Apologies to those who have already read this elsewhere, but I wanted to be sure to post it where I know some of you hang out. Hello to all you wonderful, loving quilty friends! I've missed you all so much. Before I write a single sentence more, I need to tell you how much the support and generosity of so many of you has touched me. I have never experienced such an outpouring of love and kindness like it. You are all angels. As you no doubt have heard, our home is almost completely destroyed and almost everything in it is full of sewage and mold. The good news is that we have an apartment that is dog friendly. My son Blaze is staying at Melissa's parents' home and I miss him terribly. It is also so hard to be here alone during the day. My husband, Rod, has been working a lot of overtime in Long Beach and we have only one car. There is plenty to fill my days, unfortunately. Mostly with being on hold for an hour or two with adjusters who never call you back - or waiting for internet service, electric, etc. We finally got a bed but other than that we have a couple of office chairs and a cardboard box. Our computers were damaged so I am learning how to use a new one that has the very confusing Windows 8. Without it I will not be able to pull together the pieces of my business and hopefully the insurance company will pay for it eventually as it is now on a credit card
. Dealing with insurance companies, adjusters and FEMA is a full time job and one that often drives me to the edge of sanity. I was in such a state one day that I called my doctor. His home and his office are gone and so are all of my medical records. Happily I found a new one up the street from our apartment and let me tell you, Xanax helps me get through the days that I need to go back to the house. One day I had to meet the FEMA inspector there and told my husband that I would be fine until he got off work. I figured I'd pack up some of the salvageable things. I got a box and put three bottles of spice in it and then just started wandering around looking at the devastation and feeling like I was going to lose my mind. I had to leave and ended up in the street wandering past 15-20 foot high piles of the debris that was once people's lives as I tried to get to my husband's work place a few blocks away. I won't bore you with all the details, but what happened to my community -- and neighboring communities -- is mind boggling. My husband and I were Red Cross Disaster Action Team members and went to Louisiana a long time ago, but it was nothing like this. Anyway, I just wanted to stop in and say thank you. We are on a very long road to recovery and I guess it will be at least a year before things are "normal" again -- so in the meanwhile we are living the "new normal". Individual thank you notes are on the way and there are so many of them to write. To say thank you just doesn't say enough. You were truly life savers.