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 :)

A message from the Smokies...........

As some of you already know, last Monday an accident occurred at the Curry’s residents. I (Tonya), went home on a break to start boiling chicken, Jason was home, so he would be able to turn it on low, well he left for class and forgot to turn the burner down (not putting blame on J, it was a joint effort :) ), we came home at 1:00 p.m. to a house full of smoke.

Since then, we have had to pack up about ¾ of our house, and prepare for a company to come in a and clean. The smoke was in everything, not one thing did not smell as smoke. We had begun that Monday night working until Tuesday morning at 4:30 a.m., cleaning ourselves. My boss (aka: Housing Director) on Tuesday , learned of the events, spoke with the physical plant, and they graciously brought in this company to clean out our house of smoke smell.

On Wednesday, Jason’s parents came and helped us pack up our house from 9am to 8 pm that night. Having to clean every single item, sort out food, and etc. The prior night, Amy came and helped. Also our friends the Ericksons, took us out to Souper Salad and then today her David brought us soup that Amanda had made :). Amy Welker, my co-worker, has offered to come over tomorrow night to help with the putting the house back together. We were very grateful to all of them.

This past weekend we went to Jacksonville to do laundry, Jason’s family all lives on the same land (aunts, grandmother, and his parents) We had 3 washer and dryers this way. We did a total of an estimate of 20 loads of laundry, this was from every sock to the curtains on the wall, the bath rugs and etc. We got home this morning at 1:00 a.m., well to our temporary home, Jason’s sister Amy’s apartment. She has let us live w/her this past week now. Along with her puppy Allegro,which if you see us, ask Jason how he likes his "nephew", Allegro and Uncle Jason have a special bond... hehe.

The next few weeks will be long, we have to wipe down furniture, clean the pots and dishes that were left in the house, and unpack and put our house back together. Unfortunately, we will no longer be going to Kansas to see my family for Thanksgiving, we are going to spend the week putting the house back together and organizing. We are grateful that we only had to wipe down our belongings, and not have to sweep them up. We feel blessed that the situation could of been worse and it was not.

We would appreciate your prayers, as this is going to be hard with final projects for school to be completed and in general for our health, as well as for our sanity and just to bring peace. The moving and bending hurts Jason’s back and the packing and wiping things down flares up the Rheumatoid in my wrists. Many thoughts go through our minds like "are we moving" , "what does God have in store for us?". We really do not know why this happened, but we are getting through with a lot of help from prayer. We are tired and worn down, but are doing good! We thank you again for those who have been praying for us and we want to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! (We will be celebrating with my co-worker Norita and her husband Earl. And Norita has graciously offered for me to help w/decorating for Christmas :) )

I will end with a quote from Jason, as we are sorting laundry, he says "Well, that was that was the most expensive pot of soup we've ever made, and we didn't even get to eat it! :)"