Life keeps walking between this blog and my fingers! Here is a bit of catchup.



The Allegro Bus arrived from FL in Franklin, TN on April 10, 2011. It first took us to Brunswick, GA for 5 days of recuperation at Coastal GA RV Resort in Brunwsick from our intense winter schedule at Holiday Travel Resort. There we help manage the computer and volley ball season.

From Holiday Travel 10-11

Next we were on to Gaffney, SC to Freightliner for our usual engine service. On our trek west we stopped in Dandridge, TN to visit with cousins Ruth Morgan and Katherine McNeil and husband Paul and friends Janie and Danny Noe.

Arriving at home meant picking up the recovery process from our flood on May 1, 2010. This slow process has resulted in acquiring some furniture and getting some pictures on the walls.

After much rain Roxie finally had time to spend in the yard which was not groomed in summer 2010 because of constant reconstruction demands. Vinca Minor benefited greatly from a flood but we lost 4 small evergreen trees in our Evergreen Forrest. In May we had the 13 year cicada screaming in our ears and leaving their earthly shells everywhere. They were only harmful to young trees. For our greys and beagle they are a delicacy!



May brought us driveway company! Jim and Chris Guld, www.geeksontour.com are RV fultimers and computer educators. Check out this couple’s site to see their many opportunities. While with us they presented a webinar live to LazyDays Campground and Sales Center in Seffner, FL teaching Facebook right from our driveway!

At the end of April we drove to Jackson, TN to Lambuth College (University’s) final graduation.  Roxie was among those presented with the last ever 50 year medallion of the college.  This 168 year old school was slowly choked to extenction and closed forever at the end of June 2011.  Roxie’s dad had taught there 19 years.  Roxie, at age 6, began growing up on Lambuth’s Campus.  With the help of a Lambuth Vice President she was able to claim her father’s oil portrait presented in 1989.  It now hangs in our home.

From Recently Updated

We left home on July 5 intending to arrive in Essex Junction, VT. Charles was to direct the Frustrated Maestros at the North Eastern Area Rally…NEAR! We had reluctant levelers that Charles and neighbor Ben and the Tiffin call line helped retract with much effort. Deciding to live with unlevel for 2 months we started our trip stopping at the KY Horse Park Campground. While parked unlevel we were just annoyed. The next day as we started toward VT the refrigerator produced a familiar ammonia leak. This we had experience with in our 1998 bus. Up into WV we decided to purchase a small Home Depot refrigerator and fulfill the obligation to let Charles direct the Fustrated Maestros. Finally we realized we were doing the impossible. Reluctantly we gave in, made phone calls, and headed south to Red Bay, AL to our Tiffin Motor Home plant and repair for six days. We were able to have our jack replaced and a new refrigerator installed.


We traveled the Natchez Trace Parkway from Red Bay to Franklin again regrouping our thoughts and plans. After 5 days at home we had a new route planned, food restocked, grass mowed again and a visit to Lucky beagle’s doc for an eye infection.

We are now on the way to Madison, WI for the International FMCA convention and Charles playing with the Frustrated Maestros.  Before we get there we will visit with our FL park friends, Jim and Connie Moore, in Monroe, MI. 

With not enough time to drive from TN to VT we planned a stop at a COE park in Carlyle, IL for a few days.  Part of the campground was under water from intense rains and we launched our kayak at a campsite.  The intense heat wave griping the country forced us on the lake about 6:30 AM and back off by 8:AM.  This large park with a day use area and trails provided us much space to keep our walking feet happy.

In charge in Franklin is Charles’s secretary who answers cat calls.  Lulu belongs to neighbors, Ben and Jill, and is an outside kitty.  Of course, she has all the comforts of home with lights, ESPN talk radio,  AC or Heat as needed.  She comes and goes through here kitty door Charles built.  At night Ben makes sure she is behind closed doors.

Today, April 6, 2011 the motorhome is pointed north towards our Franklin, TN home by April 10. We have spent the past four months at Holiday Travel Resort in Leesburg, FL. We have taken up residence on the same site for the past 8 years.



While there we “go back to work” with our responsibilities to the volley ball season and computer activities for the park. Read about these at www.htrvolleyball.blogspot.com and www.htrcomputerclub.blogspot.com


During the winter the Computer Club hosted traveling computer educators, Jim and Chris Guld of Geeks On Tour. http://www.geeksontour.com/

We each have committee meetings and daily schedules to keep running.   We are amused by our friends who think we sit in the sun sipping sodas.

