Destruction: Day 1

*I was too tired to actually finish this post last night, so Destruction: Day 2 is actually already underway. I may (or may not) post about it later today.*

I was having a rough evening last night and I almost posted and had myself a little pity party whine fest. To be completely honest with you, the only reason I didn't is because I was too tired. We are trying to finish up our online adoption training. Before Ray was hospitalized we had complete 4 of the required 10 hours. We planned on having the rest done by our homestudy home visit, but once Ray got sick that just didn't happen. Now that's she is home we are trying to finish it up. Our adoption training certificates, pictures of the outside of our home, and 1 single solitary document, are the last of the things we need to get to our social worker. Last night we were trying to finish up the training, but after a couple hours I was just too tired to concentrate anymore. I was also a little down. We had gotten some disconcerting news earlier that evening. Daniel's birth country had a vote yesterday regarding their international adoption policies. They voted, "Yes" to change things(I'm totally simplifying this for those of you who aren't interested in all the adoption legality mumbo jumbo). While the yes vote doesn't mean that things are necessarily going to change, it does mean that they are seriously thinking about it. They will have a re-vote sometime in the next 4 months. God willing, we will be overseas and almost back home with Daniel 4 months from now. So if they wait for whole months to vote again and the vote is yes again, then it probably won't affect us. But if they decided to vote again next month and vote yes, then it could possibly be very detrimental to getting Daniel home in a timely manner. We were informed by Reece's Rainbow to NOT PANIC right now. But in my personal opinion, I think that the reason we aren't supposed to panic is because panicing won't change whatever the outcome will be. Ok. I'm going to stop now, before I start getting upset again. I just have to trust that God has a plan.

On to the destruction part...
A month or two ago a bump came up in our kitchen floor. What started out as a little bump became a bit bump, and from a big bump it became a ridge. The kids used it as a ramp for their matchbox cars and scooters. Josh marveled at what could have caused it. And I tripped over it. With in a matter of 2 weeks or so, we had a bump similar to a mountain ridge in the middle of our kitchen. Josh called the insurance and they sent out an adjuster. The adjuster sent out a engineer/plumber to tests the plumbing and see if there was a leak. No leak. No one knows what caused it. Insurance isn't paying for it. Lovely.

My pawpaw said that he would help Josh fix it, so they planned on fixing it the week before the homestudy. The morning came to start the floor work and after a little prying we quickly found that the problem was more complicated than we originally thought. At the risk of the kitchen being in complete disarry on the day of our home visit, we decided to put off the demolition until AFTER the home visit. Of course, we had to explain to our social worker that the ridge in the floor was going to be fixed, but that was much better than a giant hole in the kitchen floor and the contents of my kitchen in complete upheaval. For the record, the social worker was understanding(Praise God!!).


Now that the home visit is over and Ray is home from the hospital, it was time to start on the kitchen floor. I took the kiddos to the library this morning. Story hour for the littles, and school work for Luke. On my way home I got a call from Josh. He knows that it takes me a minute to roll with the punches, and he called to inform me(so that I didn't have to discover it for myself), that when they pulled up the top floor there was tons of mold and mildew under it. Nice. Mold stinks. Literally. Not to mention that my carpet has been ruined because of of mold being tracked on to it. Sigh. Oh well. I can't quit thanking God that we decided against trying to fix the floor before the homestudy. I'm pretty sure I would have had a nervous breakdown at the thought of the social worker seeing my kitchen in the state it is now in.(Still working on the whole not worrying thing.) Thankfully, the mold and mildew was mostly contained to the second layer of flooring, and not as much on the actual sub-flooring.

I was able to find some good in the bad though. Luke knocked out several school subjects for the day by helping with the floor. He had a wood shop lesson when PawPaw taught him how use a hammer and crow bar to break apart the slats on the hardwood floor. He had a science lesson when PawPaw taught him all about leverage. And he definitely got his P.E. for the day. That kid is such a great helper!

Josh keeps telling me that I'm going to be so happy when the floor is fixed, but right now I keep thinking that I honestly didn't mind that bump all that much. I'm going to look at the bright side and be thankful that:

-I have a husband that has an excellent attitude about spending his days off working on the kitchen floor, instead of catching up on his sleep after spending 5 nights sleeping in a hospital bed with Ray. He definitely gets my vote for dad of the year!
-I'm learning patience and perseverance. (James 1:2-4)
-In spite of my exhaustion and disaster area of a house, I can't help but be so very excited about what God is doing in my life and in our family!