Update on Insurance Company

A few days before Christmas, we received an insurance check from the insurance company. They sent us a check for 16,000.00. We have a friend who builds houses and he came and looked at the house. He is supposed to give us an estimate but we showed him the Insurance Adjusters estimate and the amount they wanted to give us and he thought they were crazy. The cleanup company alone had an estimate of 14,000.00, so how could they even think 2,000.00 would cover the house being re-done? How crazy!!!

So ..... with that said.... we wait a bit and get estimates from some builders. We'll be talking to the lawyer in a few days about this too!

A New Mailbox But No Place To Live?

This is a picture of our current mailbox.
There is a row of a few boxes here and they are all put here together so the mailman doesn't have to go down our 

private road to get to our boxes. I've been asking my husband forever to fix our mailbox. We own a sign shop and we do custom designed mailboxes as well as other bigger items of interest.

Can you see how it's about to fall over here in the picture? What a shame. I use to ask my husband, "how long before the mailbox is so low the mailman won't be able to reach it to open the door? Sorry but this is just too funny to me.




Hey look at it, it even has a slot of a newspaper, which we don't get, lol. He also added an address arm which will display a little sign with the numbers 710 on it.



 
Here is a pic of Chris Kiltzing a new mailbox post.




 

                                  
Another pic of Chris kiltzing the post and then a pic of the mailbox on the post. The mailbox was designed by us and cut in vinyl before putting on the box. We have done many of these pretty custom mailboxes if anyone is interested. .


I just wanted to show this off, but also wanted to ask you, "Why would a man wait till his house burns before fixing the mailbox post"? We won't be returning to live in our house for a while, but we aren't but about 1/2 mile down the road from it and still get mail there :) So with that said, "My husband got really bored and wanted to find something to keep him busy". And he did!! I think he did a wonderful job on it. :)

Homeschool Family

I have a wonderful friend named Katrina. She is a wonderful home school mother of 4 and a wonderful wife. I don't know that I've ever had a better close friend than her. She lives about 30 miles away but she has kept up with me and my family and has brought us groceries, gave us a Wal-mart gift card and sure has kept us in eggs too! She is such a sweet person and always looking for a way to help others. I love her and hope she knows how much!!!!!

I have another great friend who is a home school mother to one child. She moved from SC back to her home in Connecticut. She has been organizing a book sale from her home in CT. through the homeschool groups here in SC. She will be coming back to SC in Jan. for the sale. After the emails hit the homeschool loop, I had several write to tell me they wanted to send us food. One email came in from a lady named Kathi. She wanted to give us a turkey. How awesome!!! We said, Sure.... We'd LOVE to have it!!! Arranged to meet Kathi in Charleston to pick up today as we were going to be in the area, so she arranged to meet us at the bowling alley. Before I left home, I checked the email and there was yet another lady named Jennifer. I had no idea who she was, but she was from the same town as my friend Katrina, about 20 minutes away. She wanted to get groceries to us ASAP. I didn't have time to write her back before I left.
(Kathi-whom I had never met before did meet us in Charleston today) she gave us a Turkey and a bag of other foods. Things like cereal, peanut butter, toothpaste, mouth wash, cookies, pudding, jello, macaroni, shampoo, dog biscuits (I just told my husband this morning we needed those cause the vet said not to give the dog any chicken bones. We found that G-dly amazing that we mentioned that this morning and there they were this afternoon)and so much more. I hugged her must have been 2 times at least telling her how thankful we were for this food. She was such a really sweet lady. I pray G-d truly blesses her for her thoughtfulness, as we can sure use the food!!!! Thanks Kathi!!!Hugsss