Our new greyhound, Daisy, has been with us 4 months.  We love her dearly and at times she does not understand that this can be tough love!  She is the most double jointed grey we have ever seen.  When lying down her hind end goes west and the front end goes east.  When sitting on her “butt” her back legs are out in front of her!

Daisy became a therapy dog and is registered with Therapy Dogs, Inc.  Our FL Paws Therapy Dog chapter arranged 3 observed visits for her the third week in March.  She has her graduation certificate and her red therapy dog vest.  She will join Libby making visits.

 Leesburg, FL  Paws Therapy Dog Chapter of TDI  During The Florida time we rolled 50 miles to Brooksville, FL (Tampa) for Charles to direct the Frustrated Maestros of our FMCA organization. You will find this at www.frustratedmaestros.blogspot.com.  To see Charles directing, You Tube, scroll to end of the February 11, 2011 posting.  This is a blog I do for Frustrated Maestros USA. When we arrive at our rebuilt flooded home we have a lot to do to turn the house into a home.  We did get a small couch and matching chair.  We did get mattresses for our two antique beds.  There are no pictures on the walls and these cannot happen until we see what furniture we can find.  We are decorating conservatively as we do not think we have another 43 years in this house!  Our builder did a beautiful job of restoring the house. Our two foot flood was May 1, 2010!



We are making July plans to be in Burlington, VT for Charles to again direct the Frustrated Maestros. In August we will be in Madison, WI for him to enjoy playing with the Frustrated Maestros at the International FMCA convention. October we will be in Winston Salem, N C for him to repeat directing the Maestros at an area rally. For this GEAR rally the Maestros will be featured at an evening entertainment. Charles is writing a show “Back to High School” for the evening.

We think of our many friends over many miles and are grateful for this enrichment.

Daisy arrived home with us this morning from God's Greyt Greys Group in Orlando.  We picked her up.  She is just adorable and a sweetheart as her foster dad has written. 

Her day has been full of firsts.  Never has she walked and pottied while on a leash.  It is not likely she has tackled steps such as those into and out of the motor home.  It is likely that putting on a fleece jacket and a winter coat were firsts.  Being up close and personal with a cat in a small space surely is a first. She understands the top position of cat! We had no problems!

She is bright and as secure as she should be for only a half day in her forever home.  We are thankful for Carol Becker and God's Greyt Greys Group, for rearranging schedules to make this adoption possible now.

And we are grateful to our Trixie who paved the road into our hearts for her kind.  If it had not been for Argus Mannel of Ontario several years ago we would have never realized the pleasures of this breed and adopted Trixie.

We are adopting again! And…at this age! We will add Daisy, a greyhound, to our family on Tuesday, Dec. 7. Our Trixie, who we lost on November 14, taught us that her kind is loving, very special and in need of forever homes. To honor her initial change of our lives we will welcome Daisy.



We are adopting through God’s Greyt Greys Group in Orland, FL. Our Nashville Vet, Dr. Carol Macherey, advised us that Florida had 16 of the 24 race tracks in the nation and the need for homes was evident.. She became acquainted with this adoption group by housing grays traveling to Indiana this fall. We submitted our application and approval came next.



We have not met Daisy, whose race name is Pleasant Frieda. She is very recently off the track and is in foster care. Her color is Fawn Red and she has passed two “cat-tests” just sniffing and turning her head. PeeDee thinks this is a plus. Her foster dad says she is “a little sweetheart.”


These pictures were made at her foster home. We are very excited to once again have a sister for Libby and Lucky and PeeDee.




 Greyhound Picnic, Nashville.  Typical pose.

We lost our greyhound, Trixie, at 4:00 AM on, Sunday, November14, 2010. While Trixie has been a sick baby most of her life with us we have enjoyed several years of better health and vigor recently.
Trixie was born in June of 2001 and came to live with us in June of 2003. She arrived after three months on the track with her tail tucked securely between her legs and her head between Charles’s knees. She left this earthly home as a precocious baby demanding that everyone speak to her.

She has not felt well for about 6 weeks and our veterinarian, Dr. Carol Mackery, searched for reasons. Her downward slide was quick. She died in Charles’s arms on the floor in the motorhome.



