I was having a chat with my brother the other day, and the conversation turned to a sincere desire to be free to do business on a handshake. Of course the topic at hand had been our living situation.* My bro is a carpenter in Florida, and I was updating him on the latest happenings in the unfolding saga of the Maresca Girls at Large.
I’ll be brief about the money part:
- I have a chunk of it in my account that’s meant for the rebuild.
- My contractor (“C”) chose exactly the wrong guy to build the stairs into the attic; a man who represented a time frame to completion that has now expired (times 4).
- With one week’s notice, C informed me that I would need to find a place to live for another entire month, a blow that was softened considerably (but definitely not entirely) by the fact that he said he would pay for it.
- Airbnb ended up being the best option for such a last-minute order. Let me just say that it’s way pricey, but we’re booked into a lovely ski loft through the end of June.
- I paid for it out of my rebuild money.
Okay, so here’s the part that brought about the commentary on the general lack of trust that’s been generated and nurtured by those who delight in all of that separation crap-o-la. My brother, ever my protector, expressed his concern that I put out all that money (and it’s a shocking amount, actually), and that C potentially wouldn’t ultimately come through.
There’s so much accounting to be done around our upgrades and what insurance will pay and all of that, it makes no sense for me to even worry about it. I’m trusting the guy to see to the rebuilding of my house. Like I want to quibble about things that need seeing to in the immediate now. I do not.
Next up…the hosts at the Airbnb we secured said in their listing, dogs allowed, no cats! Did I mention that one week’s notice to find a living space offers a slim pickin’s kind of situation? I wrote to the hosts and explained that we’ve been in a rental for over a year, that the security deposit was returned in full, and that I would be happy to get pet insurance.
They very sweetly agreed, pending the securing of liability insurance. Well…I shopped and shopped. Either they didn’t insure cats, didn’t do short term, or didn’t offer a secure way to pay online. I wrote back to my kind hostess and gave my word that I would be responsible for any damage caused by Nova, assuring her that our cat would actually never be there alone. Further, that I was doing business by handshake more often these days, and that kind of thing has to start somewhere, right?
It was apparently a juicy enough proposition that she agreed, and we have a nice condo to live in for another month.
The place is a 40 minute drive away, however, and we’ve had a number of logistics considerations to manage, because move-out day is a holiday. I had a moving company bring most of our stuff on Friday into a POD that’s now living in my driveway next to the dumpster. It’s a mess over there.
We have the weekend to organize the last of our things: what will be coming with us to the condo, what will get packed up and put in storage. Then on Monday, since nobody is around to help, I’ll rent a van to get the last things (the bed we’re sleeping on in particular) into storage (the POD is full), then come back here to pack up our gear for what we truly and sincerely hope is our last month away from home.
Then it’s off to a hillside ski condo for the lovely month of June. There’s been a lot to process and do…and we just want to go home. As so often happens, we live in gratitude at the same time as we’re meeting irritating challenges, managing to keep our thoughts on the good, true and beautiful (mostly). Not that there hasn’t been plenty of tears and sobbing of late, and we’re doing our very best to navigate the situation with integrity and faith.
Is our thing now a micro of the macro? We just have to hang in there for a wee bit more, and then everything’s going to be fabulous, right? It kinda fits, I reckon.
Thanks so much for reading, and for your loving care and prayers for us through this particular trial.
Love,
Suzi
* For background information on the house fire that took place in March of 2024, search “Update from the Field,” and the story will come up in many parts.