PRAISE is what I do! LONG

Can you say Hallelujah?! I have to tell you we were doing a praise dance at our house yesterday!!
Hmmmmmmm, where do I begin? I’ll leave the tidbit about my stomach virus this weekend out. ;-) Saturday morning I was to purchase the electricity pole-box combo, dig a 4 ft hole, and a friend was to come install it and wire the house to the pole for me. Monday the electric company was to do their part and we would have electricity in the new house and finalize our move.
Well, what was supposed to happen and what did happen are two totally different things.
I ended up sick Friday evening and when the children called the friend, her husband was ill as well. WHAT? I don’t know anything about electricity…are you serious. Oh no! Then I had to stop because I was NOT being gracious or concerned for his health. I was being selfish.
Ok, so this means I can dig the hole, install the pole and reschedule everything else for the following weekend and week. Ok, no sweat!
Joseph talks to the sheriff to get an extension on the date we MUST be out of the house. He comes by with a friend and they finish digging the hole my big boy started (He did 2 feet!). Pole is in and then Joseph says where is the wiring? I said, they told me it all came with the pole. Guess what? It was the wiring for the electric company’s end. You purchase your wire separately. Oh My Gosh! Are you serious? I have 0 $. My account is overdrawn as it is and I need more money? Ok, well I go to Home Depot just to price everything that will be needed and a young man helps me out. He says, you can use aluminum wiring instead of copper, the only thing that has to be copper is the grounding wire. Ok great, aluminum is 3 times less expensive than copper. The total…a little over $95 bucks. I head back to the house and tell Joseph. Then I spot something; shingles and a few other things un-used from the new roof. Hey can’t we take that back and get store credit and buy the materials needed for the electricity? He does later that evening and guess what…it all comes to about $93 total!!! Yes, you read that right. There was $97 in store credit, when done we have $4 store credit left.

I don’t know the first thing about electricity, except it can kill you, oh and that’s how lights work and stove, etc.; and neither does Joseph. But we walk to the back of the double wide, look at how it’s done and figure, can’t be too difficult. The worse that could happen is the house burns down. That was a joke..Ha Ha. The electric company checks everything before they connect it. Joseph says he’ll be back Monday.

Sunday was a day of praise. I was literally at the door of the Holy of Holies and knew all would be well.

Monday I called and canceled the electric company coming out. Then I begin to bombard the poor man with 50 questions. He finally said, ma’am I’m going to send one of my men out to look at what you’ve got before you do anything. GREAT!!!! Then he says by the way, you can use aluminum wiring. What people don’t know is it contracts and expands and in doing this loosens up the connections and that is where the fire hazard comes in, but I’ll show you what to do, how to do it, and tell you when to do it and you’ll be safe. Again…GREAT!!!!

Joseph gets there a little after noon on Monday and goes to work connecting the wiring. Just as he is about done, a guy from the electric company drives up. He looks at what has been done so far and says “you’ve done a great job thus far”. He’s shocked to find out neither of us knows what we are doing. He stays there another 30 min. walking Joseph through the rest of the connections and even leaves some of his tools for us to use. We have the aluminum wiring all connected, but there is still that dilemma about the copper grounding wire. He says, you don’t need it. If you want that extra added precaution go for it. He used to do this stuff for a living. He said they did it this way with 3 grounding wires just to cover their butts, but it wasn’t necessary. He said you have 2 grounding wires, you’re good. If you get a little nervous later and have the money, you can add the copper wiring later. We look at him in disbelief, because up to this point we are both thinking me and the children will be without electricity again until Jan. (copper wiring was an additional $40). He again looked things over and said no, you have done a phenomenal job not to be an electrician. You did everything right and all is in order. Someone was guiding you. I’m thinking YEAH…His name is JESUS!!!!!

Sooooooooooo, now I really get into over gear, trying to plan and prepare what needs to be done. The fridge, washer, dryer, all still need to be moved. We can’t connect water and septic till the other house is moved. Inconvenient, but we’ll have to use the double wide for water and bathroom usage, but it’s just right out our back door. It’s not across the street like it was when we first moved out there. We’ve done this before, it’s like camping. The only difference is then it was August, 105 degree temperatures and now it is December, varied temperatures.

Our greatest challenge will be tonight when it is to get down to 28. Remember, I have no more money and we have no portable heaters right now. But guess what? I’m not worried about that either. We have sleeping bags and tons of blankets. We’ll all sleep in the living room and huddle together…we’ve done it before. We’ll be fine. God will provide, I’m sure of it. He already has!!!