Trixie was our first greyhound. Libby joined her a year later in 2004. We wish we could communicate better with Lib as we see that she is searching for her buddy. They slept touching.


Trixie was a registered Pet Therapy Dog with Therapy Dogs, Inc. She and Libby gave many hugs. Libby will continue their work.


In time we will adopt again. There are many greyhounds that need our love for them. After all, they give back much more than we give.

We earned the Right of Occupancy on at the end of September!  Our city codes department granted a temporary right prior with the stipulation that we fix two imperfections within 2 weeks!  Not sure of the consequence if not done.  Our Heat and Air guys had to return to wrap the return duct and the plumber had to return to add a hammer valve under our sink.  He had gotten a fax earlier that this was not a requirement! 

We did start cleaning mud caked and baked furniture about 3 weeks ago and placing pieces  in the center of the living rooms away from outlets waiting for inspection.  Scroll down to the next posting to see our furniture restoration procedures.  Charles has done a beautiful job on our many antiques.  We gained a new appreciation of them and their makers as we found dates back to 1917 and likely before.  Incidentally those old pieces were the flood survivors.

The final finish! 
Kitchen table
refurbished
in the POD.


Roxie's grandfather likely made the China cabinet. 

Glass doors were added later.



Our piano returned home on  October 3, 2010. Its protector had cleaned it up and
finished it with bee’s wax.  He is building the destroyed front panel. Sadly we let
the matching bench go to trash when we determined the piano would follow. While it is not concert ready it sounds beautiful to us.  It even left VM for our son the day it arrived.  We will forever grateful to this family for protecting it. 



As Charles cleaned the majority of the furniture Roxie was determined to return nothing to the house that was not necessary for living. The purging was much like cleaning out a home after a death except the “dead” person was Roxie and she was doer of the deed.



It was a good feeling to give treasurers to a local, attractively arranged Thrift Shop. This shop was begun by a family whose challenged adult child could not find work. It provides work and benefits for shoppers and givers. What a good feeling. (Whoops..left out the slide show of the furniture.  Please find it at the end.)

The house looks occupied from the street.  Each window has blinds and curtains and the rooms have lights on timers. Cozy disappears once inside as we have no soft furniture or mattresses.  They will come in due time and pictures will once again be on the walls.  We have the POD emptied and gone on Oct. 1.  How nice to put the truck and car into the back again.  The barn still has about 15 boxes of books.

It should be noted that the motor home batteries breathed their last attempt just prior to moving out of the drive way before the POD pickup.  Charles used the house batteries to jump it off and move out of the way.  But…two days later it would not budge.  So…we had to get a tire company to come and give us a jump start and we spent Wednesday, Oct. 6 in Nashville at Freightliner getting batteries replaced.  Guess 7 years is their max gift.  And…we gifted Freightliner $$$ and lost almost a day in our efforts to clean up the yard and shop.  Oh well, it is just time and money gone.

Life goes on. Roxie dealt with a root canal in July. Yesterday she dealth with the cracking of the temporay loosing half of it. Our dentist relieved anxiety by saying to be careful, no taffy and coming in two weeks on schedule. That is because…………

….we departed today, Oct 8 for Galax, VA and Frustrated Maestro Music Camp for a week. This will be followed by a Maestro caravan into Winston Salem, NC for GEAR , Greater Eastern Area Rally of Family Motor Coach Association, FMCA. Charles learned just this past Tuesday that he will be the total director for band and chorus. Prep time has been nearly zilch as we have worked so hard to be able to depart today for Galax, VA. However, this is reminiscent to our drive to Burlington, VT in July of this summer during our flood rebuild. We went to NEAR at Essex Junction, VT for him to direct Maestros. He looks forward to directing.

Finally, we may be at the end of flood postings that started on May 2, 2010.  We will likely be two years recovering the yard and house interior.  We will arrive in FL in early December for 4 months.  We are hoping to find life as normal among our many friends and volley ball and computer activities.



http://www.geeksontour/, Jim and Chris Guld, spend a week at our Holiday Travel Resort in 2010.



Thanks for your care during this catastrophic time in our lives.  We made it often by remembering good times with each of you.

Interior...accidentally left out!  We have no soft furniture...chairs, couches, mattresses!   

We are so on the edge of right of occupancy!! Our contractor has also worked with two of our neighbors and their concerns have delayed us. We have been considerate to this very fine gentleman who has had a huge assignment to help with our rebuilds.





