Rough week
You know, it's been a short week (kids had Monday off) but it feels like it's been a rough one.
A good friend of mine has had unbearable troubles heaped upon her, one after another, and has recently had to come to terms with the fact that she will probably lose her husband to cancer sooner rather than later.
MiniPlu's new best friend, J, was in and out of school last week with some unknown bug, following treatment for an infected toe. This week her mom texted to say that J was in a hospital 35 mins away in the ICU. That's right: the ICU. Critical condition, and in isolation, while they tried to figure out the cause of the infection - which had apparently turned seriously nasty. Thankfully, by yesterday she was upgraded to "serious" condition, will be moved to a regular room, and will hopefully be discharged by the end of Monday. (They think she had, of all things, Toxic Shock from her toe or a reaction to her antibiotics or something.) But still - talk about scary!
According to our realtor, our house isn't selling because people think it "needs work." Those of you playing along at home may remember we spent literally SEVEN MONTHS doing work on our house. Gutted both bathrooms, redid ductwork in downstairs bathroom and basement, removed and rebuilt a dividing wall in basement, painted the heck out of almost every room in the house, as well as the outside wall and back and front porches, replaced the floor in the laundry room, patched cracks in the lower part of the outer wall and porch cement before painting them - God, SO much work. But our kitchen counter/backsplash is old (it was old when we bought it) and the living room carpet, as well as carpet in the three regular bedrooms (kids' rooms and guest room, not our room) is a little bit worn. So, because of those two things, apparently nobody wants our house, and all the other work has been pointless. Everyone wants move-in-condition, rather than buying a decent house at a lower price, then picking out their OWN upgrades and installing them before moving in. So now we have to find the money to replace those things - which will also take time - and I'm angry that a) our realtor didn't push us harder to fix this beforehand and b) we'll either have to borrow MORE money from my mom (already had to borrow some to replace the front door in our new house) or sell off investments, incurring tax issues. Plus, just - ugh. We are so DONE with fussing over this house!
This afternoon, I was finally getting around to reading the Sunday newspaper (yes, finally), when I saw a name in the obits that was very similar to the woman who had been my matron of honor - same first and last name. But my MoH had hyphenated her last name, so I was pretty sure this wasn't the same woman, despite being in roughly the right age range. Still, it made me think of her - we fell out of contact shortly after our wedding, in fact, when I was no longer working with her (she was my former supervisor when I was a speech pathologist) - so I Googled her name. Only to find out that she'd died in March 2014 in a nursing home, where she had lived for the previous eleven years. The woman was only 10 years older than I was, max, so the idea that she'd been in a nursing home since her early 40s was horrifying. What happened to her? Head injury from a car accident? Something else? (Not only that, but her 7-year-old daughter had died of leukemia a few years after our wedding, which I did already know about.) I've been seriously weirded out all evening to think of the sunny, bubbly woman who coached me through my first year as an SLP, and served as my matron of honor when I didn't really have any solid girlfriends - that she spent 11 years incapacitated enough to need full-time care, and that she's been dead already 2.5 years. :(
Hurricane Matthew. Friend of R&K's lives near Daytona Beach and left at 7am for Tallahassee (on the other side of the state), arriving shortly after lunch. And then spent the next 6 hours unsuccessfully trying to find a hotel room. He was partway back across the state (toward danger) when he finally gave up and decided to camp out at a shelter. Hopefully he'll still have a house to return to when it's all over.
And in less dire (but still irritating) news:
I have to get a TB test as part of the conditions for volunteering at the schools here. However, since I don't have a local doctor yet, I'm at a complete loss as to where to go to GET a TB test.
The fic I wrote and posted last week has garnered exactly two kudos and no other feedback - not even from the person I wrote it for.
I'm sick to death of Two asking for help checking his homework, then immediately picking a fight over any and every correction, and clearly NOT wanting actual, useful help. Then he has the gall to complain that I'm being the rude one.
