The past couple of months have been filled with many things. We were lucky to be able to travel to visit my parents in Florida over the Thanksgiving holiday. Dave had a full week off from teaching and I took the week off as well. We spent most of our break there, watching the twins bond with Grandma Joan and Grandpa Larry. We got out for a couple of walks on the beach and nearby parks, ate at a couple restaurant favorites, and had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with long-time friends of my parents.

As my parents and I grow older, the goodbyes get harder. We knew my dad had a pending heart surgery that would be scheduled for soon after the Thanksgiving holiday. We knew we would not be able to spend Christmas together as a family. As my mom and Dave loaded the twins into the car, my dad and I said goodbye. We are not an emotionally expressive family. Even if we were, it’s impossible to pack 38 years of love and hope and gratitude into a single moment or a single goodbye. After having my own children, my biggest fear in life has become that they won’t know how much I love them. That I won’t do a good enough job expressing myself and they won’t know how much they were loved. When I look at my own parents though, I know that I’m deeply loved. It doesn’t even have to be said, as I know it to my core.

We left Florida to fly back to Texas and settle back in with our friends. Christmas decorations were put up while we were away and the kids got to enjoy a month of beautiful lights, Christmas trees, and Christmas carols. Our house had about another month of work following Thanksgiving. I braced myself for the possibility that we would not be in by Christmas. I resolved to be flexible, making the best of the situation. I bought a new Christmas tree and made the decision that we would have Christmas morning at our house no matter what. I made a plan A, a plan B, and a plan C.

Dad’s heart surgery got scheduled for Dec 19. Three days later, we were told we could begin moving home. We began making several trips back and forth with all the things we had to move after living away for 4 months. I was able to talk to Dad on the phone during the middle of the move. He sounded good! At one point I found myself alone in the car, driving between houses and the full weight of the past few months hit me. I started to cry so hard that I had to pull the car over. I felt immense relief and joy that we all had pulled through.

I also felt anxiety. I was so happy to be moving home, but also unsure of myself. We are extremely lucky to have a house that is mostly complete, but it looks very different. Many of our things were gone. I was fearful to try to begin what felt like an overwhelming unpack. When we packed, there were 20 or so people helping and there was no organization to it. It was done as quickly as possible and was pretty random. I was afraid to discover more loss. But, the only thing to do was dive in and tackle it. So tackle it we did.

We unpacked all large items quickly and then began to tackle the many bins we had filled with pots, pans, appliances, clothes, etc. We are still very much in the process of organizing these things, but we are living comfortably in our home at this point.

By December 24, we had things organized enough that we could throw up our Christmas tree. Thankfully, our Christmas ornaments were kept in the attic and were spared. When Dave went up to get them, he discovered my wedding dress that we had hastily tossed up there when things started to look shaky. I’m not overly sentimental about my wedding dress, but I’m happy that it was spared.

We spent all day of Christmas Eve unpacking. I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage getting presents wrapped, with all the other things to do. A dear friend of mine came over and started wrapping presents for me and managed to get them all done. We got everything ready for Santa’s visit that night.

Christmas morning was delightful. It was the first meal that I cooked in our new kitchen and Dave’s parents were there to share it with us. We took our time opening presents and the twins had a lot of fun with new toys, as well as rediscovery of old favorites. Being home was the best Christmas gift imaginable for all of us.

One of the many things I clung to throughout the past few months was that this year would eventually be over. I daydreamed about New Years Eve and the turn of the year into a new one that would be a clean start. For us, it is. But we are some of the very lucky ones. Most of the flooded individuals that we know are not anywhere near being able to move back into their homes. We did not have flood insurance prior to Harvey. This is both good and bad. It did mean that we had to restore our home and replace our furniture completely on our own, but it did allow us to begin work on the home immediately. We did not have to wait for an insurance settlement. Our community is still in a state of limbo, with many piles of garbage, abandoned homes, and displaced families. We are weary with still a long road ahead. Recovery is a longer process than I ever could have imagined. We, as a community, still need love, prayers, thoughts, and patience. We still need to share our stories, our tired souls, and our hearts.

Thank you for supporting us. Happy New Year!

As many of you know, I play the piano. To me, pianos are deep and rich with meaning and memories and beauty. I can hardly stand to walk past a piano without sitting down to play it. I want to experience the feel of those particular keys on my fingers, that individual sound that comes from that particular artistry.

