Because stopping isn't an option. we are dusting ourselves off. . .

Today is good-- my voice is 1/2 back and I can stand listening to myself speak. My mom was really happy since I talk to her so much! LOL I am having adrenalin let-down. I don't think it's emotional so much as it's physical. It's like a hangover without a headache. My flexibility is crazy and if I did yoga, my teacher would be yelling at me and sending me home. I am almost disjointed, like how you get after you have a baby.)

Yesterday I was actively mad (pissed and I hate using that word) at my neighbour for having hovered and I still don't like her, but the anger is like, "I never have to speak to her again. Since she hovered near me and the freaking fire marshal during the fire, I am claiming a psychological aversion to her face and voice as a PTSD thang and to stay away from me for forever." This, my friends, is beautiful! (I feel bad for her because she is needy, but she is like a donkey who thinks it's a lap dog. I've tried to be friends with her in the past but she has MAJOR boundary issues.)

Church members have had us for dinner which has been nice because we don't sit down as a family in the hotel. I may buy a table cloth to toss over our bed though. . . that is why I prefer eating with friends and at IHOP, we sit down together. When I was growing up, no matter how late my brother's hockey practice went, my mother MADE SURE that we sat together and ate. I have ALWAYS appreciated this. With church friends we have great conversations.

I was really impressed with 13 yo Cloud yesterday. She said that one of her coaches asked why she wasn't looking sad since her house burned down and she was a little annoyed and said something like, "I can't spend my life thinking about that! I have other things to do while my house gets rebuilt!" He high fived her.

I have a life coach who used to be a psychologist, but she tired of the psychologists' regulations. She worked with my eldest daughters when we had a court battle when she was a psychologist and I liked her. She knows I don't need to analyze my relationship with my dog from when I was two and that I really need someone to bounce things off of for a few sessions to get a hold of things. One of the things that she said to me last night (I'm sharing because it is common sense and you all may use this with your own friends) was that while I told her how I felt about candles and oil lamps around my church was to remember that I use knives all the time and seldom cut myself, that I drive every day, etc. and that this was like anything else-- I was not playing roulette with the candle, I had lit them in my house hundreds of times, and that like driving after an accident, or geeze, even after slicing my finger, sh-- happens and I'll get past it.

My husband is a devout Orthodox and I know it's important to him to have an oil lamp in front of our icon wall and I told her that I don't want to make him suffer for my neurosis. Well, I can redesign my house with a great room concept so we see the icon wall and the candle/oil lamp. We can put the lamp a few feet out and high up with a higher ceiling-- do you all get the idea?

I think that my greatest fear is having this control me. I have dreams of candles all over the house and falling after they ignite a fire. I do have some control over my dreams and I do say things to myself like, "This is a dream because in real life I didn't panic and it wasn't like this."

The kids are great. Mudd is five and wants to sleep between his 4 year old sister and 6 year old sister. Normally he is a turkey but he hasn't been. He likes to know that Starshine is OK-- I think she was the one who knocked the candle off the counter top (unless it was Jack the Dawg.)

Guy, Basil and Dmitri all seem OK with things. More put off at the inconvenience than anything else. We had a big yard and their pals near by.

Yesterday I saw my cool neighbour, Andrea. OMG-- I had wondered if she was around but didn't want to call her, "Hey, my house is burning down! You wanna come over?" She was there but didn't want to bug me and seem like she was hanging out with the tragedy! The good people have their boundaries! She sent one of her kids up and told him to see if my kids were OK-- he's sixteen and said that he walked up, saw that my body language didn't seem like there was a death and told it was JUST the house burning. When I say JUST the house burning, I am not discrediting that we lost everything, but JUST the house burning and not a loss of one of the kids.

You know, before the fire trucks got there, my stupid neighbour had called the closest school who called the school where my kids were and before the fire trucks came, several mommies drove by and in soccer mommy voices exclaimed, "Oh, Tea! I HEARD! OH MY GAWD! Can I get you anything?" (Like. . . a latte?) I was ticked, "GET OUT OF F***ING ROAD! Fire trucks are coming!" I think I'm mentioned this already-- there goes my anger!

Tiger is here for an over nighter and this has affected her and Peaches, too. That was their home for the last 10 years.

Starshine is happy-- she always has me to herself even if I am lost on the computer. She runs in and kisses me! Cloud says that she could have bumped that counter when she ran out of the room-- for all we know, the dog did it.

My brother, came out the first couple of days and he was great just to have around. We grew up together being only a few years apart and his seriousness about the situation, then joking when I needed it was like a breath of fresh air.

My sisters came by yesterday and had done a Costco run and filled our fridge at the hotel. I am making a pot roast in the crock pot for dinner. Oh-- we have a dishwasher here! Yay!

I went to the house and cried on the lawn yesterday. The restoration people were there and the lady was so sweet-- now I want to work for them! She found some family pics and told me how she recognized all these different photographer studios but how we all looked happy and not uncomfortable or stiff and what a great mom she knew I was and what a sweet husband I have. Of course I told her our family history!

Yesterday Dmitri's friend Stormy's mom saw us in the 'hood and we spoke and she will have us all over to their place for dinner next week. They knew Dmitri when my husband got laid off and I was pregnant with #9, but I declined her offers of kindness because I didn't have anything nice to wear, we had so little, and MY HOUSE WAS A MESS. I'd met her a few weeks ago and really like her. She and her husband are young but have a huge house and really nice cars-- they are the kind of people that you smile for for having the early success that they enjoy. They deserve every bit of it and a lot more! Anyway, she told me that when my husband was laid off that every night, Stormy prayed for him to get a job.

Well, in the next day or two, I probably won't be dwelling on this fire much and instead biatching about finding a place to rent, and soon we will be ready for the donations of bunk beds and computer desks.

I want to tell you all that your prayers are working and to please keep them up. They are working. A few weeks ago I think I mentioned that I was sick sans my suburban and had to walk to my kids' charter school twice, once to get Calamity Jane and second to sign up for school clubs. What has happened to my family is worse than what I went through then, but we have insurance and we know that in a year, we will be having a "House Cooling Party/Weekend" for everyone to come visit and see pictures of the house that ~*~I~*~ design with our limited resources. I am not as uncomfortable as I was on the day that I had the flu and had to do all that walking. The custody battle with my ex husband was worse on me than this. (We're in better hands with AllState than the red tape of Alaskan judges who really don't give a sh--. I think insurance companies should hire judges because they'd be looking for judges who would make them not liable!) If we didn't have insurance, we'd be up a famous creek, but we will land on our feet. I will add though that the fact that I was the one who lit that candle will always weigh on me, but it won't keep me down.

If you got through this, I thank you!