It was a bright spot…

 …in the day. Literally.

After spending at least five hours today learning about and comparing insurance plans for Joe (and eventually signing up for one), and getting him a new cell phone and switching his old number over… (Why does this all sound so much easier than it was?!)…while at the same time keeping M on a somewhat even keel and dealing with the regular dramas and responsibilities of the day… I was exhausted. 

The kids and I had planned to take the dogs for an easy hike on a nearby trail that we’d never explored, but those plans went out the window and we spent that time sitting in a cell phone store instead.

It was not a good day.

The sun was already starting to go down, but I suggested we take the poor neglected dogs just down to the park in town for a quick walk before bringing burgers home for dinner. 

The Christmas lights were still up at the park, including on one of our favorite trees…

 

…this huge old cottonwood, totally decked out in lights. 🥰

It truly was the bright spot in an otherwise long, frustrating, day.

I’m so glad we took that short little walk. 

the day that never ends... (but eventually did)

When M was little he loved to watch "Lambchop" with Shari Lewis. I have no idea why he loved that show so much. I remember it being around when I was a kid, and it seemed really dated by the time M was watching... but he loved and and wanted to watch it every day.

I didn't.

I especially disliked the song they ended the show with... "The Song That Doesn't End" Each and every time I heard that song it got stuck in my head. That insipid song tortured me...

Just in case you aren't familiar with it, here's a clip... (misery loves company you know..)

Yesterday was the real life version of the song that doesn't end... only it was the day that didn't end... it "just goes on and on my friend". Yesterday just went on and on and on and on and on. I'd decided to schedule a bunch of doctor's appointments on one day, rather than spreading them out over several days... I thought it made sense to get them over with all at once.

It probably did make sense... they're done and out of the way now... but it was a looooooooong day... it just went on and on.

The day started with M's steroid injection. It was done at a surgical center, and was as quick and easy as something like that can be. (We're still waiting to see how much it's going to help, he should be getting good pain relief by the end of the week.) We celebrated it being OVER with Krispy Kreme donuts.... Mmmm. Then back to Parker, where I had an appointment to get a couple of old silver fillings replaced, and a months overdue mammogram. Along the way we stopped at the bank, then picked up M's new (to him) computer... (his old one, a freeby from the thrift store, finally gave up the ghost) shopped at Costco, made an emergency run to Petsmart for hamster medicine for my youngest grandson's pet, and finally made it home, for good, around 5:00... just in time to cook dinner and collapse.

R went to bed last night praying for an ice storm.

I was praying for a blizzard.

Either of which would have kept us home today.

We did wake up to a light dust of snow in the air, barely sticking to the ground, and no ice at all...





Despite the lack of major weather events, it looks like today will be a much easier day... a uke lesson for R this morning, and her new karate class this afternoon. I think I can manage that...

I'm not a fan... (aka back to the drawing board)

I've mostly finished up the project to close off the bedroom fireplace. After cutting wood to fit the opening, giving the fireplace a new coat of high-heat paint, and fitting the wood pieces, backed with insulation board, into the fireplace opening, all that was left was adding the "stacked logs" fabric I found at IKEA to the front of the wood.



And that's where the project veered off course...

As soon as I draped the fabric in place (the fireplace screen held it up nicely), I decided I wasn't wild about the mix of patterns... the angular petrified wood that the fireplace is made from, and the large round circles of the logs on the fabric.



But I went ahead and tacked it into place (just using the staple gun) anyway, hoping once it was smoothed and straightened over the wood it would look better.

Nope...it looks about the same, and I'm not a fan. I'm leaving it for now, it's not "hideous" or anything. (I love using that word, it's the same word my oldest daughter used, back when she was a teen, to describe a wall I'd carefully sponge painted. Her passion in hating that wall still makes me smile... )



Anyway... (I'm so easily distracted!) I'm going to leave it for now... but I will probably take the fabric back off at some point and disguise the wood in some other way. I'll also work more on the screen then... I don't want to put much work into it now, when it will probably be coming back off again before long.

I hate it when the picture I have in my head doesn't match how a project turns out.

(Anybody need one yard of stacked logs fabric from IKEA?)

the end is in sight...

The end of a super busy week, that is.

It's been one of those weeks that somehow ended up involving way more running around than works for us...

