(no subject)
It's been an eventful week. Early Monday morning, the shed in our back yard was hit by lightning during a thunderstorm. We heard the lightning strike, and knew it was nearby, but didn't look around the neighborhood. About 30 minutes later, our oldest daughter came pounding down the stairs, hollering: "The shed's on fire!" Her room is in the back of the house, and the heat and flames had woken her up. At first my husband went out to try to fight it himself, but after we called 911 they advised getting out of the house because the shed is so close to it. About that time, the huge oak tree in our yard also went up in flames. This all happened at 2:30am. We all got dressed, grabbed our cat, and ran across the street to stand in our neighbor's driveway. A few minutes later the firetrucks arrived, and quickly put the fire out, but our shed and everything in it was a total loss.
The heat from the fire caused all the vinyl siding and shutters on the back of the house to melt. The firemen had to pull some of the siding off to make sure there weren't any hot spots. Five of our windows on the back of the house will have to be replaced, along with two exterior doors. Part of our wooden privacy fence burned down, and we can't tell yet if the big oak tree will survive. We lost our push lawnmower, smoker, all our garden tools, ladders, blower, weedeater, hedgetrimmer, 4 bikes, shovels, pressure washer, and lots of other stuff. Our cable, phone, and internet were also blown out by the lightning, so this is the first evening we've been able to get online. But we are so thankful that none of us were hurt, and that our home was not seriously damaged.
The adjuster came today and gave us a check to have the siding, windows, and doors replaced, and we're still waiting for estimates to replace the shed and its contents. I think we'll probably haul all the debris off by ourselves to save some money so we'll be able to focus most of the insurance money on our house.
Added to all that, I've had a scare in that I've had 2 abnormal mammograms and an abnormal breast ultrasound, and my mother in law was diagnosed with kidney cancer. She'll be having it removed laporoscopically as soon as possible, but we have to wait for her to be cleared for the surgery by her cardiologist since she's taking Coumadin.
What with the fire, going back to work, the situation with my mom and her husband, my mother in law's health issues, my own health, and us moving our oldest daughter to Denver next week, my head is spinning. I feel like we've had so much bad stuff lately; I can't take much more.
The heat from the fire caused all the vinyl siding and shutters on the back of the house to melt. The firemen had to pull some of the siding off to make sure there weren't any hot spots. Five of our windows on the back of the house will have to be replaced, along with two exterior doors. Part of our wooden privacy fence burned down, and we can't tell yet if the big oak tree will survive. We lost our push lawnmower, smoker, all our garden tools, ladders, blower, weedeater, hedgetrimmer, 4 bikes, shovels, pressure washer, and lots of other stuff. Our cable, phone, and internet were also blown out by the lightning, so this is the first evening we've been able to get online. But we are so thankful that none of us were hurt, and that our home was not seriously damaged.
The adjuster came today and gave us a check to have the siding, windows, and doors replaced, and we're still waiting for estimates to replace the shed and its contents. I think we'll probably haul all the debris off by ourselves to save some money so we'll be able to focus most of the insurance money on our house.
Added to all that, I've had a scare in that I've had 2 abnormal mammograms and an abnormal breast ultrasound, and my mother in law was diagnosed with kidney cancer. She'll be having it removed laporoscopically as soon as possible, but we have to wait for her to be cleared for the surgery by her cardiologist since she's taking Coumadin.
What with the fire, going back to work, the situation with my mom and her husband, my mother in law's health issues, my own health, and us moving our oldest daughter to Denver next week, my head is spinning. I feel like we've had so much bad stuff lately; I can't take much more.