Getting Started with Repairs!

We've been back a few days and have been very busy. Here's the latest on what's been going on around our household:

Our blue roof was finally installed. I don't think it covers the leaking area though. We think the roof is leaking where it attaches to the second story of the house, and a tarp cannot cover that. We'll have it fixed soon though. They would not install a tarp over the garage since it's not a living area. I don't think it's leaking there yet though.

The kids started school on Monday. They were actually thrilled. Attendance in our parish was down quite a bit overall, but there were MANY new kids from neighboring parishes over in New Orleans who are staying with family here in Slidell, and will be attending our school for as long as necessary. The schools are giving every child in the parish a free hot lunch through November. The hot lunch is very popular here and my kids normally ate it every day anyway. The busses are running and most of the teachers returned. My youngest daughter's school flooded but they had a crew working around the clock and were able to open on time. Part of the building is still being repaired, so they are doubling up in the classrooms for a couple more weeks until they are done.

Hubby went to New Orleans today to meet with someone from the university to see if he can be allowed into his office to get his computer and some of his research material so he can work on it. He should be there right now. Hopefully he hasn't been turned away. Security on campus is supposed to be pretty tight right now, and they still don't have any power.


The insurance adjustor came and went over our claim. It went really well and appears to be enough to cover everything we need to repair. One tip for anyone who still has to meet with their adjustor: Have all your receipts already copied and ready to give him. It made things MUCH faster and easier. I think it also helped make our adjustor more amicable since it made his job a lot easier. We can finally get started fixing things!

Unfortunately now we have to go through a big song and dance with our mortgage company who was also a payee on our check, and we can't cash it without their endorsement. Basically the mortgage company will hold the money in escrow and send us 1/3 of it at a time to make repairs and then we have to call their inspector. After each inspection, they will send us another 1/3 of the money. What a pain, but at least we are not having any problems with the insurance settlement.

We are going to have to do a big repair to the ceiling in our living room, which I did not realize was going to be such a big job. The roof leaked and ruined the ceiling.

It's a good thing we saved our fridge because it would not have been included on the homeowners insurance.

Today we signed on a local company to do the roof. They will probably get started sometime in the next two weeks. Hooray! The first thing to get fixed! It feels good to have someone lined up to fix something finally.

Now we are working on estimates for the fence, the siding, the carpet, and the drywall/ceiling. We're doing some of the smaller repairs ourselves, such as repairing all the screens that were damaged. I fixed those myself already! They look great. hubby reinstalled the missing shutters and fixed some of the missing siding on the front of the house. It looks better already.

Dog update: Lulu, the Welsh terrier, is now living with my parents in North Carolina. She was their dog originally anyway, so she really just returned home. We have been having a terrible time trying to keep her from running away since the hurricane, and so many other dogs and animals are running loose everywhere. She does not play well with other animals.

Our pug dog Oscar went to the vet for another checkup on his eye. He is still wearing his big plastic collar, and he has a long way to go before the eye heals completely. It is making progress, but it is very SLOW. The vet is still very worried about it and says it may take up to two months to heal, and wants me to think about some other surgery options. Yikes. We're still giving him antibiotics and eyedrops 4 times a day. A little bit of his vision has returned, but not like it was. Poor old guy.

We went to the grocery store this afternoon and I was thrilled to see much more food! They even had the salad bar open finally! Real food! No more Spaghetti-O's!

All in all, things are moving along finally. It feels good to finally be able to get started with repairs, and to get the kids back to a routine.