Here's a what this week's craziness looked like:

Monday (our quietest day): Home Depot trip for a little project I was working on for M, lunch out, shop for K's birthday then home and school time. The donkey farrier (yes we have two now, one for each equine!) came at dinner time to trim Tucker's hooves and freaked out about a crack R had found in one of Murphy's hooves.



Before it got too dark we pulled out the duct tape and vet wrap to make the big guy a lovely do-it-yourself boot.




Tuesday: Worked on M's project in the morning, then a quick (?!) trip to the DMV to get M a new state ID card.  (His had expired over a year ago, and he needed a current one...) An hour and a half wait and $11. got him a new ID card, then another quick (?!) stop at the Post Office to mail K's birthday gifts to Ghana. By the time we left the P.O. the afternoon was over, and we only had time for a quick (for real this time) dinner at home before the kid's RCC meeting.

Wednesday: R's uke lesson in the park in the morning, then lunch, school time, working on M's project and grocery shopping. It was back to town in the evening for the kid's RCC book club.

Thursday: Early morning doctor appointment for R, then home, lunch and leaving again to work at the thrift store... then home, dinner and leaving again for game night at the rec center. (M's project didn't get worked on and he let me know... all day long... that I wasn't working on it!)

Friday: Another early morning doctor appointment (for M this time), but first we had to lead Murphy out to the driveway, unwrap his hoof, and send pictures of the crack to his farrier. I sent a few photos, wrapped the hoof back up again, but then the farrier texted asking for one more photo. Unwrap, take picture, rewrap... run the horse to the barn, run the kids out the door to the doctor. One more stop at Home Depot for M's project, then home, school time, and finally finishing up M's little project.

Whew, I'm glad this week is almost over... Tomorrow is EARLY morning bowling, then picking up S for the weekend, shopping for the homecoming dance, and the St Joseph community get-together in the evening... I'll be wiped out by bedtime!

Want to see the project I made for M? (If you've read this far you deserve to!)

I made him a little drop down desk, from an old drawer, for his laptop.



M's room is small (no really - it's small) but he's wanted a desk for his laptop. I hated taking up prime real estate in there with a desk that would only become (another) catchall... So I made one that takes up no floor space, and will fold up out of the way when it's not being used.

(The front of the drawer is at the top, I added a couple of 1x3's to the sides to build them out to match the old shelf I used as the fold down part of the desk. I also added a 1x2 across the top back, inside, to better hold the weight when attached to the wall. There are no "before" photos since I literally made it up as I went along and had no idea it would ever turn into anything!)

 

This was my favorite kind of project, made from nothing but scrap wood...the only things I had to buy were the latch, hinges and chain. (How lovely after approximately 47 trips to Home Depot buying wood for the shed!)

Next week looks to be calmer than this week... thank goodness. I could use some time at home to get things caught up!

According to my highly scientific rain gauge...

...we've had almost 3" of rain over the past couple of days...



... and it's still raining.

The pumpkins are happy...



.... the echinacea are thrilled.



But the chicken yard fence building has slowed to a crawl.

We started stretching the wire fencing yesterday but the ground is too wet... I'm afraid the T-posts aren't solid enough.



(And why does everything in this photo look crooked to me? I can tell myself the tree is crooked, and everything is on a slope... and the T-post to the left of the tree has been pulled over a little by the tension of the wire... but those wood posts are straight... I swear... and the level said they were.... so this photo makes me a little crazy.)

Anyway... we've stopped stretching wire until things dry out a bit.

We are in serious need of a little sun!

Here's a photo reminder if you're in Colorado and haven't seen the sun in a while... It looks like this:



It seems like it might be a good day to start building the gate, it can be done mostly inside.

The rain has been great, we live in a place that's dry enough that we always welcome rain...



But it can stop now.

The kids have a car wash fundraiser on Saturday for their Special Olympic team and it's either going to be perfect timing (people cleaning up their cars after all the rain) or horrible timing (still raining, no one washing their car).



Oh well, enough of this whiny, disjointed post... back to work. :)

A two Dr Pepper sort of day...

I don't drink coffee, and have never built up much tolerance for caffeine. A little caffeine goes a long way with me, and just a little more can keep me awake half the night... body tired, but thoughts buzzing with grand projects and inspirations...

So I limit myself to one soda (Dr Pepper!) a day. I only drink more if I think it's the only way I'm going to have the energy to make it through the day.

Today is likely to be a two Dr Pepper day.

