Week 26? No Wait, 25.

 I need to stop rushing the weeks, they go by fast enough. 

This past week had Father's Day and the Hubs birthday.  Hubs was on vacation for ten days, so not a whole lot got done.  We had lobsters with my parents on Wednesday night, a late father's day dinner. Hubs gift arrived right on time, despite being shipped all over the country. I bought him a new bumper for his truck. It made it all the way to Connecticut before heading back to the Midwest, and then back to CT two days later, and then here. I was smart enough to call the dealership and get the exact part number for his VIN, but sadly not smart enough to realize he had aftermarket tow gear installed and that it wouldn't be a quick swap.  Hubs, my Dad, and my nephew are tackling that on Saturday.  Fingers crossed I can afford the nickels needed for the swear jar. 

Father's day was more or less uneventful, Oldest was home for the weekend, Bonus son came by, Youngest was in and out. All the kids signed the birthday card for the Hubs, including Youngest, who had time to think about it and still opted to be part of the gift, so that's something.  I also found them sitting on either ends of the couch the other day, however brief, which may sound stupid, but given the last six months, is epic. 

Otherwise, not much to report.  They tried to call me in to work today, but given I slept most of the day Sunday, I really wanted to make an effort to get some things done instead. I worked up some crafts on my cricut, stripped Youngest's steamer trunk that I'm refinishing for him, reorganized the garage, saw my parents for breakfast, filled screw holes and caulked seams in the laundry room's new drywall, unscrewed & tossed the solar light that Hubs ran over with the lawnmower, and screwed some wheels onto that huge slice of wood I got from my neighbor so I can move it around easier. I've discovered it makes a great footrest for the Adirondacks. I also finished applying/cosigning for Oldest's Masters tuition, only to find out that it appears federal aid is going to cover it. The bursar's office is known for making critical mistakes, so we're not getting our hopes up, but if it's true it means I don't have to co-sign and the interest rate is less than half of the other.  We shall see. 

That's all for now, see you in week 26, hopefully with pictures.

Week 23-25ish

 Not sure what week of the year I'm on, must be the massive amount of cold medicine I'm currently consuming. I could chronicle the ups and downs going on over the last two weeks. I could announce that just as we finally got the dog on the right dose of meds for her Cushing's disease, she had a Grand Mal Seizure. At least we think she did, it was pretty textbook, but the vet says that a heart condition can look exactly the same. So there's that. I could go on about the stupidity that is our loan system for higher education, and the outrageous interest rates Oldest and I are contemplating for his master's program, but no one wants to hear about that. I could say that Hubs is finally getting on board with the laundry/extra bathroom downstairs, but that would only be half true, or that his retirement seminar conference call went wonderfully, but that would be an actual lie.

So instead, I'll just post some pictures...

Behold! The first strawberry of the season. Time for a teeny tiny shortcake.

This is the primary culprit for my massive pollen induced sinus infection... The left side of the driveway is 75 feet of flowers.  Early spring/summer it's all purples and pinks.  We are slowly shifting to yellows and oranges, with a bit of red now...

My peonies didn't last nearly enough this year.  heavy rain wiped them out, and sadly they couldn't come in because Kiki likes to eat all household plants. Oddly we didn't get a single yellow one this year, but we did get white and blue irises, which I haven't ever seen.  So I'm not sure what's really going on in this section of the garden.

The beach roses are everywhere around here.  They grow wild and smell amazing. They are typically found in white and pink, but can also bloom in yellow and reddish purple. These are lining the road in front of the vacant (nearly demolished) house on our road. Honestly, it's so overgrown over there that most people have no idea there's a house in there at all.

Daylilies are on round one of their blooms.  These guys will go until fall if I dead head them. We also have yellow, but they're not ready yet.

These lilies are the first to bloom of the lilies I bought last fall along with the tulips and daffodils...

The flower boxes are filling in nicely....

This is the second year for the clematis.  It's trellising up the old well pump and over the garage door trellis, so about 10 feet so far.  Not too shabby.  We got a white one to compliment this and the dark purple ones we have growing in the same planter.

The prickly pear are showing some signs of life. I thought they were goners this year, but nope.

I loved my first bonsai tree to death. Sad but true....

So I started a new one....

The aforementioned bathroom is coming along.  I found this brand new sink (originally $610, on clearance for $186, according to the Home Depot sticker.) for $25 on FB marketplace 5 miles from my house. Then I saw that the Habitat for Humanity Re-store was having a half off sale, so I scouted it out and sent the Hubs to pick up this vanity on the day of the sale while I was at work. With the $45 spent on the vanity, our grand total for the bathroom so far is $350, and all that's left to get is 2 sheets of drywall, the crazy expensive macerating toilet, and hiring the plumber to put it in. And, maybe some paint, I haven't decided if I want to splurge on a new color yet.

Oh... and I started painting rocks...

It costs me nothing but time and a bit of art supplies. I hide them in plain sight all over. I hid one at the hospital yesterday while there for my check up, and two down at the pond.  Because no matter how bad or primitive they are, they are a treasure to someone finding them. 

It's All Fine, Or Not...

 My neighbor had a tree taken down last week. The trucks blocked the road for about two hours. While mildly inconvenient, I parked in his driveway and walked the way back to my house. As it happened, the tree guys left a perfectly round 6" by 24" piece of trunk that was perfect for photographing the glass from Youngest's smoke shop collection in the basement. The neighbor of course, said I could have it. 