While I believe that my own piano made it through Harvey unscathed, it is not currently accessible to me. I miss it with an ache that I didn’t expect when I packed it away with our other things. I realized that the piano is one of the ways that I express feelings. It is a way that I pull stress from my body and cast it away. It is a way to take sadness and turn it into beauty. I wish I hadn’t packed it away.

The stories of the pianos in Harvey are many. As I drive through the neighborhoods, I see pianos on curbs and porches, destroyed by water, left out for trash pickup. A dear friend who I’ve met since Harvey is a widow. Her piano is filled with memories of her husband playing it in happier times before illness took his life. There are many things to let go of, to walk away from, for all of us. But some things are just too hard.

We continue to live with our friends as our house is rebuilt. We now have walls and floors throughout the entire house. The kitchen cabinetry will be built over the next couple of weeks. We root for each small accomplishment and feel so thankful for our contractor who continues to be true to her word, respectful of our property, and clean.

We celebrated Halloween in a new neighborhood this year. I somewhat dreaded its approach, as I knew we couldn’t trick or treat in our neighborhood like we always do. I felt homesick for normal life and prayed to have a good attitude for my kids’ sake. I think our God is a humorous one, as he felt compelled to send us another rainstorm for the entire evening of Halloween. We spent the evening juggling toddlers, candy baskets, and umbrellas while jumping over puddles and trying to keep dry in the torrential downpour. It turned out to be just what I needed, as I found myself laughing so hard at how crazy it all was. The kids had a blast jumping in puddles and getting wet. What a great adventure it turned out to be.

November brought with it a win for the Houston Astros in the World Series. I’ve never been a baseball fan. However, I became one. Dave and I truly enjoyed watching the games with our friends. I learned so much about baseball over the course of those seven games. The energy in Houston during this time was incredible. Everyone was rooting for the Astros because we needed a win for our city. Through all the devastation and loss, we came together to hope and to cheer on the home team. It felt bigger than a baseball game and we all knew it.

I continue to be so proud of the community I live in. There is so much resilience and kindness and hope on display every day. What I also see and feel myself is that we are weary. The days are cloaked in a foggy haze as we go about our lives in “the new normal”, working and tending to our families, while also rebuilding our homes and our lives. Trying to keep up with it all feels too much to handle on some days. But we are all here together to help and to hold each other up on the hard days. And day by day, little by little, progress is made.

I attended a women’s fellowship at our church a couple of nights ago. The event was put on to bring a bit of love to the women of the church who were flooded. There were many speakers who told their flood stories, stories of hope, kindness, and strength. There was a bit of music, lots of laughter and caring. And at the end, the entire room of women sang together. We sang Lean on Me.

Sometimes in our lives we all have pain. We all have sorrow. But, if we are wise, we know that there’s always tomorrow. Lean on me, when you’re not strong. I’ll be your friend. I’ll help you carry on. For, it won’t be long till I’m going to need somebody to lean on.

I’ve heard that song a million times and never though much of it until now. I will learn to play it on my piano when we move back into our home.

I’ve never struggled as much in my life as we have struggled the past few months, but in that struggle is real beauty. I’ve never felt so incredibly supported and loved.

Thank you for loving us.

For the past month, we have been living with friends. We moved into the home of the twins’ best friend. Although we had always known and liked this family, we did not really know each other as more than acquaintances prior to Hurricane Harvey. They were one of the first people to offer to help us with demolition in our house and were willing to gather their galoshes and wade through flood waters to help us on day 1. They then offered a place for us to stay and we decided to take them up on it, as we knew Andrew and Audrey would be very happy to be with their friend.

To offer your home to people you barely know for a month or more is yet another incredible act of kindness. As we have been here, the lingering mental effects of trauma have eased with time. Watching the kids run and play in the yard, laughing with their friend, squealing and having fun, has been a joy. Another neat thing is that there is also a 16 month old baby that my twins have come to know and love. I’ve enjoyed watching them become overnight big brother and sister to her. They watch out for her, try to make her laugh, and bring her pacifiers and toys when she is upset.

After finally feeling like my family was safe and settled reasonably well, I felt ready to travel again. I chose the city of Tulsa, OK, which is one of my favorite places to travel. It is easy to get there, the people are so warm and friendly, and the city is easy to navigate. I hopped on a plane and spent two productive days there before returning to Houston.