I should have saved myself the trouble of getting ready for bed last night... tracking down sleep ended up being mostly an exercise in frustration.

I had a hard time getting to sleep because I was thinking about the car we're buying today. I'm definitely taking the road less traveled in buying this car... Instead of buying the newest car we can afford (never a new car, always a cross-your-fingers-and-hope-for-the-best used one) I'm buying an older car. On purpose. And hope I'm not throwing money away or buying trouble...

So I had a hard time getting to sleep... wondering if I was making the right decision.

Shortly after I fell asleep... M woke me up, feeling sick. I got him a Tums, sent him back to bed and (using my used car buying strategy) crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

An hour later he was up again, stomach unhappy... threatening to erupt.

False alarm... back to bed... sleep a little more.

An hour or so later... M is up again... truly sick this time. His stomach rejects every single thing he's put in it...

He's been up two of the last three night vomiting... his gastroparesis is seriously not happy right now. Today will be a challenge of convincing him to eat lightly, to not overload his angry stomach... even while he angrily insists he's fine now... and hungry.

His stomach finally starting to settle....M showers... better, but still calling out how bad he feels, needing reassurance that he's ok. Then, freshly clean and back to bed, M goes back to sleep while I scrub and sanitize the bathroom...

As I get in bed and try again to sleep I hear the first birds chirping outside the bedroom window and realize that morning is almost here.

It's the beginning of a two Dr Pepper sort of day...

the neverending story

I'm still in the midst of the classroom/sun room redo.

Have I mentioned it's been really slow going?

This week had barely begun when I ran into another little stumbling block in terms of my plans for the room... specifically, my plans to put a good, water resistant laminate wood flooring on the giant "steps" on the side of the room where the porch roof is. I'd already bought the flooring, it had been sitting in the room acclimating, and was all ready to be laid when I started having second thoughts.

I took a close look (and took a good measure) of the horizontal tops of those "steps" and of course (why was I surprised...), nothing was square.  And as I thought about trying to lay the flooring planks square, on a surface that wasn't square, and the strange angles I would have to cut (and all the flooring I would probably waste in the process!) I realized there was a high probability that it would turn out not-so-great.

So, I slept on it Sunday night and woke up Monday morning feeling like the best thing to do would be to try to salvage the wood that was already underneath the tile fiber board I was getting rid of... and only if it wasn't salvageable to start trying to lay new flooring in those areas.



`



I had the crowbar out by 8:00 Monday morning and started tearing the tile board off.

What I found wasn't pretty... old water damaged (but not rotted, thank goodness!) tongue and groove, with petrified liquid nails smeared all over it from when they'd glued the tile board on.



Once I had the tile board off, most of the rest of that day was spent trying to remove all the liquid nails residue covering the old tongue and groove. I tried scraping (haha.. the liquid nails laughed at my attempts to scrape it off!)... then I took the blow dryer to it (temps above 140 are supposed to soften the liquid nails so it can be scraped off), this was marginally successful.



Finally I stumbled on the combination of paint stripper followed by a razor blade which cleaned off most of the liquid nails.



`

It was still looking pretty rough at this point... and I kept checking here and there to make sure the wood wasn't rotten in spots.



The wood seemed to be in decent shape, so by Tuesday afternoon I was
trashing the roomsanding the last of the liquid nails off and wondering what had possessed me to start working on this room.



After two days of fighting with old tile board and liquid nails  I wanted nothing more than to close the door to that room... and nail it shut!

Thankfully I didn't, because by Tuesday evening when I was starting to stain the newly stripped and sanded tongue and groove, I started thinking that maybe it would turn out ok after all...

Yesterday was polyurethane day... and the day I could finally see that old, water damaged, tongue and groove start to come alive again.



When I first started this project, I hadn't wanted to use the old tongue and groove because I use those steps to hold plants during the winter... so they get wet sometimes.  And I for sure didn't want to ruin all my work with a leaky plant. So I knew I needed to protect and seal the wood against water as much as possible.

That meant lots of coats of high quality polyurethane.



Here's where I ended up yesterday...



The old tongue and groove on the giant steps has been stripped, sanded, stained and polyed.... and I do love how it's turning out. I'm so glad the steps weren't square enough to use new wood, and the old wood that Annie and Carl (original owners and builders) put in is exposed and beautiful again.