Jennifer called us while we were out getting something to eat. I left the dinner table to go talk to her as it was loud in the place we were. She was so nice and we had so much in common I could hardly believe it. Her family is from Wisconsin as my husbands family is as well. We were both from Pentecostal churches as well... at one time. As we were talking about her bringing us food and gifts, I said to her. "So, I have been praying for something, so let me ask you something before you hang up with me". I said, "Do you quilt"? She laughed sorta hard on the other end and I said, "Well, what"? She said, it was funny I asked that.... she has a friend who quilts, she said she had been wanting to find a way to incorporate something like this in their giving. She continued to tell me that there is a group of ladies who get together to can foods and dehydrate them and they are big into "The End Times"and storing up food. I could hardly believe my ears. I told her about us wanting to learn to can our foods, but I didn't tell her I was just reading a prophetic letter last night to my dad, husband and mom about this very same thing, storing up food. I've known for 3 years already that we were supposed to do it but I've failed miserably to do it :( With that said, I'm sure she will read this and say, "Wow, that's another thing we have in common". I can't wait to meet her!!!! I am hoping we can do some quilting together when I get everything straight. Her boys are around my boys age and loves leggos... and she has a 14 year old too who loves to bead.... which my daughter LOVES!!!! She also has a Messianic friend who she is going to introduce me to, hopefully. That will be nice to meet another Messianic person in my area. So.... I truly think she is a G-d send!!!!! I am supposed to meet her tomorrow and I am very excited about this!!! What a sweet girl! Thanks Jennifer, looking to see you tomorrow!

I had another Homeschool Mom (Tasha) who sent me a gift card and we used that for food too. Thanks Tasha, so much!!!! hugsss

Tonight...... a minister(Bro. Harbin) from my old church(CofG) came by while we were not home. He left us 25.00 in a card with my mother. I am sure of his own money. He said there were like 50 other people who were needy at the church. We love this minister.... he is very precious to us!!!!

My HGTV Friends

I have so many nice friends. The one place I love the most to hang out at is the
HGTV Message Boards . I love my quilting family there. Since this fire my friend Joyce has been keeping everyone updated for me. Also, I made a quilt top for the Crayola Challenge this year hosted by Quiltaholic. This quilt along with close to 30 quilts will be raffled off and the proceeds will go to the Ronald McDonald House. I had sent this quilt to Joyce (NTQuilter) to be quilted for me. She not only agreed to do the quilting for me, but she bought the backing and the binding for me, quilted and bound the quilt. I could not have asked for a better friend. She knew how much I wanted to do a quilt for this charity project. Thank you Joyce!!!!

I've had several of these ladies send me money by the way of PayPal. What a blessing as it has allowed me to feed my family. I got a few cards, phone calls, and many Face book messages and every one of them mean sooooo very much to me!! I sure hope the ladies know how much I love them and appreciate what they have done.

You will probably hear me speak of these ladies often, as I miss them and miss being on the boards. I don't have as much time now to get on the boards as I constantly have something to be doing here, if it's not cleaning our stuff, it's fixing for kids :)

A sad week for us

I am truly saddened to learn that my friend Robert passed away. He was buried Tuesday. I did not get to go to the funeral. I am praying for his wife and children and I pray G-d will give them that Shalom they need to get through this.

I am so sad to learn that my really good friend Mary Ann (McPatches) has been diagnosed with Stage4 cancer. She is such a wonderful person. I wish there was something more I could do but pray, but I know prayer changes things.

If you will, can you please pray for my friends? I sure appreciate it!

Fire Update

Well, not much has gotten done. We went in this week and cleaned some electronic equipment such as the TV's, VCR's and DVD's, and computer equipment. After cleaning we put bags over them and put them in the truck. I went through my sewing room and got most of the rest of the material I had in there. So sad seeing my sewing room this way... I miss it so much. I just wish I could sew. I could if we could get the stuff at moms here washed and put up in plastic bins to go on the truck but it's a slow moving process when you have kids and have other things to do too.

On Monday, the electrician we called out came and looked at the wiring. He agreed with the other 2 fire inspectors that there is no way to explain HOW this fire happened exactly but that it started under my house and between the two sides where it was put together. So everyone seems to be scratching their heads. :( Maybe we will never know at this point.

At this moment, we still don't know the WHY's of the fire..... like why did this strange thing happen when we left our house? What purpose is this playing in our life? I believe there must be a purpose so I am just praying I don't miss that purpose.

We checked on the house that we were told might be available and found out it was not livable. So... until we can decide what we can do, we will live here at moms. I guess that's gonna be until she gets tired of us being here, It is very hard for two families to live together.

