Saturday, June 8, 2013

Inching Along

Well we made it back home. We flew back to the capital last Wednesday and spent 2 nights there to finish up some paperwork for our ID's now that we have our Visas. It is all a long process because none of the officials can agree on what paperwork you need. 

It was a long ride back to Petén. We were eager though! We picked up a booster seat in Guate and then gave one of the boys' seats to Eden. She is a big front facing carseat girl now!
She sleeps like this a lot in her carseat... cracks me up.
We had another flat tire on the way home. (We have new tires being shipped to us from Belize, so hopefully this is the last one.) It was on a straightaway thankfully, but unfortunately it was pouring down rain. Jimmy drove the last 3+ hours soaking wet. Yuck! I forgot, so when I went to pick up some groceries the next day, I walked around with the back of me wet! 
 Wow, it is overwhelming to be away from home for 10 weeks, to come back to a house that wasn't exactly sealed, and also to be in the middle of a move and finishing a house during all of it. I am really worried about how my boys are processing all of this. They kept telling me that they wanted to come back home, but I think they were a little surprised at how unlike home our new house felt when they got here. There just hasn't been enough moments in it yet for it to feel like home. We were only in it 8 days before we left for furlough. 

Thankfully Juan had checked on the house a couple times for us. He ran off 6 rats one day and lost a 7th one, that Lucha later killed. (It is about time that one of our dogs killed a rat, it's not like that haven't had plenty of opportunities.) So there were NO live rats when we got home. I prayed for that and was extremely grateful!
There was 7 rats worth of poo in my pantry, but at least it's over now! My pantry is clean and I am not waiting to hear a rat trap go off or looking forward to waking up to the smell of dead rat. Juan saw where they were coming in at and sealed the hole. We just weren't finished with the doors and windows yet. This is the third attempt on some of them. They are just not being done right. No one around here uses bug screen or rat screen, so they don't know how to install it... one gap and it is all worthless! We really need to learn how to weld.

We do however have something living with us. There was a gap at the peak of our roof. There is part of our house still not finished yet, it probably won't be for a while since we are paying as we go. There are bars and screen up dividing that attic space. Those silly temporary bars were built better than the first version of my permanent windows, but that's another blog post. This is a picture of our attic space which we can see since Jimmy hasn't put all of our false ceiling up. You can see a gap in the concrete up in the top left corner.
Well some birds found it and built a nest on top of the wall in between our headboard and our bathroom. Before we plugged the hole Jimmy took a ladder into our bedroom and checked to make sure there were no eggs in the nest. (I asked him to do that.) Great! It was empty. But then I noticed a bird hopping around on our back porch all morning long with a worm in it's mouth. It looked really stressed. Do birds take worms back to their nest to eat them? Ugg! I walked into our bedroom, turned the ceiling fan off and listened. Sure enough there were very hungry baby birds chirping their little heads off. THIRD generation forever house birds. So now what do you do? I opened part of the temporary screen on our back porch.
It makes me so mad, but I don't want to be responsible for the little baby birds. See that dumb bird sitting on the screen. This has been going on for a week. She flies all over the house too picking up bugs and leaving droppings everywhere. 

I was sitting at breakfast watching that mama bird fly in and out over and over again. I said, "That stupid bird is pooping all over my house." Silas said that I get the pig because I talked about "poop" at the table! Unfortunately he also picked up on another word I had said because later when we went to the grocery store we all got separated and Silas said to Jimmy, "Where's, Mama?! Where is that stupid, Mama!" Oops. He later told us, "I never say that word again, ok?!"

Seriously how many weeks do baby birds stay in a nest. They are loud now. I can hear them over the ceiling fan at night.

So pretty much everything other than brick laying was done wrong in our house if Jimmy didn't do it himself. There is just not enough time to do every single thing yourself and besides that he thought hiring a plumber or electrician to do some things would be better because they know more about it. I'm not sure what the deal is. I don't know if they just have poor products here to work with or they just simply made mistakes, but nearly every single thing has been done wrong. All the drains in the floor were poured at the lowest point, but then when they put the actually drain cap in, they cemented it in higher then the rest of the floor. I trip over the completely dry drains! All of my sinks leak. My dishwasher was not hooked up right. 
Little by little Jimmy is going around redoing everything. There just has been A LOT of water in our house this past week. 

Rainy season started while we were gone and there have been some really bad storms. 
They shredded the boys' roof on their swing set. We have to make some adjustments still, but we are learning which way the wind usually blows when it rains. There are certain windows in our house that let a lot of water in. So there is lots of mildew right now. 
 Both of my couches look like this:
 The boys room actually flooded. Juan was kind and put a tarp over their window. Eventually we will have a front porch that will block the rain from that one, but it did do some damage. Here are some of the toy baskets that were in their room:
I am going to cut off all the wicker and save the metal part to reweave. Lots of their toys looked like this:
Jonah and Silas are really good at taking care of their toys and putting them back where they belong. We have been working at it since the beginning. So their messy room was killing me. Plus everything they touched got them dirty. They had dirt tans just from walking around inside our house the first couple days. So there room was one of the first things I tackled. I have used LOTS of white vinegar over the last week!
In there room we only had one casualty, a book. Not bad for what it looked like when we got home. I flipped their toy shelf over so that it can dry a little better. I think it will be ok too. 

Whenever we get overwhelmed it has become a tradition to stop and take a cupcake break! 
 Jonah said that these were Captain America shields. I thought that was pretty creative!
Eden likes this tradition too!
So there are lots of other issues, like bugs getting into the wood counter in our half bath:

Can you see the hundreds of holes?! Anyway little by little we will get everything cleaned up and fixed right. I invested about 20 minutes in my little secret garden outside our bedroom the other day during a nap time.  
 There are still a couple of rogue flowers, but at least there is progress. It was really more for morale every time I look at it. 
We did have a great service Sunday night and then again Thursday night. I loved being with everyone again! Jimmy loved preaching again too and already has construction going on down at the institute. We are so thankful to be home... mildew and all.

Oh... and I hate birds! 

 ITEM OF THE DAY:
Notice anything different about this photo? 
It is a "drive on the opposite side of the road" street in the capital. I have no idea why. There are no signs, just arrows midway through. 

6 comments:

  1. Oh, man, I'm so sorry! The mold here drives me INSANE and coming home after your trip to find it all like that has to be pretty lousy. :( If the vinegar doesn't work, check the local pharmacy for "acido citrico." They sell it by the ounce and you mix about half an ounce in a spray bottle of water and spray the affected places. It stops it from growing and makes it easier to clean.

    As for birds, we have the same issue, except our birds stay outside, though the nest is in our living room beam. They enter from the outside and walk in. It seems to take a while . . . the baby birds got pretty loud about a week and a half ago and they are STILL loud. Hopefully they'll clear out for you soon! One thing at a time.

    Wish we were closer so I could come over and help out a bit. I like your secret garden for morale though, good idea. ;)

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    1. Thanks for the tip, I will look for that! I am surprised you have mildew where you are at, but now thinking back it was damp and cold when we were in Guate that little bit. It's probably similar where you are. I wish we lived closer too=)

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  2. Oh wow, I am sorry to hear about all the things going on in your house! We are dealing with bugs too - they seem to be everywhere this year.

    I will be praying for your transition back!

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  3. Mildew drives me crazy, too! And I know it's not as bad here as you have it there. Glad you guys are back in town and getting resettled. {{{Hugs}}} from us in San Juan.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the sweet note! White vinegar has been working wonders! Hope your family is doing good!

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