A Quick Catch Up (Like Someone Cares)

After 36 years in Raleigh, two years ago in December squinney and I bought a house and moved to the beach, something we've wanted to do for years. The ocean is our happy place. We are surrounded by the most radical right wing Trump supporters imaginable, the kind people that truly believe she ran a porn ring out of a pizza shop and that she's responsible for all the bombs sent in the mail just lately but we don't care. We keep our mouths shut and our heads down. We are currently experiencing financial problems due to the fact that Florence closed all the clubs on the Island where I work for the forseeable future and I lost a few thousand dollars due to the fact the Hurricane hit in the middle of the biggest wedding season time of the Fall and thousands of dollars worth had to cancel and reschedule elsewhere, but we're still here at the ocean where we've always wanted to be so we'll ride out this temporary money crunch. Our insurance company has done a good job for us and things are getting back to normal. Due to a tree root smashing our water intake pipe from all the shaking , we lost 70, 900 gallons of water and came home (we went to Raleigh for the storm) to a flooded yard that still hasn't completely dried out and our workshop flooded. We lost about 10 grand in both personal and work related things but out adjuster said to go ahead and claim all of it. We got a new roof on the house and the drywall guy is coming Friday to replace the ceiling and some drywall. The plumber has been and gone so that's fixed and we're anticipating being reimbursed for our 488.00 water bill with no problem. The only issue left is the metal roof and ceiling on our 1200 square foot workshop and debris clean up. I've been running a burn barrel and raking literally all day every day for weeks and I 've gotten about maybe 30% of the debris taken care of. The county came and got the REALLY big stuff which my sons helped squinney and I get to the curb. Seth drove in from Raleigh to help. The pine tree that broke our water pipe is HUGE and about 8 feet from the back of the house by our bedroom so I'm going to have it removed as quickly as I get the money to do so. We call all this "paying the price to live in paradise". Our losses and the speed in which we were able to get things repaired is really quite good compared to a lot of people who live exactly seaside (we're on the sound side of the island) and lost everything so we are grateful and thankful.