I'm baaaacckkk!

Told you I'm always starting over!  I know it's been nearly two months since I last blogged, so much has happened since then.

I found that my routine of blogging while Liam took his morning nap wouldn't work once Riley got back from his month away to his dad's house.  Our computer was hooked up to the living room TV (as the monitor) so for me to blog I had to take up the TV.  And blogging on the iPad is out of the question!  So I figured once school started back, I'd have my blogging time back.

And then Liam got sick.  If you don't know much of his start in life, you can find it over on my other blog RippletReport.blogspot.com . I kept a blog from when I was 12 weeks preggers until he was out of NICU.  I had all intentions to blog our August stay in the hospital, but I didn't have a laptop like I did when he was born and by the time I made it back to the Ronald McDonald House to crash, I was exhausted or it was after their computer room had closed.  Someday I hope to go back and blog when I can recall of our week at Sacred Heart just to keep up his story with gastroschisis.  So I figured once Liam was out of the hospital, I could start blogging here at WitnessFitness again.

But our house got struck by lightning.  Thankfully (I guess?), Liam was still in the hospital but was on the road to recovery by then.  So we weren't actually home when it happened and we already had somewhere to stay that night (Ronald McDonald House).  Coincidentally, Riley and I were in town the day it happened to go to Meet the Teacher Night at his school.  We popped home just long enough to change into "real" clothes and went up to school in the torrential downpour.  After school we stopped by ChikFilA for dinner and I got a text from a girlfriend to meet her at Sam's on the way home so she could pass off some donations for the House to take back with us to Pensacola.  On the way to Sam's I got another text from our neighbor asking if our power was out after a massive lightening bolt hit close to our houses.  I told her I would let her know once I got home and didn't think more about it.  So we got the donations and I went to my brother's house since they had power (no sense in going home to eat in a hot, dark house!).  Ri got to visit with his cousin for a bit and then we went back to our house to get some new clothes and see what was going on with the power.

Power crews were already on the scene working on a transformer outside the house, so we hurried in out of the rain and found flashlights to get about the house.  When I walked in the door, there were weird plastic bits on the floor.  I didn't recall those being there, but I had gone out the garage when I left so I might not have noticed.  Then as I went down the hall I saw baby plugs for an outlet on the ground, but didn't know where they came from as the outlet they were in front of had their covers in it.  Super weird.  By the time I got to the kitchen, there was more broken plastic on the floor.  Well I know this definitely wasn't here when we left.  Maybe the giant boom knocked something down?  As I pieced them together to figure out what the plastic was I realized it was an outlet cover.  The outlet by the back door had it's cover (and baby plugs!) completely blown off with pieces landing 10 and 20 yards away! I realized lightening must have hit our house so I went out to see where it struck.

That's when I noticed the hole in our roof. It didn't hit the huge pine tree above my house but it sure managed to hit the overhang of my roof right by Riley's bedroom.  That's when I also saw my whole electrical and cable boxes on the side of the house had the covers blown off and splintered about the ground and wires splayed out and sizzled.  I notified the power crew that I think I was hit, and just in time because they were trying to juice us all back up.  They took off my meter so we couldn't be connected until an electrician cleared the entire house.  We followed the path as best we could and it looks like it came through the overhang of the roof, hit the boxes and travelled along the cable lines into the house (and I guess power wires too for outlets to be blown off), it travelled along the satellite wire to the dish and literally burnt out pieces of cable as long as a foot or so along the way.  It also travelled along the roofline and came out the back corner of the house blowing off the end of the flashing and splaying it out "like a raccoon clawed at it" (says Riley).  Inside the dry wall in a storage crawl space was getting rain soaked from the hole letting some water in, pieces of cable were completely missing and burnt up in the interior wiring and a chunk of wood beam was splintered off. Steven found out later that our router exploded pieces across the room and we have a small burn mark up the wall behind the living room TV.

I cannot believe we were in town that night.  I cannot believe we were gone for only an hour when it all happened.  I cannot believe it hit the overhang of the roof and not the attic space which probably would have started a fire.  I cannot believe the wires didn't burn the house down.  I do believe the cat had every right to throw up 4 times right then and there- I would have too.