Up next is caulking around the edges, then adding corner and quarter round trim around the edges and staining and sealing it.

It would be nice to be finished with the room this week, but I don't think it's going to happen...

Next week though... for sure.

When it rains...

It's not been a good week.

It's been one of those "if it can go wrong it will" sorts of weeks.

It probably started with my paint-the-classroom idea.

I'm still painting.

I can paint a whole bedroom in an afternoon. I work quick. This is only a 9x10 room... and I'm only painting two of the walls. But it's been one thing after another every step of the way... from the moldings that wouldn't come off, to the endless caulking it's needed, to the too-many-to-count coats of paint it's taking to make those tongue and groove walls white.



After three different primers (and three trips to Home Depot), I've finally managed to cover the bleed through on the walls. Now it's just a matter of a couple of coats of white over the primer.

(This is what finally got the job done!)



But, even with the complications this project seems to be taking an inordinately long time. Probably because I'm working a few minutes here and a few minutes there... Between M's unsettledness this week, and our running around here and there, I'm just not getting anything done.

Sigh...

And then there is the "rain".

My kitchen has been a bit wet the past couple of days... It started with M accidentally breaking the kitchen faucet the other evening. (He never dreamed if he leaned on it hard enough it would crack and we'd have a fountain!) Joe's been super busy at work so here's my repair.



(No, I'm not a plumber.)

It didn't stop the leak but at least it turned our "fountain" into more of a waterfall...

Well, actually, we don't have any water leaking from the faucet now at all because Joe turned the water to the house off. He turned it off because copper pipe that brings water up to the frig seems to be disintegrating, and the shut off valve on that pipe won't work. It started with one little pinhole leak in the pipe, grew to 9 little leaks just while he messed with it, and now the danger is that the whole pipe will crumble and flood the kitchen and basement. So, we have no water until he drives to town, buys new pipe, and replaces the whole thing.

I can't wait for this week to be over...

On the bright side... (there always has to be a bright side, you know)... we'll have a nice new pipe and valve bringing water to the frig... and I can finally replace the kitchen faucet that I've disliked since we moved in with something I like a lot better!





And you surely can't beat this morning's sunrise... :)

Pumpkin Therapy

So.... the pdoc still hasn't called or replied to my last two emails. With the increase in one of his meds M is better in some ways but worse in others.

I'm going to have to track the pdoc down today and try to pry some advice out of him.

I'm irritated and frustrated with the pdoc so I spent some time this morning in therapy...

... in the pumpkin patch.

I was on my way back from the barn when I decided to stop and pull just a few weeds before heading inside... but one thing led to another and next thing I knew I'd spent a good 30 minutes down on my knees in the wet mulch and mud (it rained like crazy last night) pulling weeds.

I only came inside because it was getting late enough in the morning that M might be waking up and I needed to be in the house and showered before he started moving around. My barn pants were so heavy with water and dirt by the time I was done that I had to hold them up like a long skirt to keep from leaving muddy drag marks as I walked through the house.

I do love growing pumpkins... I love the way they vine around, the huge, sunshiny yellow flowers, and the promise of pumpkins in the fall.

Last year we had pumpkins to eat, to freeze, to carve and to give away. We had so many pumpkins that we invited the kids in the neighborhood to come pick a halloween pumpkin and even had a "free pumpkin" stand. It was so fun to watch the kids go through the patch, carefully picking their halloween pumpkins, and we even met a few neighbors we hadn't met before. :)

I've planted extra this year just to be able to have a pick your own pumpkin patch again...

  (the last few pumpkins last year...)

Sigh... enough about pumpkins, I suppose it's time to go and start trying to track down the pdoc again.

totaled!

My awesome little Kia Sedona I got such a good deal on back in March has been totalled by the insurance company handling the claim (who insures the guy that hit me).

USAA has given me three days to find and buy a new car, and return the rental car they've been paying for.

They don't seem able to acknowledge the complications that having children with disabilities can bring to something like finding and buying a car...

I'm not sure how it's going to get done before they take the rental car back (especially with the extra doctor's appointments we have during that same time frame, for problems related to the accident), but I'm trusting that it will all work out somehow.

I'm off now to Craigslist to look for a Sedona that might have been listed since the last time I checked...

It's only vomit (venting)

TMI alert... the title should clue you in... yes, this post is about vomit.

"It's only vomit."