We now have our heat and air unit installed and the AC working. Monday, September 20, 2010 the gas company  came and hooked up the heat. It works! Good thing as most of this week we will have 95 degrees and will not need it!


A week ago our contractor said it would be fine to begin to clean up our furniture and place pieces in the center of rooms. Our goal is to empty the POD by the first of October but this deadline looks foreboding. We are cleaning mud with sponges of water, Clorox wipes and elbow grease. Then Charles restores the wood with Restore by Howard from Home Depot. He finishes the work with Howard’s beeswax.

All of our furniture was placed in our POD on May 8, 2010 mud caked by helpful volunteers. It spent the summer "baking" in our 90-99 temperatures for over 30 days.

Sadness did creep into our lives with the death of our 18 year old black kitty Spooky.  He just wore out.  He was buried at home on September 17.    Spooky was found as a tiny kitten at Cages Bend Corp of Engineers Park near Nashville at Halloween.  In his life he traveled to all 48 contiguous states and 7 Canadian provinces.

Thanks for your notes and concerns. We so appreciate them! Just a footnote…we got our notice for the truck insurance. I looked at Charles and said, “but they send that in the fall!” He just looked at me.



The contractor has called for our final Codes inspection! Fingers crossed

We are closing in on the END of our flood rebuild…….somewhere in the near distance! The flood waters raced into our life and home on May 1, 2010.



As of this time we have a new roof and painters have been back to do their final touch ups. Our pretty floors have been stained, sanded, poly-ed 3 times and our cabinets are in the kitchen and baths.

The most welcomed return was the washer and dryer last week. Our builder brought the plumber in early to get Roxie back in business on the property. She is most grateful to the neighbor who permitted our laundry business for 3 months and our builder who made it happen on the home front once again.

We selected granite counter tops after much consideration and two trips to Natural Stone in Nashville searching for a lighter color. We did succeed and they are to be installed on August 30, 2010. The small porcelain back splashes have been selected.

Cabinet with granite and paint samples.

The electrician will return to complete some installations and the plumber will be here to connect our kitchen sinks and lavatories and toilets and install the refrigerator with ice maker and dishwasher. Those two appliances will be delivered when called for.



Our builder has begun to prepare the ground for our HVAC system…………..some day!

Contractor Don Balthrop  is always hands on in our rebuild.

Painting our library shelves in HIS SHOP!

Charles has worked with our builder sometimes doing wood work for the neighbor. He has almost painted the outside of our home. There is new wood where his new shop French doors took the place of the damaged ones. Inside the shop he has painted our library shelves. And, he borrowed space at the neighbor’s small house to stain and seal the quarter round and store painted library shelves. He has cleaned the windows and rehung the storm windows.

 
 

Home to most of our furniture since May 8, 2010.

While we look forward to the time to occupy we know the difficult job ahead of us. Our POD and barn are chucked full of mud caked furniture that must be cleaned before taking a place inside the house. We will try Restor-a-Finish by Howard recommended by a neighbor for our antique furniture. Until the shop is free of shelves we cannot begin this several day process per piece. Your suggestions are welcome to our E mail address. Thanks.

Each step of the way we have had the required inspections by our mortgage company to “plead” for our flood money. We have now reached 90% with them. Snail mail has been their delivery system but on the third draft they offered us next day, Fed X, at their expense! We took it. Also…we also must comply with the final codes inspection for our town. Finally we will get a ‘RIGHT OF OCCUPANCY” document.



Roxie has manned the constant paper work trail per occurrence in this rebuild. The state of TN has made taxes exempt for flood victims through Sept. 30, 2010. Receipts have been carefully kept and the forms to use have been downloaded. We have lost so much furniture that we will not have the necessities replaced by this date but we will take the tax refunds for our present purchases. This includes taxes on our building supplies bought through our builder.


It has been necessary to monitor the trades workers who have spoken very little English and understood less. With the painters it was necessary to insist that our windows were not to be painted shut! This is but one example of the need to be on site for the rebuild.