When I got back, we were given the news that our contractors were ready to start working on sheetrock in our home, which has since been completed and looks great. We are now preparing to begin work on bathrooms, tile floors, and kitchen cabinets. At the beginning of our ordeal, I felt overwhelmed at the sheer amount of decisions to be made. I have found that if I break it down, tackle a few things a day, and just keep plowing forward, it will all get done.

In the past week, we have also replaced our totaled car and were able to return the rental car we were driving. We have ordered new car seats for it as well.

We have managed to squeeze in a bit of time for ourselves. For several months leading up to Harvey, we eagerly watched trailers for the movie IT. Dave and I are both Stephen King fans and we thought it looked awesome. We tend to be bad about saying we want to see a movie and then not doing it. But with this one, we said we would go no matter what. And go we did. We had a date night dinner and a movie, while a favorite teacher watched our kids. Dave and also I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary on October 10. It was a Tuesday night but we did manage to get our kids to bed early and sneak out for a quick dinner celebration. Although we are in the midst of an unexpected devastation, our marriage has never felt stronger. We are a team, and for that team, I am forever thankful. As the anniversary card that I gave to Dave said, “till death do us part is for quitters.”

As we move forward, life feels a tiny bit more normal each day. Thank you to all of you who continue to support us. We are making good progress.

Today, our debris was finally removed from our front yard. Our debris pile had been almost as tall as I am in some places and basically covered our entire front yard. In order to remove this debris, a fork lift and a front loader smashed and packed the trash and loaded it into a giant dumpster. On our street, we were all eager to get this process started, as the debris looked awful and smelled even worse. Life could not be normal with giant piles of debris everywhere.

As we go through this process, I have learned that my feelings are all over the place. I have learned that some moments, I feel perfectly normal. Other moments, I am on the brink of tears over things that I didn’t expect to be sad or hard to take. I know that this is a normal part of the grief/trauma cycle.

I had hoped and cheered for debris removal and had spent quite a bit of time harassing the City of Houston 311 number to get it done. But when the fork lifts and front loaders showed up on our street and started plowing through my yard, I felt loss heavy in my stomach. I stood and watched as they picked up my kids’ play kitchen, which had been a beloved toy from the time they were babies until now. I watched them throw it into the street and then drive over it about 10 times to smash it flat like a pancake. They then picked it up along with some drywall debris and laminate flooring, and threw it into the dumpster. I thought about my babies “cooking” for me at that kitchen. I stood there in the middle of my front yard and cried for a minute. Then I decided to go talk to the trash men. I thanked them for the job they are doing and acknowledged that I’m sure it isn’t an easy job. They kindly told me they were sorry for my loss.

We have made some progress over the last few days, beginning to work on replacing our vehicles, as well as beginning the drywall work in our house. Our air conditioner in our house has been fixed, our swimming pool pump has been replaced, and chemical shocking of the pool water has it looking much better, although we have a long way to go.

October is probably my most favorite month in Houston, and I am very much looking forward to putting September behind me. Although September has been a challenging month, it has been the most incredible month of my life. I’m so proud of our city, our community, our home. I’ve lived in Houston for 13 years and I’ve always been a bit on the fence about it. I’ve loved the life we’ve built, but also felt a yearning for nature, for mountains, for hiking opportunities and four seasons. I’ve now come to see that Houston may not have a lot of natural beauty, but it is a city with HEART. It’s a city that comes together to get things done. A community that drives forward relentlessly. It’s where I belong and I won’t be on the fence about it any longer, because the fence floated away and because it was high time to get off the fence anyway. I’m a Texan now, like it or not.

I decided to go back to work on Sept 11. I work from a home office and typically spend a lot of my time traveling via airplane and car to have meetings and technical presentations with clients. When life is normal, I really enjoy traveling and exploring new places. I love both cities and wide open spaces. I am effective at working on the go, getting work done in airports, hotel rooms, and Starbucks locations all over the country. I am a very independent person who is comfortable being alone while doing this.

At least, that’s who I used to be. It’s who I will be again, but it’s going to take some time.

