long night

We just got home from the emergency room. I'm completely braindead and exhausted but I'm not quite ready to sleep at the moment, there is so much swirling around in my head.

Last night, after Mark got off the phone with some of the nursing / home care folks, I called the telehealth nurses again. One of the ladies Mark had talked to said that if Joe's tongue seemed swollen, that he probably was dehydrated and that, given his pre-existing health conditions, we should get him to the hospital. While I was stayed on the line with her, she contacted the ambulance dispatch. The paramedics got here around 8 p.m. As luck would have it, they had a student with them. This student was an ER resident two years ago when Joe went in with a dissection in his aorta and had worked on him. Not only that, this young lad grew up on the same street Joe lived on (in Toronto) for 30 years. Small town huh??

Anyway, we're still not quite sure what is going on. He's definitely dehydrated and they are keeping him in the emergency room tonight. Tomorrow we'll go back in and find out if they know anymore than they do now. I think I'm actually starting to feel sleepy, which is good, because right about now, Mark and I have been up for 23 hours. That's too long folks, trust me.

on the phone

We're at our wits end and, worried sick. Joe's feeling really lousy, weak and sore. Everything that he's been through in the past 10 days has caught up with him, I'm afraid. Mark is on the phone right now trying to find out if we can get someone to come in and help us out with him. There are so many agencies that you can call but actually getting someone to come here is proving to be beyond difficult.

When he's off of the phone, I'm going to call the telehealth nurse again. They were a great help on Monday night when we called.

long weekend

Even though the official holiday weekend is coming up and this is a short week, the past weekend was very very long.

Joe is still not feeling well. The trip to the hospital last Monday and following days have worn him right now. I think he's dehydrated, he's very weak. I think that the pain killers his doctor's prescribed have done nothing but confuse him. We're both worried sick about him. Tonight we called the telehealth Ontario hotline and we were given some terrific advice.

Apparently, there is an agency here in town that can help us with Joe. I think he just needs a few days rest somewhere (here would be fine if we can have some nursing help), to get his strength back, to build his fluids back up. He was very confused over the weekend, he tried to leave the house in the middle of the afternoon on Saturday and that scared me to death. I barely slept at all that night because I was afraid that he'd try to leave again in the night.

I really just want him to feel better again. I know that this is terribly painful for him and it must be pretty scary too. I can't even imagine what's going on in his head right now. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that we're able to get some help and get him turned back around, feeling better, quickly.

done and dusted

I think that almost everything in the kitchen is now unpacked. I still have a couple of cupboards that need a GOOD cleaning out and things will be shuffled around as that happens but, pretty much all of the kitchen stuff is now unpacked and cleaned. Even though I resisted the dishwasher at first, I've been so glad to have it, particularly when cleaning all of the glasses we have. Who knew that we had so much glass!!?? I know that I'm still missing a couple of boxes but I'm sure that they are just buried under boxes of books. So far too, I've avoided unpacking any "knick knacks." We had a lot of clutter all over the place in our old place, some of it I liked, some I didn't so I've been trying to avoid it as much as possible in the new house. For the moment, I'm keeping the boxes of "clutter stuff" off to one side and will sit down with Mark at some point and have a serious sort through the stuff.

Through all of this, I also located the floor to my office. You can actually walk around the computer while someone is sitting in front of it. Neat concept huh?? Next weekend, I hope to get the books unpacked. That should dig out a huge hole in the "guest room" and allow us to set up the bed in there. Before you know it, we'll be ready for company!!

On that note, I'm going to take a shower and maybe sit outside for a bit. It's still hot here but there is a gorgeous breeze, the sky is clear blue and it's a quite perfect summer day. 'bout time huh??

steamy

It's gross outside. Good thing it's nice and comfy here in the house because we're not planning on going out today.

We slept in, very late for us, like until 9 a.m. I just started puttering in my office. My initial plan today was to get everything set up and sorted out in here but it's not looking like that will happen. There are so many boxes of kitchen "stuff" in here that I may just end up clearing out the kitchen stuff. The office may have to wait until next weekend.

