EMOTIONAL DEMOLITION

Thursday, February 5th was the day scheduled for the removal of the damaged wood flooring and wet underlayment, but first the cabinets must be removed. It was thought that they could just be unscrewed from the wall and stored in the garage. NOT! They were not only screwed, but glued! They had to "Tim Taylor" the cabinets to get them out!
God knew I couldn't handle this alone. He sent my friend, Linda, up from Grants Pass, for a visit that very day! No coincidence in my mind! She spent from 10:00 in the morning until about 3:00 in the afternoon with me. We shared some leftover stew heated up in the microwave for lunch, and had a great time catching up, talking about everything and nothing as we used to do when she was my neighbor and walking partner. It took my mind off the splintering and cracking going on in the other room. Her godly presence kept my fragile post surgery emotional state from plunging into a sea of tears and despair.
Before we knew it they were tearing up the wood flooring. The same wood flooring that Dennis and I had put our blood, sweat, and tears into laying ourselves 18 years ago! They were so good about hauling all the debis out to their truck to haul away, but I caught them before they got rid of the oak. Dennis sawed it up and it is now helping to heat the house. Waste not. Want not you know. After all, do you know how much a cord of oak goes for these days?

The proverbial "straw that broke the camels back" as they say, happened that evening. The vibration from the sledge hammering took its tole unbeknownst to us. As I opened the upper cabinet to put away one of the cobalt blue glasses that we had just washed by hand of course, two glasses fell out and hit the one in my hand breaking them all into hundreds of pieces at my feet. I stood in shock and horror amongst the sparkling blue fragments decorating the newly exposed subfloor. Then I cried.

BUT my God cares even about the smallest things. He knew how special those glasses were to me. We found the irreplaceable on Ebay of course! The torture was not over yet though. They brought in these horrible "green monsters". At least that's what Bernard and Sheba viewed them as. There were 3 of the fans you see on the left spaced around the room and a dehumidifier to dry out the subfloor and walls. They had to remove the bottom one foot of sheet rock because it had soaked up the water like a sponge. It would have felt like a sauna in there if it hadn't been so cold with all that outside air coming up through the cracks in the subfloor. These noisy things ran for 3 days and nights. When they finally came and turned them off, the silence was deafening!
We went about a week without anything to keep that cold air out. It even snowed 2 inches during that time! (Sorry, no snow pictures. It's not fun anymore!) But I'm happy to say, we now have new vapor barrier and plywood down again keeping the cold out and the heat in. Putting down the new wood flooring is next, but we have to wait for the wood to acclimate stacked behind the sofa. Then there will be more upheaval. I managed to get the hutch packed up yesterday. Still a little weak from the flu, but the hands are much stronger. When they put the finish on the floor, we'll have to go to a hotel for a few days. Not looking forward to that. My home is my castle even without a kitchen! But the Lord will help me through that too.