By Sept 11, I felt ready to begin tackling emails and phone calls and other computer related tasks. Dave was going back to work on Sept 11, so I decided this would be a good time for me to start as well. However, I was worried about travel. I wasn’t ready for that. We have gone through a very traumatic experience and I’ve noticed that I want my family around me all the time. Our first 10 days after our rescue, we all slept in the same bedroom. Two parents, two kids, two cats, and a dog. I wanted to know where everyone was at all times. We are now a couple of weeks out from that and have shifted to a new location where we are a bit more spread out. I’m a bit more relaxed. The kids are now sleeping in a different room from Dave and I, but they are only in the next room and we can check on them easily. The thought of getting on a plane and flying across the country and sitting in a restaurant alone and then a hotel room alone for a couple of days has been too much for me so far. I’m not ready. But I know the day will soon come when I do need to take that step.

Right after the flood, I did manage to salvage a few outfits that I can wear to meetings and I was offered help with getting laundry done by some kind friends. However, all of my shoes were ruined and had to be thrown in the garbage. On the day after rescue, I went to Target and bought three outfits of running shorts and tshirts for myself. This, along with a pair of tennis shoes, has been my entire wardrobe for the past few weeks. I’ve worn my hair in a ponytail, no makeup, and have been sweaty and dirty daily. The thought of acquiring new shoes, putting on makeup, a skirt and sweater, and thinking about technical things has been overwhelming to me. So, I decided to break it down into pieces and be gentle with myself.

I spent the past 10 days working “in the office”, which was a patio set bistro table that I drug into my driveway. From this table, I answered emails and phone calls, did other computer related tasks, while also being available to coordinate deliveries of various items such as drywall and storage container and manage appointments with contractors. During breaks from my day job, I would make phone calls to FEMA, car insurance, debris removal companies, coordinate mail delivery for various packages and cards, respond to texts and instant messages. It was hot and exhausting in the driveway, but it was even hotter inside the house.

Finally, I decided I was ready to put myself back out into the world, but it needed to be something small. I chose a client who is located about 2 hours away and who is fairly low maintenance. I should be able to drive there, have the meeting, and drive back in about half a day. I went to a department store and bought high heels. I pulled out a dress and hung it in the closet to de-wrinkle. I set my alarm and woke up on time. But I felt paralyzed. I could not make myself put on makeup and high heels and a dress. So, I decided not to make myself do that. I am an engineer and was going to visit other engineers at a chemical plant. I thought about how they dress there and realized that they all wear coveralls. I have a pair of coveralls that I wear regularly, along with steel toed boots. I decided that this would be acceptable for me to wear and something that I could mentally conquer.

I got dressed, took my kids to school, and started to drive out of town. I felt panicky to be leaving and driving 2 hours away. I have had very little alone time in which to think about our experiences. I was facing two hours alone in the car with just my thoughts for company. I considered turning the car around, going home, cancelling the meeting, and going to bed. But I didn’t. I kept driving. I decided that I refuse to be conquered by rain, flooding, anxiety, fear.

I held the meeting successfully in my coveralls with two very nice men who really just wanted to talk about the storm and share their experiences as people, as Texans, as neighbors, and friends. They wanted to hear my story. No one cared about high heels or makeup or dresses. They gave me a hug when I left. And that was that.

I got back in the car and drove home, feeling much calmer on the way back. I will face the skirts and makeup next week. I’ll face the empty hotel room in another couple of weeks. And I know I’ll be ready. Baby steps.

Since our walls were all torn down, we decided to have our house re-piped. This work took place over the weekend. A friend of ours negotiated a good deal with a plumber to do several of our houses in the neighborhood at generally the same time. Our house was up first. This plumber was great. He communicated with me to schedule this work, showed up when he said he would, and worked all day Saturday and Sunday to get our house completed.

During that time, I worked at the home of some of our best friends, who happen to also be our neighbors. They needed help with removing some flooring, cleaning the garage out, removing backsplash, etc. I got to spend some quality time with a sledgehammer and a crow bar.

My friends are determined women and they do not mess around. They debated whether to hire someone to remove their flooring or do it themselves. They made the decision to do it themselves. I also can be a woman of a fair amount of determination myself, and I got kind of sucked into this vortex of woman power. I decided to return the next day to get ‘er done with them.

This flooring was complicated, as it was ceramic tile which had wood glued on top of it. When I say glued, I don’t mean someone came along and put a couple of little dabs of glue in various spots. Someone took the strongest glue in chemistry’s creation and slathered it all over the place. The wood was NOT coming off. The tile would not break apart underneath the wood unless the wood was released first. We spent much of the morning with a hammer drill and a sledgehammer, trying to scrape pieces of wood off. It was incredibly slow progress. But more women showed up. Tough women. They blasted through a pretty good size part of the flooring before they had to leave. I was so impressed.

