in me.

Tragedy Hits Home

I know I've made an attempt to convey some level of anonymity here.  I've refrained from naming the specific town in Vermont that we're now calling "home."  (Facebook friends & local friends of course know exactly where I live, but this is a public blog & I have readers that I've never met).  What I'm about to share will more than likely give that away completely, but I've decided that that little piece of pseudo-security was worth sacrificing in light of what I'm about to share. 

Let me start by saying this.  Vermont is ranked one of the safest states in the country.  This is a place where you can leave your car running in the Dunkin Donuts parking lot while you run in for your morning coffee.  A place where we were actually laughed at by our landlord when we asked for the house key (said he hasn't locked his door for 30 years!).  I looked up the latest statistics & Vermont's murder rate per 100,000 people is one.  One.  Missouri's is 7.  (Not to mention all of the other criteria they calculate.  And keep in mind that there are 600,000 people in our whole state whereas Missouri has millions).  And I looked back as far as 2001 and there hasn't been a murder in this city specifically in the last 11 years at least.
Mathew & I were raised in one of the most dangerous cities in the world.  (Currently ranked #3 in the world.  Go STL! lol).  We certainly weren't in the heart of the violence by any means, but heard enough of the tragic things that went on from day to day on the news & in the papers that we essentially became numb to it.  It was life.  But now we're far far away from all of that.  In a place where it's so easy to get lulled into that sense of security.  Where it's easy to forget that bad people can truly be anywhere.

Last Sunday, a woman was reported missing.  A woman about my age, a mom, a science teacher at the Academy.  Her car was found on the side of the road in a neighboring town still running with her two year old son, unharmed, still in the back seat.
Monday she was found dead.
Wednesday, a husband & wife were arrested & confessed to the entire nauseating & senseless crime.  All of the horrific details were given to the public and, while I won't spell them out for you here, I will tell you that it was unbelievably awful and seemingly completely without motive.  His words were that he wanted to "get a girl."  No more, no less.  He only knew her because he plowed her driveway a couple years ago & called her because he knew she would be good-natured enough to come to his "aid" when he said he needed help with a broken down car.

I never had the priviledge of knowing this woman.  But from what I hear she was a great person & an inspiring teacher, and that she absolutely adored her son.  It's absolutely horrible that something like this would happen to her, or anyone at all.

So why am I telling you about all of this?  Well, in a weird way it has made me so much more proud of where I live.  Yeah, I know I just told you that a really really bad guy just did the most horrible thing a person could do not far from my home.  But what I haven't told you yet is how my town reacted.

Since Monday, our town has been eerily quiet & somber.  There are 8,000 people in this town.  I'm certain that she didn't know *everyone.*  Yet everyone was saddened.  It seemed as if everyone lost a member of their own family.  Come Tuesday, there were luminieres lining the whole street leading to the academy where she worked, each personally handmade by her students, and great big "We love you Ms. Jenkins!" signs hanging from the building.   By Wednesday there were donation collections & fundraisers popping up in every business & at every register at the grocery store asking for donations to support her son who was left behind.  All week there have been moments of silence for her on the radio & dedications in her honor.  And today.  Today was the most impressive of all.  There was a memorial service for her this afternoon.  And today, the entire town has been draped in pink.

Every tree is lined with pink ribbon, many front porches are decorated in pink.  Even the cars at the three car dealerships in town are covered in pink balloons.  And nearly every. single. person. in this town is wearing pink.  Even my boys went to school today wearing pink bandannas around their heads in support.  Absolutely no one has turned a blind eye to this.  NO one is going about their daily business as if nothing has happened.  NO one is allowing this abhorrent couple to gain anything by what they've done.

So yes, in light of this recent event, I am even more proud of the place we've chosen to raise our family.  We of all people know that you can't run & hide from bad people.  There are going to be people no matter where you are that make bad choices.  But I am so proud to know that I not only live in a beautiful place, I live in a truly beautiful community.  And that is what makes me proud to call this place "home."

American Pickers

Ever watched that show?  Fascinating.  How two people know so much stuff about random crap is beyond me.  And the people that hoard said random crap are equally entertaining!  Mathew watches it from time to time & sometimes I watch it too.  (And frankly, sometimes just watching the show about them digging through piles & piles of junk stresses me out too much, so sometimes I don't!  I know, I'm whacko).

Anyhoo, When we acquired this crazy house, we also acquired all of the JUNK that this elderly couple stored there over the last 30 some odd years.  Most of it truly was crap.  But some of it looked pretty cool!  Most of it not necessarily to our taste, but stuff that looked like it might have value to the right collector.  So, what did we do?  We sent an email to the American Pickers show!