That's what I kept reminding myself this evening as I cleaned the bathroom. M's felt sick all afternoon, but it's been a couple of months since everything came back up the way it did this evening.

As I disinfected the floor, walls, tub, and toilet (and the soles of my shoes) I reminded myself that at least he's no longer throwing up multiple times a day...

At least he doesn't have to sleep with a throw up bucket on the bed because he doesn't have time to make it to the bathroom.

At least he's not throwing up blood the way he was just a few months ago.

At least he's not back in the hospital.

I finished cleaning and disinfecting the floor, walls, tub, and toilet, (and soles of my shoes), and M got out of the shower and went back to bed. I wanted to take a shower, but couldn't because I can't shower and watch M at the same time, so I changed clothes and washed... several times... finishing up with hand sanitizer.

Maybe I'll shower after M goes to sleep...

Yep, it's only vomit... kids throw up all the time.

But it's also a reminder that M's GI system still isn't working right. It's been five months since his hip surgery and not only haven't I found a physician who can "fix" the problem, I can't even find one who can figure out what's the matter!

M's not "sick" in the sense of having a stomach bug, or having eaten something that disagreed with him.

He sick in the sense of his stomach isn't emptying, and his intestines aren't moving the food through, and without the GI meds he takes each day he would be VERY ill, because nothing would move through the way it should.

The truth is, I'm sick too...

I'm sick of gastroenterologists who drop out of sight when they don't know what to do.

I'm sick of psychiatrists who aren't available...

... and psychiatrists who can't be bothered to release your child's mental health records... even when they know the child is struggling, and needs mental health care that they can no longer provide.

I'm sick of spending at least an hour or two every single day trying to work through the "system" we need to work through to ensure M gets the pathetically inadequate support available to him next month when he officially becomes an adult.

Sigh...well, it sounds like it's time to let this charming little post go... M's vomiting again.

o-v-e-r

This week...

-overbooked

-over scheduled

-overly tired

-overwrought

-over eating

-over spent

-melting down all over the place.

`

`

`

`

`

The kids aren't doing well either.

beyond tired... (venting)

M went in for an endoscopy and flexible sigmoidoscopy today.

This was supposed to be the last of the GI tests and procedures.

It was supposed to confirm the ulcer the new GI doc was "95% sure" that M had down at the bottom of his stomach... the ulcer that he was sure was causing all M's GI problems.

Once the ulcer was confirmed, it could be easily treated and life would get back to normal.

The procedures were scheduled for 3:50 p.m., and M could have no solid food after midnight. We had dinner about 6:30 last night, so by the time he had the procedure it had been more that 21 hours since his last meal. M made it through the day on a diet of water, fruit juice and soda and coped, graciously, with the indignity of his mother giving him an enema...

I am SO very tired of medical procedures that I think the only thing that kept me going through all the pre-op requirements for today was the thought that this would be the last one... at least for a long time. (There were so many requirements, and they were so complicated, that I had to make myself a scheduled list for the day to make sure I didn't forget anything.)

But, I kept reminding myself, these procedures would confirm the diagnosis.

A diagnosis that is easily treatable.

Unfortunately, that's not what happened...

The GI doc came out after the procedure (M was still in recovery) and said that despite not eating any solid food for almost 24 hours, M's stomach was still SO full of food that the doc couldn't really get a veru good look at things... but it didn't appear as though there is an ulcer.

The doc wants to see the results from the upper GI M had done in April.

He also wants to talk to another GI doc he knows who might have some ideas.

And he wants to do another endoscopy soon... keeping M on a liquid diet for two days before the procedure. (Hoping that would give his stomach enough time to empty.)

He did say that not only can't M take the two "mainstay" meds for delayed gastric emptying (the current dx)... he can't even take the one (not approved in the U.S.) that would require a "compassionate use" approval... because combined with the psych meds M's already taking it could cause heart problems...  problems in addition to the tachycardia and blood pressure issues he already has... life threatening problems.

I like this GI doc... I really do. I think he's probably about the best in the area... but I'm feeling DONE with doctors right now.

The fact is that M is clearly NOT digesting his food. We're almost four months into this now, he's on his third GI doctor, and we still have no idea what's going on or how to fix it.

I'm sick to death of doctors, hospitals and medical procedures.

I'm ready to pull out my calendar and start cancelling appointments ...starting with the GI, psychiatrist, orthodontist, and gynecologist (for R) appointments next week.