Thank G-d for my family.... I would be in the cold if it weren't for them. DSS would NOT do anything to help. The only shelter they wanted to provide was a Shelter where they would split up myself, the children, and my husband into two different shelters. We couldn't do that even if we had to stay in the cold. United Way supposedly sent letters to all the churches for help.... haven't heard from any by way of United Way. One really sweet friend of mine Penny helped us so much at the beginning with clothes and that G-d sent trailer!!!! Thanks again Penny!!!! We love you! So glad you belong to a church that outreaches to others. Maybe some of the churches didn't get notification but if not, G-d has provided through other means and we are thankful our needs are being met. I posted this part so that others would know that if they have a fire or anything dreadful happens, United Way isn't much help!

2nd Day of Hanukkah

We lit our second candle and said our prayers. We read the Torah with the children and for the first time, my mom joined in with the reading. Wow.... she will never know what that meant to me since we seem so different to my family now. She found out that I am reading from the same bible she is, just more Hebrew words in mine. It was a JOY to have her join us in the bible study.

Taylor made us some chocolate chip cookies afterwards and everyone sat and watched TV. Well.. almost all of us. I have been in so much pain in my back when I ate the chocolate it sent me into la la land. So, I slept a good bit. I also think it was cause my back wasn't hurting. I never slept until after 3:30 this am.

1st day of Hanukkah

It is already the day after but we just celebrated the first day of Hanukkah. We lit the first of 7 candles and said the prayers. We were talking tonight about a special gift that the two children received today. Chris' sister from Wisconsin sent Taylor a jacket, tank top and jeans. Austin received jeans, hoodie and dress shirt. These were sent from Aeropostale. Much nicer than I could afford for my children. We appreciate these clothes so much and hope his sister knows how much we do. Anyway.... it was left on our doorstep at the house (yep the one which burned) and we had no idea. Good thing it didn't rain. Chris brought the package home and let the kids open it. It was their first Hanukkah gift. How about that? And we hadn't planned on doing gifts. LOL. What a blessing for the children :)

Ok it's late... I'm gonna go get some rest. Tomorrow is Shabbat. We will do bible study in the morning and then I am going to put my thread I got from the house in the freezer and see if I can save it. I am feeling really positive about it anyway :) love you, my friends and family!!

House Fire (Part 2)

On Tuesday, Dec. 8th, 2009 we went to our house to get as many bags of clothing as we could. I was in my bedroom showing my husband the 3 baskets of clothes I needed to take with me. I was on the phone talking to a friend of mine who was inquiring as to how we were doing. I walked away and went into the bathroom and went to reach over to the bathroom counter where my jewelry box was to get my moms rings she had given me a long time ago. Just out of no-where I felt this pulling in my back and I tried to straighten back up and felt shooting pains go from my hip down my leg. Somehow, I either pulled a muscle or pinched a nerve. Either way I was in immediate pain. I made it out the house and to the laundry mat where one of my best friends was there to help us. We did 72 loads of laundry that day. The laundry owner/manager gave us a laundry card to do all our laundry! What a blessing!!!! We were so thankful for this kind expression of love. We will still have to determine what goes and what stays. A few of the coats took two washings to get most of the smoke out of them. Not sure if the smoke is out of it all or not. I have been hobbling around since then and can't do much!

You can only imagine that I would be asking, or thinking.. "What next"? Nope.... never say that... or something will come. In fact maybe it will anyway cause I never ask whats next and it comes anyway!!!!

Fire Restoration keeps calling and wants to get to the cleaning.... we are holding them back till we hear from our electrician who didn't show up this week like he was supposed to. We heard back from the Insurance Company today and they told us how much they were willing to give us to fix the house. Personally, it was the mortgage companies insurance company so why should WE have to hire a construction crew ourselves to fix it? I'm sure the mortgage company wants to continue to get paid. Just doesn't make sense. The amount they told us was way less than expected. So we will wait till our lawyer lets us know what to do. We are trying to do a "Quick Sale" where the insurance company gives the mortgage company the money they were going to give us in order to satisfy the debt. Then, we'll have to fix the house ourself. I think I'd rather have them pay it off and us struggle to fix it than them give us enough to put a bandaid on it and continue fixing a house that is going to continuously fall down. Well, we'll see.

