Mother Nature tried, but I am ready to set fire to it!

I have never been so frustrated in my life.  Even when I knew that I was going to be losing my husband to cancer and after he died, I had the determination to move ahead.  Then there was the sale of the Maryland house and trying to get the stuff out after 20 years of living there on weekends and vacations.  Once that was accomplished, the merging and purging of 20 years of stuff into 30+ years of stuff (I like my stuff) was overwhelming, but I ate my elephant and had made much headway, especially after my son, Rob, came out to help wire the basement room that Danny and Darren had spent a day putting a floor in what had been my husband's workshop so I could have a place for my sewing stuff.

Took a step backwards when I also took the opportunity to put the nice flooring in the basement bedroom.  Makes the room nicer and I have not put the stuff back into the room so I could paint the walls while nothing is in there.  So once again, feeling cluttered and overwhelmed, but there is a reason and I was working on getting things ready to paint.

In between I have been away for more than a month and come back to many activities and obligations like dentist appointments, doctor appointments and medical testing to monitor my aging body.  No hurry to get everything done.  I was taking my time.

We have had some rather harrowing summer storms here lately.  Several weeks ago, after a servere thunderstorm and tornado warning, I lost power and ran the generator all night.  Had a couple of user errors that have been resolved and after a local friend was able to loosen the oil drain plug with a 24" breaker bar, I was able to change the oil and was ready for the next storm.

This past Tuesday, another severe thunderstorm and tornado warning (there was one confirmed very close to me in Honeybrook).  Winston and I took shelter in the basement as a precaution.  I could hear thunder and saw some lightening, although it was daylight and not dark so it was not brilliant as the previous storm.  But suddenly things flashed, blinked, winked and lightening/electricity came blowing out of the outlet next to the door in the sewing room.

Scared me, to say the least.  Headed into the basement and the whole house surge protector was sparking at the electric panel.  I flipped the main switch.  Waited a few moments to ascertain that the bad weather was not teeming around the house.  Upstairs and got the generator running.  Back tot he basement.  Flipped on the generator circuit, expecting all things to come back on, but found that lights were still out.  Checked the breakers in the box and found several had flipped off.  Reset the ones that had flipped except for two that would not reset..... the panel outlet where the basement fridge is plugged in and the Verizon box for phone, TV and Internet.

No lights in the basement side where I was, but most of the outlets in the sewing room were working.  No power at the workbench at the bottom of the basement stairs.  No power in my office where my embroidery machine lives and one outlet in my bedroom was not working.  There was also one outlet in the kitchen and the overhead lights over the sink were not working.

After some tears and yelling at Rudy for leaving alone to handle things like this plus feeling angry because I had done everything I could to avoid the issues I was seeing, I called Marji to let her know I was well but had major issues.  The I called one of the Elders at the church to see if there was someone who could come and help me determine what I needed to do.

Nelson came over and helped me take a couple of deep breaths and then go step by step to determine what had to happen.  I first needed to replace two breakers in the electric panel.  He arrived the next day with them and got them installed.  The workbench area came back to life  but it killed a new camera that I had installed.  Still no lights in the basement, so we tried a new bulb at the bottom of the steps and I had light.  The storm had burned up and LED light!  Nelson took two florescent tubes to his house and determined that they worked and that means the light fixture by the basement sink fried as well.

Another casualty of the storm was my burglar alarm system.  When I came upstairs I could smell a badly fried circuit board.  Being a techie and having built numerous computers, I am well aware of that smell.  Today, being Saturday, I am still smelling that smell every time I walk into the kitchen.  The company had trouble taking my word for what had happened.  They wanted to send someone out to check the system and my panel ($165.00 to walk in the door and then an hourly charge after the first hour) which I refused.  They are telling me it is going to cost $700 to $800 to replace the damaged stuff.  I will either be looking at a new service who will replace after storms or not having a system at all!!!  No hurry on that one as I am planning to be home most of the time until mid-August.

Have finally gotten the rest of the house back into normal EXCEPT the Happy room.  Two light fixtures and two outlets in that room and one outlet and light fixture in my bedroom are dead.  My brother says he believes that either a wire in a junction box or outlet box has melted or come loose.  I am hoping that they are all on the same line.

I have spent several hours in the office (it had gotten piled up as I am not doing much embroidery currently) getting to all of the outlets and testing all of the many surge protectors that I had on the computers and equipment  in the room.  SO I am also sorting and straightening up while I am doing it.  Thus far, I am finding that all of the surge protectors are still working so I am assuming that all of the equipment will be OK.  Prayers for this would be appreciated.

Marji and Danny came up last night to go into Parkesburg and watch the fireworks with me at the church.  Our front parking lot faces the area where the fireworks go up.  So the church allows locals to park there, set up chairs or blanks on the grass and we cook hot dogs on the grill, make popcorn and usually, have bottled water.  This year we invited the kids who have been selling lemonade on weekends to raise money for the Point (a youth organization in Parkesburg) to set up and sell Lemonade.  Danny spent an hour or so before we had to leave, looking over the issues.  We were hoping that the wiring was run through the basement and into the outlets and fixtures.  What we found was that it runs upstairs into the attic which is completely floored and covered with much more of my crap!  I just cannot win.

So I guess I will be continuing to work in the office and then go up to the attic to move the crap from one section of the attic to another so I can allow access to the current wiring, if it needs to be done.

So the thoughts of... I think perhaps I should just burn it to the ground... have crossed my mind frequently since Tuesday.

This is the time when I am grateful for friends and yet I feel so very alone.  It is a widow/widower feeling that one cannot fathom if you still have your spouse with you.  And I am sure it is also similar to the feeling that one who has lived alone all of their life must also feel from time to time.  We were not designed to live this life alone.  We were designed to have a partner to work together through life's trials.  But still, this has been a very trying time for me.  And at times, I have to walk away from what I should be doing to just try to enjoy the good things about living.

On a bright note, I did manage to win an EBay auction for an antique Singer Model 23 Toy (but fully functional) Toy Hand Crank Sewing Machine.  It is small enough to take on a plane, clamp to the tray table and do some sewing.  It actually sews using a simple chain stitch.  Should arrive sometime next week and had all of it's original parts and pieces and looks to have minimal wear or rust.  A real find for $73.00!  I have seen them as high as $400.00.  Nice thing, it does not need electricity.  And right now, I may look for more 'old fashioned' stuff that is electric-free.

I will post pictures when it arrives.

In the meantime, prayers for me as I try to get the things back together here at the house without having to hit my investments for an electrician or having to file a claim with the homeowners Insurance or having to find the paperwork for the whole house surge protector that did not quite do it's job, although that one I will probably do anyway!!!!