Roommates

Yes, we still have them. Come this Thursday it will be two months that we have been dealing with bed bugs. I am really unsure how much longer I can deal. During the past two months I have been searching the Internet for answers. One website that has been helpful has been Bedbugger.com. There are forums that you can sign onto and ask questions and read responses to others questions. That is where I have found most of my information. One name that has been consistently popping up to help people with their problem has been KillerQueen. He is a pest control operator in NY. All he deals with are bed bugs and he has had tremendous success in dealing with them. He has been toted as being extremely thorough and willing to spend whatever amount of time to help deal with the situation and get it resolved. I sent him a personal message and told him about our situation. He messaged me back with his phone number to call him at so we could discuss things more thoroughly. He talked with me for almost an hour tonight. He was a great wealth of information. He gave us helpful ideas to deal with it on our end, but is very concerned about the empty house next door. He honestly doesn't know how to handle that situation as there is no absolute way of determining the level of activity. If the exterminators have gone crazy and laid too much pesticide, then the bugs will hide until the level goes down and then find a way to get to a host. This makes sense to me as we have seen a cycle. We won't see some for a few days and then we get an onslaught again. The guy I talked with, KillerQueen, is very concerned for our situation as it is difficult to determine whether or not they will truly be gone. All I can do is pray. I know we have many prayer warriors out there. I know God is hearing our prayers. He will answer them in His time. KillerQueen seemed to think we were going to be dealing with this for several more months. I can only pray we will not. I am praying fervently that it will be done MUCH sooner.

I have plans to call COMHAR tomorrow about the situation. They are the owners of the house next door. I am frustrated because the exterminators are only treating our house tomorrow, not the COMHAR house. I know there must be activity over there if we are still seeing activity over here. I know they are going to listen to the exterminator when he says the house is all clear, but they won't be sure. I am going to express my frustration and request that they come over and see my house. See the bites on my boys. See our house torn apart. I am going to start calling them and visiting their offices until this gets resolved. One option is to have them buy our house and everything in it outright. Then we can leave a get a new start. I would willingly leave it all behind to be able to relax and sleep. It would be hard, especially on the kids, but we could get through it. But I feel that is probably never going to happen. So fight we must. Please pray we will win this battle soon. I just want life back to normal.

Sleep Tight...Don't Let the....

Well, apparently bed bugs don't take Christmas Day off. Instead of waking up to the voices of excited children anticipating the opening of presents, I opened my eyes only to see a bed bug trying to make a quick escape after having his Christmas breakfast of ME! It must have just fed as it was FAT! I didn't freak as I thought I would. I simply sighed, said "Andy!" and got up. I think my mind is slowly getting used to the fact that these bugs are here and we may be dealing with them for the rest of our lives. The frustrating thing is that Andy and I had stripped the bed and checked every crevice to make sure there were none on the bed last night. Then to find one walking across the sheets, not good. I have no idea where it came from. I called Ehrlich even before allowing the kids to open their presents. Hopefully, they will come out Monday and do a fourth treatment. Looks like this weekend will be spent going through more stuff and packing it up and treating the bookshelves.

The kids had a great morning. They were all so sweet as they patiently waited to open their gifts. Daniel was a riot as after each gift he said, "Thank you mommy! I always wanted that!" Even despite the lack of Christmas decorations, they had fun tearing into the paper and oohing and aahing over everything. They are currently downstairs playing a Wii game Daniel got, "Wii Music". Daniel so loved playing instruments that I thought this game would be a good fit for him. I wasn't wrong! He's a natural.

I hope everyone has a great Christmas Day. We will...despite the bed bugs! We aren't going to let them get us down!

Yes, it's 3:17 am....

and I am blogging. Why? Because my husband is tearing out the ceiling in the entryway. Why is he doing it at this hour? Because on his "tour" tonight he found FIVE live bedbugs and three dead ones. All in our bedroom. One had even made it onto our box spring. He believes that they are still coming in through the wall and since he has blocked their entrance into the living room, thinks they are going up into our bedroom. There are some significant gaps between the baseboard and the wall. The majority of what we are finding are on the bookcases that line the wall butting up against the infested house. At least we are hoping and praying that that is indeed the correct scenario. I guess bedbugs have no respect for the holidays. We were starting to get really comfortable and even started thinking that this thing might be over....but I guess it is not. It is still a waiting game. I will be calling Ehrlich later today (yes, on Christmas) to hopefully set up an appointment for Monday, the 29th. Please pray that these terrible beasts would be gone by the New Year. I would REALLY like to go into the New Year bed bug free.

It's off to bed. The kids will be up bright and early wanting to open gifts. I can't wait to see their faces! I'll have to remember that thought when I am dead tired and they are waking me to go downstairs and open gifts!

Alive and Well

Yes, we are, and so are the bed bugs apparently. I returned home Thursday night and did a "tour" around 1:00 am Friday, only to be disappointed by finding not just one BUT TWO bedbugs in our bedroom. The most discouraging part of it was that I found on ON the bookshelf. I had never found one there before. Today, I decided to take some of the few things that are left on the bookshelf off and I found another live one in a plastic container. I continued looking and found another dead one. I came downstairs to talk with Andy and then found ANOTHER one crawling on the baseboard by the stairs. UGH!!!! We have found far fewer since the last extermination, but I was REALLY hoping not to find ANY! It looks as if we will be calling Ehrlich to come out on the 29th to do a fourth treatment. Maybe that one will be the charm.

