Count Your Blessings

The other day I wrote a seriously long and detailed post entitled "Whining and Complaining". For some reason it seemed like a good idea to let everyone in Ciberville know why it's been a ridiculously hard year for us. And then, luckily before I posted it, I got a swift divine kick in the pants showing me how all this garbage was actually getting ready to turn into a massive heap of blessings. How does He do that?

First of all, I was complaining about how, because of little Joey's allergic reaction to the carpet cleaning chemicals our ex-landlord used, we had to hurry and move into the living room of my parents' apartment...temporarily...for 10 months. I forgot about what a huge blessing it is that my parents moved to Utah, out of the blue, 4 years ago. Where would we have gone if they were in a different state? Who would have babysat for free while we looked for/bought/remodeled a house? Living in cramped quarters with my mom has actually been great, because she's so determined to find a solution to Joey's health problems--and she's taught us a whole lot. We're not there yet, but we'd be miles behind if we hadn't had this time together. It's been a really humbling experience, not knowing how to help our baby. We've been blessed with some really great (and sometimes crazy-sounding) inspiration. I'm sure we're supposed to share all this knowledge with someone else someday, and help another kid or two not have an awful restricted life. That would make it worth it to me.

Speaking of Joey, I had some whining to do about this long, drawn-out allergy issue he's had. The poor little kid is allergic to just about everything. We can't take him anywhere he might get into things like cleaning chemicals or perfume...like church...or Walmart. He is on a 4-day rotation diet of all organic food, since he's allergic to pesticides. Good thing we just happened to buy a house with fully fertilized garden plot (years of work to get soil that good in that area) and two established fruit trees, and good thing my mother-in-law just happened to visit and spent a week getting the ground ready so all we had to do plant seeds, water, and harvest all the fresh, organic produce we can use. I'm not sure how the church allergy is going to turn into a blessing yet, but we've definitely learned to appreciate going to our meetings when we have to coordinate our church attendance shifts around my Primary class and baby care at home. I'll never complain about a "boring" meeting again. I've also learned to really appreciate getting to sit with my family in church. It's hard to go alone all the time! All you people who go faithfully for years without your families' support--kudos.

Could he be any cuter?  We'd do anything for this little guy.

James and the massive cherry harvest

Our garden: tomatoes, squash, green beans, peas, corn, lettuce, arugula, spinach, beets, chard, kale, and an herb garden!

Heirloom brandywine tomatoes--I can't wait!

So we bought a house in January, and have been working on it ever since to get all the toxic-to-Joey things out and (usually very expensive) not-toxic-to-Joey materials in. It's been a big process. He still can't go in the house, but we're getting there. It turns out we bought a lot of house for a little family. Great, because we're growing into it, but a lot of work. One day I heard (probably not so out of the blue) from one of my mission companions and she told me she and her new hubby were moving to Utah and looking for an apartment. I jokingly told her we had a basement they could rent, but it didn't have a kitchen, and was covered in hideous bright red carpet. They came and looked at it, decided the price was right, and moved in. Insta-help-with-expenses/nice neighbors/1/3 of the house we don't have to worry about.

Oh and then the basement flooded. Three times. In one week. (Two sewage floods and one faulty sprinkler dumping 50 gallons of water through the window.) Not such a great week for our friends who had just gotten settled down there, but if they hadn't been there we might not have noticed the problem for several days. So they had to move all their stuff back out again while we got the home owners' insurance run-around. Seriously so frustrating. First the plumbing company said we had to replace the whole sewage pipe, we hired another company to do this to our foundation:

Then, it turns out the first plumbing company lied about our pipe being collapsed, so the whole procedure was not necessary. (The blessing is that we had it in writing from them, so insurance had to cover it.) They also said we had to dig up half the yard (not covered by insurance) which turned out not to be the case. Always get a second opinion from someone you know!!!

The sheetrock in the walls  was saturated with water (soon to be mold), so they also cut those out about 2 feet from the floor. Not-so-drywall if you will:

 We were having a hard time figuring out how all this could actually be a blessing in disguise, especially since work on the rest of the house came to a screeching halt while we were trying to get this solved. It turns out, for the $1000 insurance deductible we got new sheetrock for the bottoms of the walls (which was suspiciously moldy looking when we moved in), new paint on the walls, new baseboards, new carpet and padding in the entire basement (a special kind that Joey is not allergic to by some miracle and beige, not fire engine red), a (freaking nice) hotel for our friends to stay in while the remodeling was being done, and all the labor. No way could we have done all that for that price, even doing all the work ourselves. Yes, it was frustrating trying to coordinate the eleventy billion companies who all needed to be there (apparently construction companies aren't big on returning phone calls or showing up when they say they will), and find products that wouldn't kill Joey, but it's all done now and looking great!

We're far from done, but it's really coming together now. Good thing too, since we'll have another baby in a month! We're so grateful to friends who have spent their precious free time helping us paint and fix things and move heavy things up and down stairs. My parents' home teacher has installed almost all of the hardwood floor (to replace the non Joey friendly carpet in all the bedrooms) and saved us thousands of dollars, dozens of hours, and made it look really nice. All that's left to do is finish the house projects, and get this little boy to stop reacting to EVERYTHING!

That's 4:00am people. No, he hadn't been asleep yet. No, it's not his fault. Poor baby has a lot to deal with, but he's such a good sport. Just no one stop praying that we'll survive a newborn on top of this!

He's totally worth it.