Fortunately, I'm not in any kind of hurry to get it all done. I'd be really happy if, by the end of this weekend, I have the biggest part of the kitchen sorted out and have created a little bit of space in my office. We'll see.

Stay cool kids!!

Friday Feast - 53

Appetizer
What time do you usually wake up each day? If you could choose your wake-up time, when would it be?

The alarm goes off at 4:06 a.m. but it usually takes me 10 to 20 minutes to get my butt out of bed.

Soup
When was the last time you bought groceries? What store did you go to? Name 3 things you purchased.

We bought groceries tonight. Amongst everything else, we picked up yogurt, chicken and bananas.

Salad
How many books have you read so far this year? Which was your favorite and why?

I have not read a single book. I have started a few but not finished any. Sad huh??

Main Course
What is something you consider to be very elegant? In particular, what about that item/place/person conjures up the feeling of elegance?

I can't think of a thing but I think that Princess Grace of Monaco was elegance personified.

Dessert
Who taught you how to drive?

Initially my dad taught me. I learned way back in the days before Sunday shopping and you could go to a mall parking lot and tear all around and practice parking without being in the way of anyone. Eventually, I took lessons so I could "learn the route" and pass the test. The lessons were a birthday gift from my parents.

check this out kids:

gas

Right now, as I type this, Mark is cooking on our stove. We have gas!!!

On Monday, while we were in the emergency room waiting area, Mark went home and met the plumber. They did a beautiful job running the line to the stove. They put in a spot which will make it really easy to hook a barbecue up, when we get our new barbecue next year. We will never run out of propane, mid-barbecue (which happened last night) again!!

Once they had done the hookup, we had to wait for the city to come back and inspect the connections. The guy was here this afternoon and approved it. After four weeks of salads, sandwiches and barbecue, it'll be so nice to have a stir fry! It smells wonderful and Mark seems to be really enjoying cooking again. If it stays cool this weekend (it's been wonderfully cool and breezy here today), I'll maybe bake something. I've never used a convection oven before, and it'll be such a treat to bake in an oven that doesn't have uneven racks!

Now that the stove is hooked up, we can get the rest of the kitchen sorted out, that might be a project for this weekend. It'll either be that or my office. One way or the other, one of those rooms will be done by the end of the weekend!!

I've been tagged!!

Bev has tagged me.

Total volume of music files on my computer: 2.56GB here at work (not sure about home)

The last CD I bought was: La De Da by Joel Plaskett

Last acquired: Push Barman to Open Old Wounds by Belle and Sebastian

Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:

(these are songs I've been hearing a lot, at work)

* Some Days I See The Point - Billy Bragg & the Blokes

* Across the Universe - The Beatles

* Stop, Look and Listen - Belle and Sebastian

* Florida's On Fire - Superchunk

* Pieholden Suite - Wilco

Five (err, four) people to whom I'm passing the baton:

Trish

Carla

Loretta

Jenniy

so very sleepy

I'm pooped. Not just ordinary pooped but really tired.

We spent all of Monday afternoon and evening at the emergency room with Joe. We really shouldn't have been there but his doctor sent us down. The first weekend we were in the house, he slipped in the shower and banged his shoulder pretty bad on his shower chair. The reason it happened was because we hadn't put the rubber mat into the tub yet. He got up early, before we were around, and got into the shower, not realizing that we hadn't done it. When he went to get up, he slipped and fell back. The result was that he was pretty stiff and sore but, luckily, no bones were broken.

Now, he has a bad back (the result of a car accident he was in about 10 years ago) and this obviously aggravated it. Because of the pain, he stopped moving around as much as he had been, he wasn't eating much and he became very constipated. As you can imagine, this just added to his pain. Last week, the doctor came to see him and prescribed him morphine. MORPHINE!! Without x-rays, to a constipated man. Anyway, yesterday, the doctor told me to take him to emerge for an enema. Fun huh?? He's feeling a bit better now but still not 100% so things at home are, um, let's just say tense. He's not feeling well, we're overtired and cranky. I'm sure he'll feel better in a couple of days but at the moment, he's still feeling lousy. We didn't get home last night until around 10 p.m. and we still had to be up at 4 a.m. this morning so today could be a long day.