In the meantime, I want to count all the blessings we have received. The main blessing is, my son was not in that room. I just thank G-d he wasn't. I thank G-d for all my friends who have called me to uplift my spirits... for the card one friend wrote to me that made me wanna cry (TeaSea) for my many friends who continue to call me and keep my spirit upbeat with good thoughts. For the ones who have sent gift cards to use at Walmart so we could continue to feed our family. Thanks to several friends who went to PayPal and sent us money through it that provided immediate help, and we sure needed it. But whether they sent money, or just said a prayer for us, they were all needed and very much appreciated!!!! We love you all and you don't know how much we appreciate you. It's been said so many times, "When you go through a crisis, you find out who your real friends are". Well.. I've heard you can count them on one hand. I thank G-d that isn't true for me.... I can't count them on both hands of mine for blessings come in various ways and they aren't measured by the value of the blessing in monetary value as all blessings are just that, BLESSINGS from above!!! G-d truly is awesome in all his ways. Though we again don't know why this tragedy befell us..... we do know G-d knew before it happened and he had already made provisions for us. We look to him in faith that we will continue to be provided for till we can get into our home or another one.

I must say I have great parents who have always been there for us. No matter how different we are, they took us in with no questions. Gave us a room and would feed us each day if we let them. It's hard enough for one family to make it much less take care of another but they have been great. Chris and I take turns with mom and dad on cooking dinner every day. It's working out great!

I meant to add.... I have this special friend who goes to a special church. I say special cause everytime I hear anything about this church, it's in a sentence, "I love my church family".  That's so special to hear since I was brought up in church all my life and never heard anyone say anything like that before. This church has been very giving and she certainly has been a great servant to her church family. When we needed my sons some clothes, she made sure to bring him some. The same night she heard.... her and her husband came to my parents house with clothes for both kids. I must say that she dressed them in better than they had to begin with :)  What a blessing from G-d. Then she heard we needed a tractor trailer..... (hold this thought a sec)!  Not sure I wrote about this in the first post but we called one man in town at the request of a friend and asked if he had a tractor trailer we could just use to put our stuff in once we cleaned it.... he said yes, for 1500.00. He said, I tell ya what.... charge the insurance company 2500.00 and you can make some money off of it. Wow.... we were shocked!!! We asked out of need.... we didn't have the money, so we just didn't call the second person who was mentioned by our friend. (back to my special friend). She told us she knew someone who had a tractor trailer and would call us back in a few minutes. Well within 20 minutes she called back with a contact person of someone who had a tractor trailer. Come to find out.... this person was the second person we were supposed to call about a trailer, at the request of our earlier friend. So that came full circle.... how about that for G-d working? Now you know HE was the one we was supposed to get the trailer from. So on Saturday Dec. 5th this nice man brought us the tractor trailer to use. He told us we could keep it as long as we wanted as it had not been used since he hauled stuff for the Katrina Victims. Oh what a blessing.... Oh what an awesome G-d we serve... Oh what awesome people G-d has put in our lives!! Oh what Trust has been built inside of us for just going through this and waiting on him.

Just a few things I have been pondering and thinking on..... I think when we get straight Chris and I will start doing some volunteer work for the American Red Cross. We only have one person in our county who has volunteered to help. What hope and love we can give to someone else in the first few hours of their own tragedy. We'd love to give back. 

I was cooking for a widow lady who was a dear friend of mine. I loved making her meals. I used to send meals to her mom and her family as well. When her mom died I was so sad. I knew them all my life and felt so close to them. So I still cooked for my widow friend. One day she died. It left such an empty feeling in my heart. Not just the fact that I couldn't see my friend anymore, but I wouldn't be taking those casseroles over to her anymore. I waited upon the L-rd to tell me who else to cook for but I never heard an answer. I now know it's not hard to find people in need. You just look around..... there is people hurting everywhere who would just love to have a card, or a phone call to uplift their spirits... just letting them know you are thinking of them.
One other thing I noticed.... of all the things I've been through in life.... cancer seemed to be the hardest... when my husband had it though, I was filled with lots of faith and G-d was with me just as he is now. I have noticed though that this time around that a hug from someone sure is valuable. I think this fire has left me feeling very emotionally drained and wondering now what more will happen to us. So the huggg..... hhhmmm .... I don't think you can put a value on a hug. I sure hope in the near future I can give those to others who are in need. And since I love to quilt.... I am thinking that if I got my family involved, well maybe we would have a quilt to give to the family who was burnt out. Who knows? I know this happened for a reason.