Regardless of where we are in the return to the house we will release the brakes and travel to Galax, VA and Winston Salem, NC for another Frustrated Maestro appearance at the area FMCA –GEAR in October. We will be gone about 3 weeks stopping in East TN to visit relatives a night or two. November will find us also collecting those tons of leaves that fall from our beautifully shade producing trees. December until the first of April will find us on our “home turf” in FL at Holiday Travel Resort in Leesburg, FL. www.holidaytravelresosrt.com Once here we will dive back into the welcomed “jobs” with the volley ball and computer seasons.


This will not be a summer to forget easily. But…we are grateful for the endurance to get through it even when the weather was a stifling 95-100 for over 30 days.



We always welcome your news and thank you for staying in touch.

As I write tonight we are progressing right along. We now have dry wall and unfinished hardwood floors completed. We did the cleanup of the dry wall clutter and dust. At last after mudding and sanding dry walls became complete to form rooms.

Our tile is in progress now. It will take a long time to adjust to putting floor tile on the walls but this is now the “in” way to finish a bathroom. I likely will always pine for the sweet, pink 4 inch ceramic tiles that met their demise at the hands of our tear out crew’s sledge hammers. I can still hear them falling!

Our general contractor used his heavy equipment and dug out the tree stump of the tree that feel on the house during the flood.  We get a new roof this coming week.



Painters are arriving next week and finally those plaint colors have been selected. We have only our braided rugs from which to pull colors. In fact, we have no soft furniture in the house and no mattresses! The trim carpenters have put up our very first crown molding and are adding their magic to the window and door trims. Doors arrived and some are hung. Kitchen cabinets are scheduled to arrive on August 17. We have miles to go before we have our home complete. 




We had the honor of providing the birthing room for Mother House Wren. She insisted on being in the “garage-shop.” After running her out for her persistence in coming in it was time to close the doors and turn on the window AC unit. One afternoon Roxie needed to shop. She heard birds “in the wall” that Chas was sealing up with insulation and finished wood. When she returned she was ready to have Charles tear apart his work because he surely had sealed a bird in them. With disgust Charles offered her the crow bar. To this she replied that this was way beyond her strength. Then Charles made the discovery that on a shelf in one of his tennis shoes were 4 widely stretched mouths waiting for groceries to arrive.

We moved the babies out on top of the AC and for a week mother was diligent to feed them. Of course, we protected them from rain. Finally after a week plus it was time to join the world and one by one they left under the watchful eye of mommy. She sat on a line above the motor home and chirped to them. And…we felt that empty nest syndrome.

When will be be done? The right of occupancy will be issued by the City of Franklin’s Codes department. Meanwhile we help with our home, answer questions from our subcontractors and never have enough time in a day.



Our mud caked furniture is waiting in our POD. There is a lot of clean up before we move it into the house. Refrigerator, washer dryer have been purchased and await the nod to deliver. We have nothing soft in the house for sitting or sleeping. We did loose several pieces of furniture. The good news is that the gentleman who took in our piano says it is fine and in his garage. His children are even playing it!

Tennesse weather has been as brutally hot as the nation has endured.  After a weekend of relief we return to near 100 degrees for most of the days this week.

July 8, 2010 finds us returning to TN after command performance with Frustrated Maestros of FMCA in Essex Junction, VT. June 28-July 5, 2010. Before our May 1 flood in TN Charles accepted the honor of directing the Maestros for this area rally. We were determined to keep that commitment.

It is true..."Maestros have more fun than anyone" and likely work harder and longer than the average rally or international volunteer. In 8 days they had 6 performances preceded by 6 rehearsals. For Charles this meant much planning, music arranging and copying, prep for himself. The schedule was propelling and worth while for the end results.

And...Roxie engaged her camera and built a new Maestro blog:
http://www.frustratedmaestros.blogspot.com/



We visited brother Robin and family on his Saint Paul School Campus.

From Collages

It has been three weeks since our last flood posting to this blog. In many ways those weeks are a blur with much activity and little visible results. Yet, we do make forward progress. Flooding and surviving brings on hoops to jump through unknown previously. We call these interruptions shoes that drop.



We are currently riding to Burlington, VT for an FMCA rally where Charles has been ask to direct the Frustrated Maestros in rehearsals and performances at the Essex Junction, VT Expo Center. He accepted this opportunity “BF”…before flood and we are so happy to be out on the road…briefly. We left June 23 and will return to our driveway about mid July. Then we are home until October. What a weird experience for us.

To date we have had our plumber in to do invisible things like remove old lead pipes and reroute some plumbing. Poor friendly guy got to be under the house. He got to do this in the intense heat wave of 95+ degrees that has besieged middle TN.