Then, it was again, just the three of us. And then a brilliant idea occurred to my friend. She decided to take a saw and cut the wood along the grout lines of the tile to release it. She tried it with a first section and it WORKED! We were able to lift large chunks of flooring out with a bit of prying from the tool that I had previously decided I despised, but became suddenly very useful. It was a giant, heavy, cast iron stick. It was great for ramming under the large pieces of tile and lifting. We finished the job and of course did lots of joking about my big stick in the process.

It occurred to me at some point during the day that it had become about more than just whether to save a bit of money on demolition costs. We were going to show those men that we could do it without them. It also occurred to me that a good portion of the things that I’ve accomplished in life have been done because I wanted to show some doubting man that I could do it. In the end, the doubting man doesn’t usually care. And in this case, I’m not sure there even was an actual doubting man. But it still felt damn good to spend the day with my girlfriends tearing out a floor, and even though they did the majority of the heavy lifting, I still felt really accomplished at the end of the day.

Another big step this weekend was that we took the twins to the house to see it for the first time since we evacuated. The last vision they had of our home was when we floated down the street in a boat. The water was partway up the outside walls, covering a good portion of our cars. I was crying, which probably scared them, as I’m not normally prone to crying. We have spent a lot of time over the past few weeks explaining our absences by referring to the “big giant puddle” and the mess that was left after the “big giant puddle” went away.

I didn’t know how to take them back to that place. I didn’t know how to show them all the contents of our home, including their toys and some of their favorite things, that are now laying in a smelly pile of garbage on our front lawn. This pile is taller than I am. I didn’t know how to show them the inside of the house, which was gutted down to the studs and no longer has walls or cabinets or showers or toilets. I didn’t know how to show them the mural that our friend had beautifully painted for them in their bedroom, and which is now half gone. I didn’t know how to show them the swimming pool that we have spent so many fun hours in as a family, but is now filled with dead fish and snakes and brown muck. I didn’t know how to do any of these things. But I did feel deep in my heart that we needed to find a way. This is our life now and our children have to face this challenge with us. I don’t believe that hiding it from them will do them any favors.

We spent some time talking about going to the house and prepared them for what to expect as best we could. We made the decision that we would let them decide what they were comfortable with seeing and we would respect that choice. We loaded ourselves into the car and drove to our house. The kids fell asleep on the way, so they missed seeing the garbage piles that mark the stunning devastation of lives along our route. I parked in our driveway and the kids woke up at the stopping of the car. They peeked out and saw the garbage. Andrew wanted to cuddle with Daddy and Audrey wanted to cuddle with Mommy. But they both chose, on their own, to get out of the car and go inside the house to see it. We talked constantly with them as we walked from room to room. “Mommy, you need to clean the floor! It is messy!” “Daddy, you need to fix our shower!” We showed them the things that we were able to save from the flood, including their beds, mommy’s piano, and pictures of our family. They were very excited to see that we were able to save their bikes. Our friends cleaned them up over the weekend and they got to go for a ride.

In the end, they did not seem overly disturbed by the state of our house. Children are resilient. I believe that if you talk to them in a calm manner and explain what’s going on, they will do just fine. We explained that we can fix everything in the house. It will just take time. But we will go home again. We are up to this challenge.

Today, we officially moved from “demolition” phase into “rebuild” phase. After the demolition of the walls in our house, we sat with dehumidifiers and blowers and fans. Being the nerds that we are, we learned that dehumidifiers work optimally in these conditions at 80 degrees Farenheit, so we set our air conditioner to this level and let the machines do their work. Our house dried very quickly and very well. Once the house was dry, we were able to treat it with the mold killing chemical, concrobium. This is a very effective chemical that should keep us mold free. This is a huge relief.
The concrobium will take about 2-3 days to dry with our air conditioner still set at 80 degrees and with dehumidifiers continuing to run. After that, we will be able to begin drywall work.

We have been absolutely blessed with a dear friend who has volunteered to do our drywall work for us. He arrived today, after a long drive from his home and family in Pennsylvania and has begun preparing the walls. His work be the first stage of our rebuild of our home.