Will has to work all weekend, so no mental break for either of us.
Meh.
A good friend of mine has had unbearable troubles heaped upon her, one after another, and has recently had to come to terms with the fact that she will probably lose her husband to cancer sooner rather than later.
MiniPlu's new best friend, J, was in and out of school last week with some unknown bug, following treatment for an infected toe. This week her mom texted to say that J was in a hospital 35 mins away in the ICU. That's right: the ICU. Critical condition, and in isolation, while they tried to figure out the cause of the infection - which had apparently turned seriously nasty. Thankfully, by yesterday she was upgraded to "serious" condition, will be moved to a regular room, and will hopefully be discharged by the end of Monday. (They think she had, of all things, Toxic Shock from her toe or a reaction to her antibiotics or something.) But still - talk about scary!
According to our realtor, our house isn't selling because people think it "needs work." Those of you playing along at home may remember we spent literally SEVEN MONTHS doing work on our house. Gutted both bathrooms, redid ductwork in downstairs bathroom and basement, removed and rebuilt a dividing wall in basement, painted the heck out of almost every room in the house, as well as the outside wall and back and front porches, replaced the floor in the laundry room, patched cracks in the lower part of the outer wall and porch cement before painting them - God, SO much work. But our kitchen counter/backsplash is old (it was old when we bought it) and the living room carpet, as well as carpet in the three regular bedrooms (kids' rooms and guest room, not our room) is a little bit worn. So, because of those two things, apparently nobody wants our house, and all the other work has been pointless. Everyone wants move-in-condition, rather than buying a decent house at a lower price, then picking out their OWN upgrades and installing them before moving in. So now we have to find the money to replace those things - which will also take time - and I'm angry that a) our realtor didn't push us harder to fix this beforehand and b) we'll either have to borrow MORE money from my mom (already had to borrow some to replace the front door in our new house) or sell off investments, incurring tax issues. Plus, just - ugh. We are so DONE with fussing over this house!
This afternoon, I was finally getting around to reading the Sunday newspaper (yes, finally), when I saw a name in the obits that was very similar to the woman who had been my matron of honor - same first and last name. But my MoH had hyphenated her last name, so I was pretty sure this wasn't the same woman, despite being in roughly the right age range. Still, it made me think of her - we fell out of contact shortly after our wedding, in fact, when I was no longer working with her (she was my former supervisor when I was a speech pathologist) - so I Googled her name. Only to find out that she'd died in March 2014 in a nursing home, where she had lived for the previous eleven years. The woman was only 10 years older than I was, max, so the idea that she'd been in a nursing home since her early 40s was horrifying. What happened to her? Head injury from a car accident? Something else? (Not only that, but her 7-year-old daughter had died of leukemia a few years after our wedding, which I did already know about.) I've been seriously weirded out all evening to think of the sunny, bubbly woman who coached me through my first year as an SLP, and served as my matron of honor when I didn't really have any solid girlfriends - that she spent 11 years incapacitated enough to need full-time care, and that she's been dead already 2.5 years. :(
Hurricane Matthew. Friend of R&K's lives near Daytona Beach and left at 7am for Tallahassee (on the other side of the state), arriving shortly after lunch. And then spent the next 6 hours unsuccessfully trying to find a hotel room. He was partway back across the state (toward danger) when he finally gave up and decided to camp out at a shelter. Hopefully he'll still have a house to return to when it's all over.
And in less dire (but still irritating) news:
I have to get a TB test as part of the conditions for volunteering at the schools here. However, since I don't have a local doctor yet, I'm at a complete loss as to where to go to GET a TB test.
The fic I wrote and posted last week has garnered exactly two kudos and no other feedback - not even from the person I wrote it for.
I'm sick to death of Two asking for help checking his homework, then immediately picking a fight over any and every correction, and clearly NOT wanting actual, useful help. Then he has the gall to complain that I'm being the rude one.
Will has to work all weekend, so no mental break for either of us.
Meh.