We have done a walk through with our electrician and clarified where his work will be. With him we learned of many codes compliances. We must have 5 smoke alarms hard wired in, outlets each 12 feet, updated dryer plug, front and back porch lights, and any wiring that was flooded replaced. Likely this work will be completed next week. And….codes will come to inspect! Another “Mother May I…” step. Our builder says we will likely loose 2 weeks due to all of the codes inspections.


As we drove away on June 23 the duct work for the new furnace was going under the house on a 95 degree day.


Meanwhile we have shopped for tubs that are in boxes in our den, lavatories, all faucets, toilets, tile, cabinets and hardwood flooring. We have also selected interior and exterior doors. The only selection process at this on point is the paint color and that color book is with us on this trip.


But the shoes are still dropping. FEMA did a good and not so good job with our estimate. Our adjuster failed to include enough for the dry out company that used some heaters, and removed floor. So that company has sent their fees of $19.000 with instructions to send that on to our adjuster. The dry out company signed an agreement with us to work for what FEMA will pay. That was well below the $19,000. So…I guess that FEMA and the dry out company will duke it out.


But the shoes continued to drop. Our Mortgage is with Bank of America because they bought Countrywide Mortgage group. Not a choice of ours. The FEMA check was written to us and the bank. Said check had to be overnighted to them in California at our expense of $32, Fed Ex. Add more frustration to the fact that they are holding about $20,000 beyond what we owe them getting to collect that interest!! Now we are learning that we get out money in increments or draws only after each rebuild phase has passed their inspector on site.


But…we were not done with shoes! The motor home inverter failed on June 21 about dinner time leaving us with no way to have electricity in 96+ weather. We quickly packed, clarified arrangements for watching our house with the neighbors who took us in, and strung an electric cord for a lamp to the MH. We got up at 3:00 AM on June 22 and left at 4:30 AM for a three hour trip to Red Bay, AL and our motor home factory. By 8:30 AM a satellite operation had us purring with a new inverter. By noon we were through filing insurance claims and turtled back to our driveway in Franklin via the Natchez Trace Parkway. We then left for this trip to northern VT the very next day.

Our emotional closet is getting full of dropped shoes and we just expect more. We suppose that it will be nice to have a “new house” inside our home of 43 years but we were perfectly happy with it before the May 1 flood.


As always we love to hear from you to our regular E mail addy in your letter of invite to this blog. Finally there is a
little more time to reply to you!

Since our last blog update we have done a lot of hurry up and wait! We accidentally found out about a city mayor and alderman meeting two weeks ago and within 3 hours many from our street were in attendance to ask questions. Percentages of damage were told by the Codes Director after the meeting. At that time we learned that our house was placed at 62%. That is above the 50% stipulated by FEMA. In the same breath the Codes Director quipped, “that’s not right!” Exactly what we were thinking.



This caused another delay to have Codes return and assess. Dryness did pass and one of the codes men said he had done the original inspection and that he would not have put it more than 50%. To add to our unsettled feeling several houses on our 32 home street are slated for demolition. This sent us into survival mode of storing our furniture and moving to FL! But…the next day we went to Codes and the damage was placed at 42%. Rebuild was then our expectation.


In the meantime we interviewed several contractors of a variety of backgrounds. One couple wanted to tear out our solid 12” plank sub floor and put in a French drain. All other contractors felt the sub floor was good and drying and shrinking back to normal. We have had a parade of plumbers, electricians, painters, and carpenters march through. But we did choose our builder and have very good feelings about this non pressured person who builds beautiful houses. He will be rebuilding our home and the two beyond us.


We have spent the last month parked at our neighbor’s home. This generous couple has allowed us electricity and water and use of their bath and laundry. While the house has had no more tear out and dry out crews we have sifted and sorted in our yard. Charles built his man cave in our barn and even put in a discarded house door and his AC in plywood, removable section. I don’t have a picture of this invention, yet.


We are in Red Bay, AL at our motor home factory for our yearly appointment. When we return home we will turtle into our driveway and plug into a new 50 amp electrical service. The old service was under water…about 4+ feet!