For those of you who don’t know, I grew up in Pennsylvania and moved away when I was 18 to attend college in Virginia. I did go back to visit during summer breaks and Christmas, but I never moved back to Pennsylvania. I had not seen this friend since probably about 1997. He got in touch with me a few days after the storm and said that he wanted to come to Houston. I told him to come on if he wanted to come.

He met me today at the foot of my driveway after having driven through some of the most damaged parts of the neighborhood. He got out of the car with tears in his eyes at the devastation. The smell. The garbage. I gave him a quick tour. And then he rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

Around lunchtime, we took a break and I took him to Torchy’s Taco’s. We Texans are faithful about our tacos. We spent some time catching up and I got updates on his children, who are about my age and have started families of their own. He gave me a bit of history about his background that I did not previously know. The subject of faith came up. Upon deciding to come to Houston and help us, our friend did not know our faith or whether we even had one. But he decided to google us. And low and behold, apparently our baptism video is what comes up when you google us. I did not even know this video existed.

In 2013, Dave and I were baptized together in a private ceremony with our pastor. I was about 7 months pregnant with the twins. We decided to get baptized and officially join our church. We had been attending this church for a few years prior to that, but hadn’t made things official.

My experiences during Hurricane Harvey were powerfully emotional. There were extreme ups and downs. Throughout the entire experience, I felt myself being pulled and pushed like a baby from a womb. I was pulled from a place of comfort and complacency to a place of turmoil, new and changing circumstances, unfamiliarity, fear. Nothing made sense, but I found hope and love and light and friends were a big piece of the entire experience. Even in my very worst moment, I never felt alone.

I chose to officially accept God in 2013. I think that I sat generally contended, but sometimes a little uncomfortable with that decision for the past few years. I didn’t really know how to reconcile my personal imperfections and vices with faith. Somehow throughout these past three weeks, I’ve begun to see that I don’t need to. I’m strong and true and good, just as I am. I can tell you that passing through the waters of Harvey was my real baptism. I’m ready to live comfortably with this truth for the rest of my life.

In the end, the stomach bug got all four of us. That has never happened before. Normally, one of us gets a stomach bug and the other three help care for that person. Maybe, when things get crazy, two of us get it. This time, we all got it. When it was my turn, I was too sick to even get out of bed for more than 30 seconds. But it was fast. I’m over it and back to work, feeling strong and good today.

Several months ago, our day care held a silent auction. One of the items that I bid on was the painting of a bedroom in your house. I won this item and over the summer we had the painting done. We were so happy with the painting, but what we were really happy with was the company that did it. They were local people within our school district who were honest and kind. We vowed that we would use them again when we were ready to do work on our house. We had no idea that that would happen in a couple months.

When I knew that we were definitely flooded, I called this company and asked if they would be willing to work with us again. They said that they would help us out with demolition or whatever else we needed. We were able to do about 80% of the demo ourselves (with help from some wonderful volunteers), but really needed help with that last 20% which was much harder demo work. They came to our house and knocked it out (literally!) in a couple days. Our house is now in “drying” mode. It will get treated with mold killing chemicals in a couple days. After that, we move to rebuild phase.

I must admit, I vacillate between being excited about starting from scratch and being horrified that our house is destroyed. I’m probably about 75% excited and 25% horrified. I’m not much of an interior designer, so the idea of picking out countertops, floors, cabinets, etc is overwhelming. But, it’s time to grow up. It’s time to learn how to do this.

I’ve learned so much over the past week. I’ve learned what a family of four (plus 3 pets) really needs to carry on their back to survive. I’ve learned what floods do to homes and what floods smell like. I’ve learned how to move things to higher ground and how to gut a home. I’ve learned how to give better hugs because sometimes that’s all you have to give. I’ve learned that complete strangers can become instant friends. I’ve learned what heroes, grace, compassion, humility look like in real life. I’ve learned what overwhelming love feels like. I have felt a shower of love from friends near and far. Some of you I haven’t talked to or spent time with in years, and yet, you are all loving us so well. We say thank you and we mean it from the deepest reaches of our hearts.

Dave and I are a couple who enjoys hobbies. Dave actually jokes that he collects hobbies. We do things for awhile and then do other things and then come back to the first things, and it goes like this forever. Books and reading are one of our passions that is ongoing. No matter what, we are always reading something and then talking about it with each other. After our Harvey rescue, we both stopped reading. I am pleased to say that Dave bought a new ebook a couple of nights ago, and I started a new ebook last night. This is a good sign that our mental health is headed in the right direction.