I went over to pick it up, dolly in hands, and he met me out at the wood pile. Yup, a lot's going on at the house this summer. he says. Alot indeed, I laughed. In fact, a lot has happened for my neighbor.  In two years, he went from a single guy with a dog, to 2 dogs, 1 cat, father to an infant girl, and a weird custody situation of said infant's mother's 4-year-old daughter as well because she is now unfit to care for either of them. In addition, he was injured at work, and while the case is settled, he has to find work within a year, difficult to do with a permanent injury. And yet, when I ask him how he's holding up, he smiles and says everything's fine.

I assure you he's not fine.

I was a single mom for years. I managed, but I was not fine. People don't actually want the truth when they ask, no one wants to hear that you're stuck in the weeds and can't even remember the last time you showered, or that the kids are eating cereal all day, every day. 

I struggled as a single Mom, my ex being little to no help. His visits, while only 2 times a month for three hours, were with one son at a time, so my only full break from parenthood was while I was working. I was tired all the time. As the kids got older, they went to friend's houses, but given Youngest's propensity to flip on a dime, it wasn't an often occurrence. Add to this that his behavioral challenges reinforced the silent and not so silent judgement from other parents.  As if, because their homes had two parents in them, it was somehow better than ours. That somehow, I was the reason he was difficult.  

Around second grade Youngest made friends with a boy in his class. Hesitant, I dropped him to play for an hour. Our town is pretty big, this house is about 25 minutes away from ours, so after I dropped him off I did some shopping at the grocery store nearby, and promptly retuned to get him. I remember going to pick him up, and the Mom stood blocking the doorway. She boldly looked at me and said, Now, I'll let you in, but you have to promise not to judge me by what my house looks like. And then she laughed the most infectious laugh I've ever heard, even today, it still makes me smile. 

It was the realest thing I'd ever heard.

She has no idea how much I love her for that. In that instant, she had given me permission to not be fine. There she was, a fully capable mom of two, happily married in her 3-bedroom 2 bath house, making no apologies. At that moment I realized that no one is fine no matter how pretty the hydrangeas look in the front yard. While Youngest and her son went in different directions over the years, our friendship, while distant, remains a constant.

She is, and will always be, one of the few realest people I have in my life. She hates when I tell that story, it embarrasses her I guess, but then she laughs and laughs. I continue to tell it because it's an important one, we don't always have to be fine.

So to my neighbor, I see you. I hear the chaos of dog's and kids as I go by, you don't need to hide it. I don't care if your house is a disaster when I stop by, or if you haven't showered in days. I don't care if I come for tea and all you have is bottled water. I'm tired of the fake happy posts, and unobtainable online presence, the assumption that your couch isn't covered in dog hair like mine or that you also don't have laundry in the dryer to be folded or dishes in the sink. 

It's time to be real.

It's not always fine.

 

Week Twenty Two...

 I've been back to work for a month now and it's been physically exhausting. While I am mostly healed from the surgery, every now and then I am reminded that I'm missing a third of my guts and I need to sit down for a breather. My knees have been acting up as well, so I've had to incorporate my PT routine into my before bed ritual. That being said, I am still grabbing every bit of OT I can.

Dog meds don't pay for themselves. Neither does an additional half bath.

I may have mentioned that Hubs is against the half bath addition in the basement once or twice, or six hundred times. With that in mind, I'm picking away at small things, mainly using up remnants of old projects and free finds to keep costs low. Every day after work I've knocked out a bit.  A wall up here, studs cut to fit there, drywall around the built in bookshelves.  It has a LONG way to go, but I can see it happen. The square footage is a weird layout of roughly 80 square feet.  Somewhere mid-week I realized that if I swung the washer and dryer from their original location to the side, it would enable the new layout to work in 60 square feet instead of the originally planned 20. 

Me: So I've been thinking... just hear me out.

Him: Oh God...

Me: No, seriously.  If I swing the washer dryer to this wall then we have all *this* space to work the toilet/sink layout. I measured it, it will fit with six inches to spare.  I just lose some access to the lower shelves, but I can make that up with upper cabinets.

Him: What about the plugs? Hoses? It's all got to be moved.

Me: Yeah. It's a ton of work, but the dryer vent is already over there.  I moved the dryer vent 17 years ago through the window, but now if I move it back, I can put the window back in. And they sell ten foot washer hoses and drains, so it's like $50 worth of stuff.

Him: No. It's too much work.  You're not moving 220 volts. That's crazy.

Me: *raises eyebrow*

Him: *rolls eyes* Whatever, you're gonna do what you want anyways.

Damn straight I will. 

I waited a day or two for him to leave for a golf tournament. I flipped the breaker for the dryer, reran all the electrical cable, reattached the outlet in it's new location.  I re-ran new venting to the old vent, fixed the flap so it would swing freely. I only hit my finger with the hammer once. I muscled the dryer into place and continued on with my 7th load of laundry for the day. A few hours before I had driven to the city to drop some things off for Oldest. While at breakfast he had mentioned there was no way I could do all that by myself. I can't just go lifting all that heavy stuff without a man... what would I do when I'm 70? You gonna be moving dryers and stuff all on your own?

I snapped a picture to send to him. Can't do it all my ass...

I disconnected the other venting for the dryer, pulled the wood out of the window frame and replaced the glass. Hubs returned from golfing. He assessed the situation, using his best judge-y face.

Him: You sure the washer's going to fit over there?

Me: Yes, with 6 inches extra.

Him: At what point are you going to call a plumber?

Me: Once I get the toilet and sink. Are you getting on board with this now?

Him No. I still think you're crazy.

A special kind of crazy indeed.