We have gone to choose our cabinets, and look at flooring, tubs, and toilets. We will look at counter tops and more flooring. Sounds like we are building a new house. Way down the line is getting our antique furniture cleaned up and some of it restored. Of course, we have to shop for a washer, dryer, refrigerator and decide about replacing the deep freeze. And…there is nothing soft to sit on in the house. Fears of mold forced us to throw out chairs and couches.

So…the house stands on June 2, 2010 as it has for the past 3 wks….no counters, no cabinets, not bathroom fixtures..and bare studs showing.


We think we are making progress!! Many thanks for your E mails. We really do appreciate the support that we feel.

Reality of the moment arrived on May 6 when it was time to empty our home into the world.  What would have been an overwhelming job was made possible because our home and our street just filled with volunteers.  Men moved heavy furniture to the front yard and ladies packed dishes, clothing, linens and glassware.  Each person was caring and comforting as we watched 43 years of memories moving out of their home.  We will be forever grateful to these angels of mercy who fluttered in so unselfishly for 3 days.  And, this was the scene in over 25 homes on our street.
Eighteen inches of river grundge flowed into our home and filled our piano "born" in 1936!  Roxie has memories of childhood piano practice at 6:00 AM in her Jackson, TN home.  Roxie's folks played and sang to her beautiful sounds. Our son began his piano lessons on this upright Kimball.  Loosing this bit of life was hard to bear.  So, it became imparative to have the final benediction pronounced by a piano tuner.  It would cost over $5000 to have her mended with no guarantees. 

The painful decision was made to have her carted to the street for the sanitation department's knuckle boom jaws.  She escaped that Saturday evening.  By noon on Sunday one of the gentlemen who had carted her to the street arrived to say he was sleep deprived over the decision to let her go.  He had decided to attempt to save her.  He returned with a trailer and neighbors to give her a home in his garage.  Then he E mailed that "she made it" just fine. 

This perfect stranger had come to help and continued his angel of mercy venture by "adopting" our musical treasure.  If she never plays a note she will be in our home again standing tall and proud of her history.




May 10, 2010 the destroy team of our hired company arrived with crowbars, shovels and picks to take apart our completely covered hardwood flood, cabinets, door facings, paneling and half of our dry walls.  Looking straight through the house was a glimpse of how Roxie first saw it in 1967 when it was under construction.  We are her only family.  Our company brought in fans and heaters to dry her out.  Yesterday they "bombed" her to rid her of any contaminents.  We were onsight all day.



We have barley begun the rebuild phase which will take a long time.  There will be meetings to interview contractors, select appliances, flooring, wall treatments and on and on.  We did register with FEMA and received assistance money for housing.  Our flood insurance adjuster has completed his work and we are reviewing his recommentations.  We feel they will be generous.

Please remember that when we do not answer your welcomed E mails that we are lifted by them and know you are right here with us.  We are very busy with the above decisions as well as sifting and sorting many things in the backyard.  It is amazing what a flood can bring into your yard.

May 3, 2010….Tuesday….we got into our devastated home! We already knew that we likely had at least 3 feet in the house and we found that true. We also found items that floated from room to room, a mud slick floors, water in the brand new refrigerator (delivered the day before), water in the dishwasher, a tipped washer and dryer, an upright freezer reclining on its back and muddy tubs and toilets. On the outside we still had standing water and could not get to our barn. The fence across the back was down. The wooden fence of our next door neighbor was over and our yards joined.



As bad as all of this is we have a contact with FEMA and will be assigned an adjuster tomorrow (5/4). We were told to go ahead and initiate the clean up process. We have calls into two companies that specialize on drying out, a call to our plumber and electrician and our heating and air company. We also have a tree trimmer lined up. A tree is across the garage end…Charles’s sanctuary, his shop! We do have the National Flood Insurance on structure and most of the contents.


We did not evacuate our kayak. That has been the neighborhood transportation and we had to get in line to use it. It seems to recline in a front yard where the water ends. It has been used over and over. The circle street is not open as of 5/3…three days after the floor. Flooding came very fast. We got our just barely two hours ahead of it.


We are most grateful to each person who has called or E mailed their concerns. We’d like nothing better than to sit down and talk with each of you. Time just does not permit.


We continue to “camp” at Camp Walmart for the third night but tomorrow we are moving to a neighbor’s driveway. This will put us closer to our stranded home.

Click any pic to enlarge and read.


Thanks to Verizon we have our air card for internet access and our phone…wherever we are!


And…thanks to each of you for your concerns.