SPELLING BEE

BY BEA WESTERBERG

Embers have beauty

“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful”. Joshua J. Marine As you can see, I have fallen in love with quotes. I have been finding some perfect ones that are comforting, encouraging, and meaningful to me. I have also enjoyed some of the fun and enlightening ones, so be prepared to see more of them.

The mice and the boxelder bugs must all have had extreme living places in the garage. Why else would the house be invaded by all the refuges from the fire? I have been an ungracious host and the mice “treats” have offered around the clock and I have resized (crushed) every boxelder bug I have come across. The woodticks may even have had a few investments there. I would not think there would be many ticks between the pickup in the driveway and the house and that has been my route for the last week or so. I am starting garden work this week so I probably will be more likely to encounter them at that time.

I have had a huge learning experience with probate, wills, transfer to new ownership, medallion signatures, who wants or does not want a death certificate, and lots of lawyer talk in the past 6 months. The end of the tunnel was getting real close and I was ready to shut off the lights. Boom! A whole new ballgame dealing with a fire that did a very, very good job of clearing out the garage. Now all the insurance dialog begins. How many innings will this ballgame have? It’s probably going to be a lot of extra innings. Again, my neighbors Tony and Rose are lions in helping me and Deb and Becky are on my insurance side. Tears and meltdowns have happened but I have had recent experience with that. Maybe that is why the center of my organic applique piece got kicked out of the pickup and got lost several years ago. I am a firm believer in everything happening for a reason, but I never got my head around why I had to lose that piece. Was it to prepare me for what was to come?

The cleaning company, fire investigator hired by the insurance company; along with the Hastings Fire investigator, the car insurance people and the insurance adjuster for buildings have all been on site to get things going to the next steps.

The first major step will be to get the area cleared of all the remains from the fire, including all the concrete, brick, metals, etc. This might be one of the hardest times to rebuild a structure. The prices and shortage of materials does not seem to have slowed down construction. Several builders are saying they are already booked until well into next year. At this time, I do want to rebuild but have no idea of what the building will look like or when work could be started on it. I am keeping an open mind on a timeline and I will pray for extra patience.

Doing a list of what was in the garage and shop is going to be a super major project. I have already put a lot of hours into thinking and writing down what I remember about the contents. Some of the big things are easy to remember but even that can be tricky. For instance, I didn’t think about the big generator until we moved some of the remains so the dog could be put back in his home area. That is when I saw its skeleton. What was very surprising was how well the plastic in the plastic bags set to go to recycling made it. The hot fire destroyed everything around them but you could use a few of the bags inside the bags! Wool material also did not do a good burn. I had not gotten all of the wool boxes taken to the She Shed. And yes, I did save some of the burned wood and will save other items for art work as I come upon them. The creative part of me did not burn! Lyn, THANKS for reaching out to me! Very good information!

Bea Westerberg [email protected]