Dave also had a running streak going before Harvey. He had run every day for about 150 days straight. He has not picked this back up and I think it will be some time before life feels normal enough to go running again. But we take things a day at a time.

I told Dave a couple of days ago that I generally wake up feeling the same way as I did before Harvey. Happy. I told him that we are being tested right now and I feel stronger and happier than I would have expected, given the circumstances. He said, “remember the Winnie the Pooh quote that we’ve heard a hundred thousand times?”

“Always remember, you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think, and loved more than you know.”

This is the truth. Thank you for loving us.

The aftermath of Harvey presents so many ups and downs.  Each day has its own set of new challenges and problems to be solved.  We are learning to fly by the seat of our pants.

On Monday, we decided to leave our kids with a friend and go to the house to really get serious about the demolition work.    We pulled together a team of 7 dear friends who were kind enough to wade through water to get to our house and help us begin the hard work of tearing out drywall and baseboards and flooring.  We made our plans and arrived in the neighborhood in the morning.  We all put on our galoshes and prepared to wade in.

We began wading in to our house.  We started the dirty work of knocking out walls, ripping up floors, and tearing out paneling.  We had to sort through our things to decide what we could keep and what would be thrown out.  We began a massive pile of garbage on our lawn.  It will be many days before it can be picked up.  Likely, the city will be contracting with outside refuse companies from other states to help deal with the trash pickup.

The 7 of us kept working hard throughout the morning.  I was so thankful for these people.  Pretty soon, there was a knock on the door, and, I kid you not, a team of about 10 people, most younger than 12, streamed into our house.  They were strangers to us, but we had a mutual friend who had sent them our way.  These young people proceeded to do demo work in our house like nobody’s business.  They were a demo team from a local church and they were there to WORK.  They bagged up all our clothes, toys, ripped out most of our walls, and cleaned up after themselves.  I am so incredibly thankful for this team of strangers who helped us, as this amount of work would have taken us so many days to get done had we done it on our own.

Watching my house be stripped down to the studs was in some ways sad and yet also cathartic.  I feel like nothing represents a family so much as the house they live in.  Yet our house was flooded and then stripped to the studs.  Our house was ruined, torn apart.  Yet, my family is still standing strong, holding hands, holding each other up.  We will start from scratch and rebuild our sweet little house with help from a million friends and we will come out stronger for it.

As I began to do demo work, I began to feel physically good.  Strong.  I’ve spent the past 4 years worrying about how much I weigh or whether I’m in good shape or not.  Suddenly, I don’t care about any of that.  I’m ready to work.  It feels good.

We are still completing demo work on our house and then will begin with the spraying of mold killing chemicals.  After that, our house will require drying for a few days to weeks, depending on how fast it goes.

Because our neighborhood is under mandatory evacuation, there are a number of law enforcement officials who are keeping an eye on things.  In my opinion, this is good news, as it prevents looters from getting to our homes.  There are military helicopters flying over throughout the day.  There are all-terrain vehicles on patrol throughout the neighborhood.  Supposedly there are also FBI, National Guard, US Marshals, and State Police who are on watch.  There are police checkpoints throughout the neighborhood and you have to prove you are a resident to enter.  I welcome this, as mandatory evacuation can be an opportunity for looters to take over in an area.  So far, things have felt very safe for residents.

Many people have asked about my kids, so I wanted to provide an update there as well.  My kids have been having a blast visiting friends over the past few days.  We are lucky enough to be staying near several of their friends from day care, so we have been able to arrange many play dates for them while Dave and I go and work on the house.  As far as trauma from the storm, I think these effects will take some time.  They talk about the “big puddle” and they ask whether the “big puddle” has gone away.  Other than that, they don’t seem to care.  I find that the resilience of children is amazing.    Four years old is old enough to remember life pretty clearly, and I have no doubt they will remember this experience.  Dave and I hope to set a good example of being good and kind and strong while standing together through adversity.  I hope we live up to the challenge.

Over the weekend, I spent some time shopping for items that we would need for demolition and cleaning. I was able to get dehumidifiers, fans, blowers, cleaning supplies, trash bags, etc. It felt good to be actually doing something that would help our cause.