If I could... I would.

It's been almost two weeks since M's surgery, and exhaustion is starting to set in.

I don't mind the constant trips up the stairs, I figure running upstairs 5-6 times each hour for the 12 hours each day that M is awake, is probably good exercise. Shoot, don't people pay  money for step aerobic classes? All I need it some kind of exercise for my arms and I've got a whole body workout going... and it's FREE!

No it's not all the trips up the stairs, or watching bits and pieces of movies all day with M (movies that are invariably interrupted by more trips up and down the stairs...), or keeping track of the hours he's in the CPM machine and lifting the heavy thing up and down off the bed, arranging his leg just right each time, setting the speed as fast as he can tolerate (which still seems impossibly slow. All of that is very do-able. I'm not a good nurse, but when I have to do it I can...

The hard part is the stress of trying to help him deal with the pain, of worrying when he's going to really screw something up because he keeps forgetting and stepping on the leg that should be bearing no weight, and of trying to manage the psychiatric symptoms... symptoms that increase when he's in pain or tired.

As I've said before (like in my last post, I think...), it would be really nice if we had some psychiatric support. M's psychiatrist at the county mental health center is anything but interested or invested in his care. Despite the surgery, it's been two months since I've talked to her... It's impossible to contact her between appointments... all communication goes through "Nurse Sally"... who doesn't know M, has never seen him, and knows zero about his illness or developmental disability. I've spoken to Dr D, who's been M's pdoc for 5 months now, a total of about 30 minutes during those months.  She's seen him three times during that time, and there is roughly 10 minutes of appointment time to bring her up to date, share any concerns, talk about how things are going, and make any decisions that might need to be made. Needless to say he's receiving lousy care.

whine and squirrrels

M never does anything in an easy or predictable way...

He's been that way his entire life.

Whether it was learning to talk (took forever, years of speech therapy, spoke clearly for 7 years or so but is now barely understandable), or walk (he careened around crashing into everything in sight for years, was a mass of bruises for those same years, and still has a tendency to trip over his own feet).

Or more recently, having schizophrenia (having every medication side effect known to man, and symptoms that never go away despite the "best" medication), or... even more recently (like right now)... having an "enhanced" MRI prior to surgery (and ending up with some weird, no-one's-ever-heard-of-it complication... one that even after a trip to the ER and another to the pediatrician, is not going away and no one can figure out).

But I'm not going to blog about that.

I'm tired of talking, thinking, or writing about pediatricians, psychiatrists, orthopedists, ER docs, psych nurses, regular nurses, physical therapists, and/or hospitals or anything else even remotely related to the medical field... because at this point in time they seem to be greedily gobbling up great chunks of my life. (I'm thinking this probably doesn't bode well for my state of mind when M's surgery date rolls around in a few weeks!)

So I've decided to blog about squirrels instead.

I can think of no direct connection between squrrels and the medical field... This earns them a spot on my very short list of acceptable blog topics.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I looked out the window yesterday and saw a thief in my bird feeder...



He'd taken the top off the feeder and climbed inside for a bite of lunch...



When we lived in the city, we were absolutely overrun with squirrels. They were pests...

But we probably lived out here three years before we saw even a single squirrel (something that lives out here must like to eat them...)



(like maybe this coyote just outside the pasture fence?)

So now squirrels are kind of a novelty to us.

Mule deer in the front yard are commonplace... but a squirrel is something a little different!



I chased him off anyway...

I love the birds that come to the feeder, and didn't want him to eat all the birdseed.

He ran up the window, then stopped and peeked to see if I was still there.



I was, but he came back a moment later anyway... and even brought a friend with him.



I like this picture... see the squirrel all the way down inside the bird feeder?



I gave up then on trying to run them off...

If they are tough enough to survive out here, they can have my birdseed... they probably deserve it.

I think my stress level might be a little high...

....yesterday I threatened to sue both our CCB (community centered board - the agency that administers federally mandated developmental disability services) and the Medicaid contractor who was making the modifications to M's room.

I'm not normally prone to fits of anger, but I had one yesterday...

The contractor came, as scheduled, on Monday. He hung the door he was supposed to, had an electrician install the lighting, and left his guys to finish up the drywall work. The most important part of the job... replacing the glass in M's windows with plexiglass... was supposed to be done yesterday.

