Since the Great Smoke of '08!

Well J and I have officially named this incident as the Great Smoke of '08. :) This past month has been a whirlwind. It has not been a lot of fun, but we have survived. Lynn (J's mom)has been down quite a few times to help, I know we would not have got as much done as we did without her. She came pre-clean with Rodney (J's dad :) ) and they helped us pack up the house. She then came after the company cleaned the place with a chemical and wiped down our kitchen, then put my kitchen back in order. So thank you Lynn!

So if you ever have a "Great Smoke" here is how the process works. J and I first tried to clean the house ourselves with vinager and a carpet cleaner. Give up now, do not try, it will not get the smell out. Call the company to come clean your house. There is no use in you wasting your time cleaning and having no results. (FYI :) )The seminary brought the company in for us, at their own expense, and we are so grateful. There are two options with this company, 1. they come in, pack up your house, and take your items to be cleaned at their warehouse and then clean your house or 2. you pack up and then they will clean the walls and carpet and get the smoke out of that. Choose option 1 if it is up to you, we were fine with packing, we're not complaining, but we pray this doesn't happen again, but if it does, we will choose 1. So they come in and do one round of cleaning, then they do another round that is a therma fog that will "kill" the previous chemical smell. This chemical they use. It does not go away, you have to wipe down everything, like a deep deep spring cleaning. So that was our Thanksgiving break. We cleaned every item we own, with concentrated Lysol. And we slowly moved back into our house after living at J's sis apartment for 3 weeks. We were happy to be home. The smell is still there, but we are thankful for hazelnut candles and apple cinnamon, they make the house smell like home again. I'm told the smell never goes away (unless a new paint job is done I assume). So as long as we live there it'll be there, but we're happy to be home.

It was a long process, imagine deep cleaning everything you own. The baseboards to every dish you own. Some things still smell, so we'll see how it goes. We are so thankful that we were cleaning items and not sweeping them up. We were very lucky. We also had a company come in and clean our carpets and furniture.

We are thankful for the prayers and support from friends and family. Our parents have been willing to help us with anything and everything we need. We are blessed with great parents ;). And family that lets us stay with them (thanks Amy (and Allegro :) )) and store stuff in their homes. A great "landlord" that has helped us to the end (Housing Director and Associate Director of the Physical Plant at SWBTS.

Like I've said, it has not been fun. But we have survived. We are now waiting on what God has for us next. Jason graduates this Friday with his Master of Arts in Christian Education (emphasis: Teaching). He has worked extremely hard and I am so proud of him!!! We are still all packed up, waiting to unpack until after Christmas, so we'll see what God has in store!

We will be seeing J's family during the week of Christmas and mine the week after! We are both excited to be seeing family and relaxing. And J will be singing "No more papers no more books, no more teachers dirty looks!" (he has a revised version, but I can't remember it :) ) Thank you again for all the prayers and we have a few blogs to post that were "Pre-Great Smoke of '08" :)

Merry Christmas and enjoy and savor the time with your family!!!

Blessings,

Curry's :)