No, we did not get selected to be on the show.  Don't get too excited. ;)

But, we found a guy to haul away all the scrap metal & we found an antique dealer or two to take some of the old furniture, and we unloaded truckfulls of trash to the dump & went on our merry way of tearing down the walls.  Most of the junk is long gone, but there still are a few things left hanging around that we haven't found homes for.

Old photo from what the house looked like when we bought it.  Awesome, huh?

Soooo, Mathew is at the house yesterday, working on the porch and a few other things, and this random dude just shows up.  (He almost took the day off.  Glad he didn't!)  Says he's a "picker" and saw us working on this house, and he wondered if he could take a look around.  Ok, cool.  Whatever.  Well this guy found quite a few things that he was excited to have!  Several of which we didn't think had value at all & we were just going to get rid of!  After it was all said & done, we made about 500 bucks from the random junk that was left lying around!  Plus that was a few less things we had to worry about hauling away.  Sweet! :)  How cool is that!

Now, all of the windows are in in the whole house and it already looks SO much better.  With all of this beautiful weather we've been having, we're having this weird "construction ADD" I like to call it.  ("Ooh, we could start this project next!  Oh wait, if we do this then it will help the outside look better.  Oh, but we really need to start on this part...")  Aah!  It's hard to decide where our priorities are at this point.  We're just so excited to be getting stuff DONE!  Fireplace footings are poured & the floor is cut out, but we had a freeze after that was started & the basement still isn't thawed out, so that's on hold.  Matt tore out half the front porch, but found that the brick under the window needs to be re-mortared before we can rebuild to porch, so that's stalled.  The weather's nice enough to finish the back roof, so that's being torn out as of today.  And Mathew is attending an electrician's class tonight to make sure he knows what he's doing to wire the electricity.  A little bit of a lot of things are being started.  I'll be excited to see what gets finished next! :)

On the homefront though, Mark has some exciting news.  He got his braces taken off!  Woohoo!  Such an exciting moment for a kid. 

He'll have to get them put back on in another year or two, but for now he's enjoying the freedom.  Gavin, on the same day, had to have two teeth pulled to move along his orthodontic journey. :(  Poor dude.  But he did a great job and the tooth fairy was quite kind, so he's okay with it. ;)  And Natalie?  Well she's just busy being her cute little self.
I'll update again soon! :)

Progress!

Such a catch 22. I'm sad to see winter go because here it is just so beautiful. Plus, we've been so busy with the house stuff & work & everything else that I feel like we didn't get to enjoy it as much as I would have liked to. (Next year, mountain fun every weekend, I'm tellin ya!) Now I'm not being totally naive, I'm sure we'll probably get slammed with another snow storm soon before it's all totally said & done, but for the last several days it has been niiiiicceee... and we've taken full advantage. I'm so happy to have warm weather! (Not you midwest people's version of warm lol! But we're ecstatic with our 50 degrees! ;)) We can actually go to the house & put in several hours worth of work & not have crying, shivering, miserable kids hanging on our legs. "Can we gooooo noooooowwww??" Oy.

Of course, with just my luck, as soon as we have this gorgeous weather I have to work nights the last couple of days & miss it. Bummer. But Mathew had a pretty funny story from today. (Well, funny for me because I wasn't there to deal with it! lol) So anyway, today he took Natalie & Copper to the house to do some work to let me have quiet in the house & get some sleep. Usually we'll tie him outside to play (no fence yet to just let him roam) but Mathew planned to put in a few windows, so he let the dog play inside & keep Natalie company instead. (He's needy & gets lonely all by himself.) So Matt's in the living room doing his thing with the windows & the thought does not occur to him that he has just created this great big gaping hole in the wall by taking the old one out. Copper thought "FREEDOM!" and seriously leapt out of the window and took off! (He he he!! I can laugh because I didn't have to chase him down the busy street!) Well, Mathew's not exactly Copper's number one fan. He tolerates him because the rest of us love him so much. But this seriously pissed him off lol. He chased him for a little while, about a couple of blocks up to the grocery store, when he said "screw it. I'm not chasing you anymore. Bye bye." So he turns around & starts to walk back to the house. Copper thinks, "well that's no fun" and just followed him home. End of story. Ha ha! That dog is lucky he's cute let me tell ya. ;)

So anyway, now we have all of the windows in the living room installed! WooHoo! I'm seriously so excited to finally see something be *improved* on the house now instead of just torn apart! I drove by to see it on my way out to work & was just beaming. Yay! No more boarded up window in the front! :) Matt says he was drawing a lot of attention too as he was putting them in. Everyone's out walking on this gorgeous day and he said at least 4 people stopped to talk to him. So here's what it looks like:

Yeah yeah. It's still ugly, but those windows make such a huge improvement!! He's hoping to finish the windows in at least the front of the house tomorrow. Yay! Hopefully I will be able to stay awake & help him out. We'll see how that goes... ;)