When the guys were finished (using the word loosely) with the drywall work, the last job of the day, they asked me to come look at it. Unfortunately the texture was a mess... They'd used some canned texture they picked up at Home Depot or someplace and there were places they missed entirely, and places they'd smoothed it so it looked like no texture at all... The patch was supposed to blend into the wall around it, but it wasn't even close.  They asked if I wanted it done again, and I said yes. I was on the phone with the pediatrician when they finished the second time... It looked better, but still not good... but I just let it go (rather than cut the phone call short). I asked if they were going to prime the door... they said no.

Ok... I thought to myself after they'd left... so maybe my expectations were too high. I'd expected them to come in do the work, and all I would have to do is put the room back together when they were done. But now I'm left with priming and painting the new door, changing the door knob around (they put it on backwards) and priming and painting the new, poorly textured, drywall. Oh... and they didn't install a dimmer switch either... something I'd wanted done. But again, it's not the end of the world... M can survive very nicely without a dimmer switch.

The straw that broke this camel's back (or, more accurately, triggered threats of lawsuits) came yesterday morning, with the glass guy. He came and looked at the windows and the job order of what he was supposed to do, and said he wouldn't do it. That he wouldn't do a poor job, and that's what it would be if he did the job as ordered. The material ordered was not right, he said, was way too flimsy, and to do the job right would take more money... which would mean rewriting the work order, and going back to the state to get it approved.

Getting it approved through the state could take months... (it's taken more than six months to get the approval for the work we're currently doing!)

Leaving the windows the way they are is a huge safety risk to M.

That's when I got angry...

I called the contractor and the CCB and complained about the poor workmanship on the drywall, and how everything seemed only half finished. I also complained about how the most important part of the job couldn't even be started because the contractor screwed up the work order. I finished by letting them know that if M was hurt as a result of that work not being done, I would take legal action.

I really am not someone who throws anger around like a weapon... using it to get what they want. In fact, I have a pretty low boiling point most of the time.

But don't mess with my kids... that sets me off every time.

So... the contractor is sending his guys back out to prime the door. A supervisor from the CCB is coming out this morning to look at the drywall. And (most importantly!) the CCB has approved the change in the job order for the glass work (somehow absorbing the increased cost). As soon as the guy can come back out, the glass work will get done.

I do feel a little bad about getting angry and making threats...

... but if that's what it takes to get the job done, I guess that's what it takes.

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I am SO finished with having guys in to work on this house.

Unfortunately, the digging out after a big snow isn't nearly as beautiful and picturesque as the snowstorm itself. 

If fact, it's often a muddy, exhausting mess...

Yesterday the kids and I tried to get the car dug out and the driveway cleared enough to get to town. We got the car dug out, and even cleared an area in front of the garage so I could pull the little tractor with the snowplow out of the garage and plow the driveway.

I'd plowed one strip when the belt came off the tractor.

Without the belt the tractor won't move...

We couldn't get the belt back on.

M and I even hauled Joe's hydraulic jack out through the snow to jack up the tractor (because, of course, the belt came off in deep snow, nowhere near the garage!), thinking surely we'd be able to get it on once we could see what we were doing.

Nope.. it wasn't happening.

So we pushed the tractor out of the way, hauled the jack back to the garage, and decided we'd  clear just enough snow by hand to get the car out.

We worked hard, for a long time, but we never did get the car up the driveway.

We did make it halfway up the driveway once, and got the car stuck several times (having to dig it back out each time)... but ultimately all we accomplished was rearranging a lot of snow.

A fencepost and a little berm of snow from our shoveling  is all that kept me from sliding down the hill sideways during this attempt up the driveway...

After getting disgusted and leaving the car stuck in a snowbank for an hour or so, I went back out and dug it out (again!) and just parked it back in front of the garage. I decided I didn't want to go to town badly enough to keep digging and sliding.

I did the get the trail to the barn dug out though...

After the frustration of trying to get the car out, clearing the path to the barn was really kind of fun. It's nice when a job has a clear beginning and end, there is nothing mechanical or high-tech to malfunction, and when you're done you can immediately enjoy the results of your work. (I was getting very tired of slogging through the deep snow each time I had to go to the barn!)

(Here's M showing how deep the drift on the trail to the barn was...)

Joe (and his SUV) are home all weekend... so for the next day or so we'll just steal his car when we have to go to town, and hope that my car can make it out by Monday.