A week after I left what had been my home for the past 18 years, I moved back into the house that had been my home for the first 18 years of my life. My parents had deeded their house to me years ago. After doing that, my Daddy had to be moved into a nursing home where he died a few years later. My Mother was moved into an apartment in town to be near me so I could help keep an eye on her. Less than a year after Daddy died, Mama died too. I became an orphan. So, here I was, 46 years old and moving into the house I grew up in.
To say it had fallen into a state of disrepair is putting it mildly but I didn't care. I had a roof over my head, four walls to keep out the critters and doors that I could lock to keep out two-legged critters. It didn't take long, however, to realize it was going to need a bit of fixing up. My brother, being the wonderful person he is, told me he would help me out with this. The immediate need was the kitchen. The floor was sagging underneath the kitchen cabinet, the ceiling was sagging overhead and the walls were covered in a layer of grease from years of Mama's cooking. Time frame for this repair would be about a week. So my sister and brother-in-law came out from Texas to help with the work - and then the rains came. Not just sporadic showers but downpours that tended to last all day long. It rained almost every day. The land my house sits on is good old red Alabama clay. Starting to get a mental picture here?
What a mess! The floor joists had rotted out and had to be replaced. Everything my poor brother tried to do took twice as long because he was having to work in the mud. The mud even sucked the heel off one of his work boots! He told me if I found it, it was his. One day when I came home from work part of the kitchen floor was missing and I could see the water running under my house from the constant rains! My brother was leaving about to go home for the day so there I was with this hole in the floor. I mean the size of about 2 feet by 10 feet - missing. He assured me he would be back the next day but I had to spend the night with the hole in the floor. Before I went to bed, I turned on his big work light and sat it near the hole to discourage critters. Then I closed my bedroom and bathroom door so if some critter did decide to come in, it couldn't get in my room! The next morning I very carefully opened the door and prayed I wouldn't see a possum, coon, squirrel or even a skunk sitting in my kitchen floor. Luckily there was none there.
After a week, I was down to no ceiling, no wall, no cabinets, and no kitchen sink but I did have a brand spanking new floor that didn't bounce when you walked across it! That was October of last year. That's pretty much where I've been since that time. My brother works on it when he can and I have a wonderful excuse for not cooking. Do you have any idea how hard it is to cook without a kitchen sink? It makes washing dishes pretty sucky too. But I've made it through. I've lived with things I didn't think I could deal with and I have no sympathy for people who whine and complain about their houses or some minor inconvenience they have to deal with like a broken dishwasher. Boo Hoo! When you have to carry water from the bathroom sink to wash dishes in a dishpan on top of your freezer, then you have my sympathies.
It's been tough at times to deal with all this work going on but I wouldn't trade the peace of mind I have when I come home to my house the way it is now for the best house in town to be miserable in. There's a lot to be said for peace of mind.
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