Another crazy side note.... (I told ya this family was different) If my husband and I would have stayed married from 1992 to today.... we would have been married 17 years today.  Yea, we divorced in 94...... married in 96 again.  Life has been a roller coaster ride but you can't say ... It's not been interesting!!! So.... with that said..... this part is another story. We've been married this time for 13 years!!! Wow what a ride!!! Wow, G-d sure has made us a family of strong faith in all the hard times!!

I'll update as I go. Sorry these post are long.

First 3 days of "Our House Fire"

I've always wanted to create a blog for our family. With so much that's been going on in the past 5-6 years it would have been nice to come here and write on it and to share the information with others.

I'll be backing up later to fill in everyone as to just what we have dealt with in the past few years. For now, I am going to use this blog as a means to update everyone on the fire. Please forgive me if I do not respond to each of you right away. I will try my best to in between cleaning.

So here goes.....
On Friday, Nov.27th, 2009 our family left for Myrtle Beach, SC. We are members of biz2bizcommerce.com which is a professional bartering company. We had a nice 2 room suite w/ jacuzzi in our room which we got on barter. My parents came and got themselves a room there at the Best Western as well.

We had not been there but long enough to settle in our room and use the Jacuzzi. We had bed clothes on and I was trying my best to look at what was going on for Friday night on the Quilting and Needlework boards on HGTV cause each Friday night they were doing a PJ party and a new sew along project was being presented. I said to Chris, "Of all the times we have been on vacation, I am the most relaxed tonight". I was fighting sleep at this time. Approximately 15-20 minutes later, my cell phone rung. It was my brothers g/friend. She was screaming to me, "Your house is on fire"!!! I think at this point I went in shock.... I didn't know if I wanted to get in the car and race home in my bed clothes or stop and put some clothes on.

We managed to all get dressed really quickly.. not even taking note that we might need a change of clothes, we headed back home leaving our belongings in MB, 3 hours away from home. We spoke with the fire chief over the phone a few times. It was a long ride home.

We arrived to a house that looked fine on the outside but upon entering, all doubt that this could have happened to my house was pretty much gone. Coming in the back door, the washer and dryer had been removed. There had been a fire up the wall behind the dryer and that wall had burned quite a bit. Smoke filled the air in the house and it smelled of burnt wiring. On into the hall was a huge hole where I'm sure the firemen stuck a hose to get the fire out. Into my sons room on the right was the awful site. Big hole in the floor, melted TV, DVD, Monitor for his pc..... all walls looked like they had melted in various places.... and his closet is what went up in smoke. In the closet held some of my most precious things in the house. I had some of the kids baby clothes, blankets, bumper pads to Austins Crib... you know, the kinds of things you never want to lose cause you can't replace them. Not only that, in the closet was a chest of drawers which was antique. My grandmother whom I loved so much gave that to me for Austin. It was burned as well. My oldest sons cap and gown and some clothes were in there as well. I think my sister may have gotten the cap and gown and washed it. I am not sure it was able to be saved. Austin lost his clothes and so much more in that room.

Walking through with a flashlight is NOTHING like seeing this in the daylight. So many things run through your mind, wondering what DID you lose in your fire? At the moment you can't think of much of anything specific cause you are in such a state of shock. But I have to be honest about a few things. First.... after I seen the damage I felt as though I could last long enough with the smoke in there to get my quilting fabrics out. Yes.... I did... I begged my family to at least quickly make boxes so I could get the fabrics into a box and get them out quickly as my thinking was, "The longer they sit, the worse the smell is gonna be". I sadly took away a few blocks from the table in the sewing room that I had made for someone who is putting together a few quilts for someone who had lost a son and grandchild all at one time recently. When I looked at the blocks, although they were smoke filled.... they reminded me how fortunate that we are that we are alive and my son was not in the room. I took away four more blocks that I had just finished. These were Red, White and Blue. These were done for a great friend who is doing a quilt for a military soldier which soon as he got to IRAQ had to shoot someone. Reminded me of the sorrow he must feel and what HE is going through over there. So when I think of these things, my problems seem so small. I intend on trying to save these blocks and get them to the quilt makers so they can get them done.

