Moving Forward One Day at a Time

I haven't posted since November 20. That's because we are pretty much in the same place as we were. 

Wonder Works had a hurricane special so Tyler, Jasmine, the twins and I went, and we met Jessica and the girls there. Actually, we were supposed to, but she rescued us because I had the first of three flat tires since they hurricane.

As stated in the last post, Jessica offered to host Thanksgiving. I didn't get many photos. I didn't feel very festive, but Jessica did a good job. We didn't spend much time together, though, because the adult kids all had things they wanted to get at Walmart at the Black Friday sale. So it was eat and run. We also didn't get a family photo because it was dark out and really the good cheer was missing this year.

We are still in our old house, although we do have a potential new house. It's not my favorite, but 
it's in a nice location and will work. It puts Rick quite a ways from his job, but the twins who are currently in an out of zone school requiring me to drive them every day will be in the correct zone for that school if the contract goes through.

Jasmine will still be out of zone, and her high school is sharing a middle school building, so high school is 7-12, and middle school is 1-6. Basically we are moving to the "rich" section of town from the "slum" section of town. I haven't quite figured it all out because we all just call everything Panama City, but really there's Callaway, Millville, Cedar Grove, Springfield and Lynn Haven. More on that once we have answers.

The mold has spread through our ceilings in a disgusting way. Rick is meeting with a private contractor to get a lawyer to figure out how to get it declared trashed and collect insurance. The downside of both new and old houses is that they are in both hurricane and flood zones. However, the new house is on higher land and they are going to remeasure to see if the cost can be lowered.

Not sure if I've mentioned that our neighbors abandoned their mom cat and her first litter who are maybe a year old. She was pregnant again. They said cats are wild and do not need fed, so the cats would be fine. I will keep my thoughts about them to myself, but this family also thinks it's fun to let their dogs loose when my kids walk ours. We have small rescue dogs. They have "bully" breeds. 

We started feeding whole lots of cats down by their house and moved them slowly down to ours. But the mama cat and one of the first liter disappeared.

 Last week one of the two young cats who moved in with us showed up with a small ball of fur in her mouth. Kaleb yelled to me that she'd brought us a dead kitten. Well, it wasn't all the way dead, so I wrapped it in an electric blanket and went to get kitty formula. 

The cat who brought it to us had been pregnant and no longer was, so we figured she had had her kittens and something had happened, but then she brought this one. Yet she did not show much interest in it.

Kitty started doing well, but she also started smelling not so good. She was not "eliminating" even though we were doing the stimulate with warm rag thing. Then one evening she went for the first time, she took her first steps and she purred for the first time. She had a VERY loud purr. But she still smelled really bad, so the next day I started packing her up for the vet. I went to get my stuff, came back and she was dead!!! I couldn't believe it, so I left her wrapped in soft cloth while I went to pick Jasmine up from school. (Okay, so I might be crying my eyes out writing this at the library and getting a few looks)

Tyler came home, confirmed she was indeed dead and buried her.

We still have the two young cats, plus our own cat and our four dogs. And we still don't know what happened to Rosie's litter that she must have had around November 7-10.

So right now, all the kids are back at school although Jasmine is not at her school.
We need to get our house declared trashed.
We need to get the contract finalized on a new house.
I have to get the entire contents of my flea market shop out of my house!

And we need to decide whether or not we are keeping the extra cats. The people come and go, but they have nothing to do with the cats in reality. They don't fed them, let them in the house, neuter them or take them to the vet for shots or care.

I think they might just disappear when we move. What do you think?

Hurricane Recovery

It's hard to stay in touch when we are dependent on brief hot spots for Internet and sometimes are without electricity. We are moving forward, but slowly. A group from our church came out and helped clear our yard, so a month and a week after the hurricane, we have that one little semblance of normality.

Insurance only wants to give us money to repair our roof and ceilings, but with all the mold we'd have to tear everything out. And with a manufactured home, that basically means rebuilding it. So we'd rather just start over somewhere else in a house on a foundation and out of the flood zone. 

We looked at a house that would be perfect, but we hadn't moved fast enough and it was already under contract. That was beyond heartbreaking. Our realtor should have found out if it was still available before showing it to us. It would have been perfect for us. Five bedrooms, large family room and living room. Kitchen large enough to hold a table so the dining room could have been a game area. Six foot fence around a half acre of land for the dogs. It had no damage and was move in ready. Probably the only house in the whole city that was! 

We went to look at a second house that might have been just as good. It has a little apartment attached that would have been nice for Tyler. It has so much damage it will be at least six months before it is ready.

Sigh.

The problem with moving is that unless we can get enough money to pay off the old house, we'd have to be able to make payments on two houses, and I don't think is possible. Kind of wish a tree had fallen on the house.

Not sure what will happen at this point. All the rooms are filled with our stuff from our shop, plus we have three storage units. We are trying to sell down online. In the meantime, the inside of our house is difficult to navigate!

We were going to skip Thanksgiving, but Jessica has decided to hold Thanksgiving at her house. Honestly, though, spirits are low.

A friend said she is setting up a Go Fund Me, and I'm not sure how that will work out. I know we need about $10,000 up front if we do get a house. I have some of that in savings but it is supposed to be for Jasmine's graduation trip to NYC and summer trip to Mexico with teen missions. She has not gone since she was 11, and this is the first year she has wanted to do it, so I had wanted to make it happen.

Keep us in your thoughts as we try to figure out our new normal. It includes four extra cats, at least one of whom is pregnant. Anyone want a cat?