Day 30 - We have walls!

We finally have walls! Friday, the contractors put in insulation. Then they took the holiday weekend off, and so did we. Tuesday was drywall installation day, and yesterday they finished that up with tape and float. Aside from a very hot return home on Tuesday night when they had inexplicably decided to turn off the A/C, everything has been pleasantly non-eventful on the construction front. Our adjuster “finished” our claim documents, and sent them our way, but he forgot to include the kitchen appliances that needed repair and the countertops that had to be torn out to replace the lower cabinets.

In other news, we had a great weekend escape to Galveston Island for Memorial Day weekend. Most of the island has been at least cleaned up, if not quite repaired, in the months since Hurricane Ike blasted through. There are things that are still damaged and things that are different, but the spirit of the people there is good. There are billboards that say things like, “Tough times don’t last, but tough Texans do!” I’m not sure who spent the money to put those up, but it has this feeling like the town is hella determined to pull itself up out of the muck my its bootstraps.

It was great to be in one place for 4 days straight and to cook my own food. These are the things I miss most. I hauled my commercial grade Belgian waffle maker down with us and made waffles for breakfast. We grilled and baked and napped and played Wii games – the little things we have not been able to do at home for several weeks. It was all very restorative. Our friends and family have been cooking for us and hosting us in their homes, and we have wanted for almost nothing through this time. Still, it felt awesome to be able to do some things for ourselves, even if they were “vacation versions” of real life.

It was also oddly cathartic to see the damage that was still hanging around and the evidence of how bad things really were after the storm. I’m not sure why – misery loves company, maybe? The whole weekend just felt like the beginning of a turn back to normal life.