After getting the fabric out the house, we slept at my moms house and got up the next morning to go access the damages. As I said before, looking at the house in the daytime is a whole lot different than at night. Looking at my sons ruined room, ruined trophies he worked so hard for from a little tot on up.... them melted and leaning, pictures melted and scrunched together.... complete MESS... was such a site!!!! We still aren't allowed into his room cause of the damaged flooring so we don't know how much more he lost.... we know his Nintendo 64 was damaged along with possibly some games. Still.. as bad as it looks..... we know we are blessed!!! He could have been in that room and we aren't sure he would have made it.

Before I get into the details of losses etc... Let me make clear to you about our insurance. I'll have to go back in time a little. I'm going to make a long story short here as it's too much to get in to. About the year 2000... our insurance company imposed flood insurance on us. We were not in a flood zone and we kept telling them this. They raised the amount of our house payment to reflect flood damage insurance that they expected us to pay. It must have taken us 6 or more mos. to get proof we were not in a flood zone and get the paperwork to prove it and make them stop charging us. While this was going on we got behind in our mortgage payments cause the payment was too high. They forced us into bankruptcy. Chapter 13 was filed. If you are ever late on a payment they can take your home, so beware if you are ever thinking about doing it. I would have let the house go then but the property is under mortgage as well and it's family owned land that my dad gave to me, so that wasn't an option. During bankruptcy, the mortgage company imposed "Forced Place Insurance" on us. This insurance is the insurance the mortgage company puts on their property to secure it in case of fire or damage. It's for their benefit only and protects the structure of the home only. While in Bankruptcy, they make you keep this insurance on it and it's added into your payment through an escrow account. They also add in county taxes in the escrow to make sure you don't fail to pay the taxes on it. In 2003 my husband was diagnosed with an incurable/inoperable cancer. (more on that later) and during this time things were rough trying to take care of him and my family. So I ended up in Bankruptcy for the second time. During this time, something happened that caused us to be a little late and they did a work out agreement. Had they told us this before we would have never went in bankruptcy to begin with. Another thing to take note of.... original mortgage payment was 581.00 a month, during bankruptcy it went to 700 and something. The workout agreement caused us to make payments of 1540.00 for 18mos. I'd love for someone to try to explain to me how we did that when we couldn't even pay the extra for the insurance which caused this mess? I can only say that G-d made a way!!! Ok, just a little about the insurance company and told you that to say this.... The same insurance had been kept on the house until they let us change it. We completed the "Work Out" agreement and paid that off. Then later came the leaky roof and flood damaged bathroom. Due to those two things we decided to wait till the claims were made, the house was fixed so we COULD get insurance. I'm sure no-one would have wrote a policy on my house with damage to it. We had planned to get our own policy once the claims were satisfied
but the house burned before we could get our own, so we are stuck with the Forced Placed Insurance which will benefit the mortgage company only.

 Also on Saturday (day after fire) Fire Restoration Company come out and talk to us and assess the damages so they could estimate how much it was gonna cost for them to do the cleaning to the structure of the house. Estimated cost to clean the structure was 14,900.00. This would be paid by the insurance company for cleaning all the smoke out of the house. Includes walls and floors. NO contents that belonged to us would be cleaned by them as it wasn't our policy.

We went back to Myrtle Beach and stayed until Monday morning as we weren't going to get anything done until Monday anyway.  We had to make a stop in Charleston to see Chris' oncologist for an appointment but we got finished and out of there quick enough to make it home and talk to the American Red Cross. They were very nice and helpful. Because we didn't have insurance, they provided us with 3 nights stay at a local hotel, gave us 115.00 in a debit card to help with food, vouchers for each one of us to use at Goodwill for 3 sets of clothes each and a food voucher to turn in to get assistance from food banks at area churches.

We stayed the 3 nights in the hotel and ate our meals at my parents house. During the 3 days we had a visit from the insurance inspector as well. He ruled the house fire to have started from under the house. He said the wiring had a breakage somewhere and it shortened out, sending fire in one direction, to the dryer and the other, to my sons room. It would appear it was right in the middle where the house was put together. (we will be getting an electrician ourselves to make sure this wasn't a manufacturers problem when they did the wiring at the factory). This will have to be determined for two reasons. One- in case the manufacturer or setup crew was at fault for our fire. Two- so we will know if its possible the rest of the wiring could be bad as well, as this will cause a fear once we are back in the place.


The insurance adjuster came to assess the damage as well. He took pictures and got measurements etc...  He thought the house could be fixed.

<"I'm planning to write a book, can you tell"?>