On Saturday evening, we learned that our neighborhood was now considered under mandatory evacuation and that anyone with standing water in their home would have their power cut off. We were told various stories from various sources as to whether all power would be cut, or whether it would be on a house-by-house basis. News sources were conflicting and confusing. We began to be very concerned, as the power outage was potentially going to be two weeks long. Two weeks without power in a home that had been flooded would be devastating, as it would allow mold time to grow in the house and be much more difficult to successfully clean. We slept fitfully, wondering how we would figure out this new challenge.

I woke up Sunday morning concerned over the power and was trying to figure out what to do, when the phone rang. I answered and it was a person from my company, offering a generator and some additional supplies that would be helpful. I breathed a huge sigh of relief, because at least if our power went off, we could still run a dehumidifier or two with the generator.

Later on Sunday, we made the decision to go back into the neighborhood and get started on the demo work for our house. But, first, we went to church.

We belong to a church in the Houston area that we really love. The people are kind, wonderful, and down-to-earth. We tend to be sporadic about attending, as life gets busy, we get tired, etc. However, as I was lying in bed praying my way through the nights of Hurricane Harvey, I set a goal. I decided that walking in the church door on Sunday was going to happen. I was going to be alive and safe and well enough to go to church. So, on Sunday, go to church we did.

I was planning to go straight to house demolition afterwards, so I wore running shorts and a t-shirt and tennis shoes to church. In my past life, you know, a week ago, I would have felt inappropriate being there in such attire. Now I believe that if you are there to worship God, if that is really why you are there, it doesn’t matter whether you show up in running shoes or an evening gown.

After church, we drove to our neighborhood, parked our car, and waded through the water to our street. The water level on our street was down enough that we could wade in fairly easily, but was still not drive-able by car. The power was, thankfully, still on.

We opened the door and the smell hit me again, pungent and raw. We spent the next few hours tearing up flooring in our living room, removing items from the dressers and kitchen drawers and cabinets, and rearranging furniture. We began to sort through clothes to throw out, versus wash and keep. If clothing items touched the flood waters, we decided to throw them out. I didn’t really find any of these activities particularly difficult, except for when I began to go through a bag of shoes that were soaking wet. I saw the shoes that I wore on my wedding day and it made me cry for a minute. Then I straightened myself up and realized that I haven’t touched them since my wedding day, so maybe they needed to go anyway.

These days, I find that I’m generally in a good mood. Also, I feel like I have a lot of tasks to do and I feel pretty serious about getting them done. I’m not spending much time feeling sad or crying. Writing helps me process what is going on around me. Sometimes I sit down and a torrent of words pours out of my typing fingers before I even realize that I felt that way.

In my last blog entry, I wrote about a woman I met whose husband had died of pancreatic cancer. I mentioned that I wanted to stop and visit her. I ended up running into her yesterday in my neighborhood and I asked her how things were going. She told me that a team of angels from Naples, FL had come and did demo work in her whole house for her. Almost all the demo work was done! What an incredible act of kindness to drive from Naples, FL to Houston, TX to rip up drywall! She and I shared a hug and a smile before I had to run on to my house.

After we finished our day’s work at our house, we got in the car and drove back to the place we are staying. I grabbed a quick dinner and shower and then it was time to drive an hour away to pick up the generator that I was promised. I hopped in the car, plugged my phone in, and music started playing. I tend to like dark, sad music normally, but I proceeded to rock out to all kinds of ridiculous pop music. I was dancing along to Britney Spears, Madonna, and that stupid song Call Me Maybe. Over the past week, there’s not been a single moment where I’m not responsible for someone or sometimes several people. Life hasn’t been light. Having an hour to myself in the car to be carefree felt like an extravagance. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

While driving there and back, I saw so many out-of-state cars with paint on them saying “DRIVING TO HELP TEXAS!” I tried to say a little thank you to the universe for each of these people. We love you and thank you for coming to help us. Yet another incredible act of kindness to drive across the country to help strangers in need.

With this storm, I’ve learned that each day presents a new challenge. Maybe life has always presented a new daily challenge, only not as extreme. As hard as this situation has been and will continue to be, I feel strengthened by the fact that solutions also appear, sometimes out of the blue. It was not lost on me that Vanilla Ice played on my pop music binge last night as I drove across town to pick up a generator.

“If there was a problem, yo, I’ll solve it!”