The wreckage

We've come a long way since these pictures were taken. More on that later...first my blatant sympathy grab!

Our porch, littered with debris. So far, four loads about this size have already been hauled away. On a positive note, 75 percent of that is stuff we're glad to get rid of and should have cleared out long ago. The kitchen window blew out from the heat of the fire.

The culprit! Next time I'm buying a Maytag!

The fire melted everything on top of the dryer, including my bottle of Tide. On the plus side, when you aren't able to do laundry due to the fact that your dryer caught on fire, who needs detergent?

Charred debris accumulating as Brandon and our friend Craig took their frustrations out on - I mean demolished - the kitchen.

Damage in our laundry area from the smoke and fire

Our hotel room at the lovely Holiday Inn Golden Glades. Basically it was a dump, but this sign on the door was comforting!

Guess who has (mostly) been a good little trouper through this whole thing?

Anyway, now that the ugly stuff is out of the way (well, Anthony certainly isn't ugly, but the rest of it was), I'm happy to report that things are looking up.

Even though Brandon and I are extremely hard workers (read, really lazy yet grudgingly willing to get off our asses when the reward is not living in a hotel room with a toddler) and quite handy at manual labor (read, these four hands are as soft the petals of a dewy rose) we finally acknowledged we can't do this job on our own. Brandon hired a team of several hardworking experts to help us dig out and clean up. They've already cleaned, scraped and mostly painted the entire place, along with hauling all my crap to the dump.

I'll tell you one thing, my Spring Cleaning this year is going to be hard to live up to!

Anyway, the smoky smell is gone, and we feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel. The biggest jobs at this point are laundering all our clothes (because, dammit, clothes, I love you too much to let you die like this!) and returning all our belongings to their original places. We've basically pulled out and cleaned everything, along with cleaning the house from head to toe.

We're pretty sure moving back home this weekend is a realistic option.

And on a final positive note, one of Brandon's coworkers generously offered us a "little room" he has at his house for houseguests. Turns out it's a beautiful, spacious loft with its own bathroom, mini kitchen, walk-in closet, king-sized bed, TV, etc. I am thinking of forcing a major slowdown on this home cleanup project so we can stay here long enough to claim squatters' rights...