I called the fire department to set my mind at ease about my house burning down while we were in Pcola.  My brother helped me get pictures for insurance.  My sweet neighbor came over for moral support and brought husband help to try to plug up the hole from the rain.  And my neighbor that texted me offered their empty deep freeze for me to salvage our fridge contents.  Un.Real.  I think I would have freaked out if any little thing was different about our situation that day.  God handed me just enough but not too much to send me over the edge.  I was so very grateful that day, even though my baby was in the hospital and my house was hit.  Any little change in any of the events or damage and I think I might have had to lose it.

I love USAA.  Our insurance I got to keep from being a military brat all those years.  I called them as I drove back to Pensacola in the dark and rain, explaining what happened and what I knew.  Within less then 12 hours from my late night phone call we had a generous amount of money deposited in our account for any accommodation and food expenses we would incur while the house was without power.  We had contractors immediately onsite the next morning to plug the hole in the roof, replace our AC unit (also a casualty), and conduct a total wire inspection.  we got our meter back and juiced up within the day!  Which was fortunate because Liam got discharged the following day.  I was so thrilled because I was just ready to get back home to my own house, with my own things, and my own kitchen, with my own food.  As fun as we would make a hotel stay, we were just ready to be home.

It turns out we lost pretty much everything connected to cables- computer everything, TVs, game boxes, DVRs, etc. Even the garage door blew.  So you can see why I couldn't possibly blog now.  Not until we got everything reviewed by technicians (everything was uneconomical to replace- they couldn't even turn ON the computer!) and bought all new electronics could I possibly start blogging.

But then I had repairman after repairman coming in and I was juggling appointments, kids, catching up on housework, etc.  Definitely couldn't blog then.  So I took the month of August off from progressing in life and just went into survival mode.  September was better but then I was playing catch up on everything I put off while in survival mode.  By the end of the month, I finally caught up with it all mostly and had a mini-breakdown, I think because I finally let myself feel everything August had brought us.

Now that that's all behind us, the roofers just finished us up (all brand new shingles on the entire roof!), the carpenters repaired the roofline damage today, and painters come tomorrow to paint my ENTIRE LIVNG ROOM because of the burn mark on the wall.  I cannot believe how well were are being looked after.  All of these things we needed: new roof, new AC unit, and new garage door opener (it was all nearly 15 yrs old), and my living room with vaulted ceilings painted!  Hubs had a good time getting new electronics set up too.  I'm still in awe and can't believe it's all happening.  USAA and our contractors have been unbelievable.

SO- here I am.  Ready to attack life again.  Even more grateful for what I have and don't have.  Why am I grateful for something I don't have?  Because I was starting to feel restless from not working and a job I thought would be a perfect fit didn't materialize and no other good job postings have been out there for sometime.  But I wasn't supposed to be working.  I was supposed to be home.  To take care of  Liam for 9 days in the hospital.  To sit with repairman after repairman for weeks.  How could I possibly work with all of this going on?  God knew what was in store for me.  Luckily I listened to that inner voice and just let my journey take me on the path I was intended to be on.  When I'm supposed to work again, everything will line up perfectly.  I just have to keep listening and be ready.  Until then, my place is here.  Looking after my family and my home.  And I'm finally ok with that.

And good news!  Despite all the dramas and only going off Paleo a handful of times- I've managed to not lose any ground!  In fact, I kept heading in the right direction!  Good habits pay off!  And I found that when I ate Paleo and I worked out, my Sjogren's was better so that was extra encouragement.  Stress and lack of sleep can really send me in a tailspin so I had to stay on top of that.

Here's how the last two months have been:


Weight: 150 lbs  ONE AND A HALF POUNDS LOST
Arms: 11.5" HALF AN INCH LOST
Waist: 29" ONE INCH LOST
Hips: 36.5" ONE AND A HALF INCHES ADDED
Butt: 41.5" ONE AND A HALF INCHES ADDED
Thigh: 24.5" HALF AN INCH LOST

What I'm trying to get back to:
Weight: 144lbs Pounds to go- 6
Arms: NK
Waist: 28" One inch to go
Hips: 35" One and a half inches to go
Butt: 40" One and a half inches to go
Thigh: 23" One and a half inches to go

Not bad, not bad!  Since this post is so long (and I'm not reviewing it so sorry if anything's misspelled, confusing etc) I'll post tomorrow what I'm doing for the week.  Seeing these numbers makes me even more motivated.  Imagine what I can do when I'm really trying again!  And I have a goal in mind- staying on track until the end of the month when I go with my girlfriends to New Orleans for the weekend and a Madonna concert.  There's a kickin black skirt I would love to get into by then. Woohoo!