Life has been busy since returning home last Thursday. Friday we celebrated Christmas with my mom and step-dad, Bruce. We had dinner together and then had the mad opening of gifts! Thought this year I slowed it down so we could all see what everyone was getting. It was fun, though I think my mom bought out the Lego store! Matt and Sam came away with quite a few sets. Daniel was thrilled with his new remote control car and new Duplo set (Police station). He has to play Lego's with his siblings. Sarah even got a Lego set. She really likes the City series and received the Service Station. I got two new pair of pj's (since my old ones are getting WAY TOO big!) and Andy got his usual Sears gift card.

Saturday was a day at home! We had nowhere we needed to go. That evening we hit Target and Home Depot to get a few last minute things and also things to work on the living room. Tomorrow I'll have to post what our living room looks like right now. It will be nice when it is all done, but I think that will be quite a while.

Today, I took a nap! I can't remember the last time I took a nap on a Sunday! I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it! I really miss Sunday afternoon naps! Sarah and I then attended the Prayer Pals Christmas Party. I will have to post some pictures when I can get a hold of them. It was great and the Pals were so generous. The kids really enjoyed all that they got. A new thing we are doing this year is canceling Prayer Pals until Kids Club starts up again the end of January! I can't tell you how thankful I am for this! It is a true break from ministry and it means that Andy and I will be home, together, for 6 out of 7 nights! What a change. Carisa and Trish both decided that they needed the breaks as Trish will be traveling a lot in the coming month and Carisa needs to be at home helping with the kids while Frank still recovers from his cancer surgery. I just need the time to keep up with the house and rid it of bed bugs! As of now, our declaration day is February 14th! Wouldn't that be great? I would LOVE it if we could declare ourselves bed bug free on Valentine's Day! Please be in prayer that these bed bugs would go away and that we would be able to fix up the house so as to prevent this from ever happening again. Thanks!

Do I Have To?

That is a question I often get from my kids. Do I have to do math? Do I have to clean my room? Now I find myself asking that same question....Do I have to go home to Philly? Every fiber of my being is screaming NOOOOO!!!! I really have absolutely no desire to return. But Andy will be driving up this afternoon and then we will all be heading back to Philly. (I think he realizes if he isn't here to take us home we may never come home!!) We are to return up here for Christmas, but not until next Friday. And then it is likely only for one night. Bummer.

It has been a wonderful retreat. I can't remember sleeping so well in the last few months. Maybe, someday, I'll sleep that well in Philly. Until then I will be counting the days until our return to "our little piece of heaven on earth".

My dream day...

I cannot begin to tell you how much I am enjoying my time here at the in-laws. Yes, I REALLY miss Andy, but I REALLY don't miss the stress of bedbugs and the constant search for them. I REALLY am not missing the loudness of the neighbors and their constant music. I REALLY am not missing the divided focus I have had to live with since dealing with the bedbugs. I was able to give my children my undivided attention with homeschooling...AND IT FELT SOOOO GOOD! I am so enjoying talking with my in-laws and just having fun. OH!! It is going to be EXTREMELY difficult to go home on Thursday. If it were up to me I would stay here right through the New Year.

What also made today so wonderful was the picturesque beauty of the snow gently falling outside. I was sitting in the dinning room with Sarah going over some school and we both looked out the window and just enjoyed the scene. Of course the kids wanted to go out in it, but I did not watch the weather report and brought no snow gear along. Poor guys. They did get to go with PopPop to feed the horses at the next farm and LOVED that. They (including Daniel) were all able to ride in the back of the truck. Daniel thought this was GREAT! They love the horses and especially spending time with PopPop and Grammy. We are all going to hate going back to Philly.

I have talked with Andy several times and he has found three bugs since we were last exterminated. One was dead under the boys bunk beds, one was half alive in our room and the third was quite well on the steps. The one on the steps is frustrating as we thought with plugging up the holes in the wall to the connecting house that would limit the bugs we would find on the steps. We have no idea where it came from. I am still trusting that they will go away. One day they will be gone. I am gaining more peace about the whole situation. These things happen, and they eventually get resolved. Until that day comes I will continue to look and go about life as I need to.

An update on my friends Jeff and Jen. They are dealing with the situation well and trusting God for His wisdom and strength. Jen is healthy and the miscarriage was complete, requiring no other medical intervention. This is an answer to their prayers as they were nervous about procedure needing to be done if it was necessary. Please continue to pray for them as some days will be harder then others. Please also pray with us that God would bless them with another child someday soon.

Third time a charm?

Today was our third extermination. They found nothing. No eggs, no harbors, no bugs in our house. But there is still activity in the house next door. These creatures sure are a determined lot! Since Andy has bricked and sealed the wall, we have only found a few, and only one of them was slightly alive. We are really praying that this is the end of the entire deal. They will come back in two weeks to inspect the house next door and, hopefully, declare it bed bug free. There will be great rejoicing in all the land! We are hoping that by February 9, 2009 we can start putting our house back together and live a "normal" life. I don't know exactly what that looks like, but I am hoping! I know that I will still be on the lookout for bedbugs, no matter where I go. But I guess an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure! If I can prevent an infestation, then life will be that much easier.

On a sad note, friends and co-workers here in Philly, Jeff and Jen, have just suffered a miscarriage. She was not far along in her pregnancy, but far enough to already become attached and love this little gift from God. Please pray for them as they go through the next few days, weeks, and months. God is certainly challenging many of our staff in different areas, but in the end He is asking us to all rely on His strength and knowledge in knowing what is best for us. Please pray for our staff as a whole. That there would be unity and that many of us would take the next weeks ahead and use them as a time of resting in Him.

I may not be blogging for the next few days as I am headed up to my in-laws while Andy tears the living room ceiling out. I am hoping to return home on Thursday. Maybe earlier if he gets through it faster. Please pray that he will have the strength and time he needs to complete the project. Once ministry starts up the end of January, life doesn't slow down until May. I would love for the project to be on the tail end of done rather than in it's beginning stages. Thanks!