I'm already thinking about how good it'll be to get to sleep tonight. That's a little pathetic, isn't it?

sleeping in is good

In fact, it's very very good. We woke up this morning at 6:30, which, when you get up at 4 a.m. through the week, is actually sleeping in. Already this morning we've both gotten things done. I've started on the laundry, we've had breakfast and cleaned up the kitchen, Mark's puttering in his workshop.

Today should be a productive but relaxed day. Oh, it's also FREEZING outside. It's great, I hope it stays like this all day. After the heat wave we had last week, a little chilly/clean air is a lovely treat!

Happy weekend kiddies!!

happy hump day

There isn't much news to report today. That's probably a good thing. It's been a long week so far, even though it's only Wednesday. I haven't been feeling all that great this week but seem to be on the mend.

Joe's feeling crappy too. His back has been bothering him a lot. His doctor came by yesterday and gave him a prescription for, of all things, morphine. He started taking it last night. He seems a little loopy today but he's feeling better. Hopefully this will help. Something's got to, he's been miserable for a few weeks now.

In weather news, it's finally raining here. We really need it, everything's been dry and parched. Hopefully it'll stay cool and damp for a few days!!

another scorcher!!

Golly gee but it's hot outside. I know that I keep saying that but it's really true. Insanely hot, and humid too. Like, it's too hot to buy ice cream or frozen yogurt because it'll melt before you get it to the car, much less all the way home.

Today was very productive, albeit exhausting. We started out this morning intending to not do too much. That really didn't last for long though, I started working through the mountain of laundry that I had created in the middle of the laundry room, Mark was puttering in his workshop and we decided to go out, just for an hour, and pick up a few things that we needed for a couple of chores we wanted to do (exchanging curtain rods, buying mirror hangers for the bathroom, that kind of thing). We pretty much stuck to the one hour, primarily because we couldn't stand the heat for much longer than that.

Once we got home and did a few things, we both got "the bug" I guess. I started working a bit in the kitchen. I had unpacked a few more boxes of mugs and glasses this morning (and managed to wash everything too -- thank you dishwasher!!) and wanted to get the pots and pans put away. I scrubbed out two more cabinets and was able to clear away a bunch of boxes that were piled on the floor in the corner. Now, I did just move some of them into my office for now but what a difference it made. I emptied our old pantry (we had piled pots and pans in it), and Mark and I moved it out of the kitchen. Holy crap the kitchen is big. Clearing out this one corner has made such a difference, not to mention that I uncovered another vent so it's even that much cooler in the kitchen (a bunch of boxes had been piled on it).

If I just take things slowly like I have been doing and unpack maybe four or five boxes of kitchen stuff each weekend, in a few weeks, I'll be done. Doing it gradually seems to be working out well for me. Last time we moved, I just really quickly unpacked stuff and ended up moving things around a bunch of times. This way, I'm being more thoughtful about where things go and I don't see that much will be moving around, not for a while anyway. Hurray for organization and space, I keep marveling at how big this kitchen is!

The other thing we did today was to purchase a new bedspread thingy for our new bed. Yesterday, at Costco, I picked up another set of sheets (we now have two!). I'd been looking at and pricing "bed in the bag" sets for our bed all week but couldn't find anything that I liked for a price I felt was reasonable. Today though, in the lineup at Bouclair (exchanging the curtain rods), we both spotted a comforter / dust ruffle / sham / pillow set that we liked. It was on sale for $99.99 which was about 1/3 of what I had seen everywhere else. We put it on the bed today, with the new sheets I got yesterday and it looks like a hotel in our bedroom, in a nice way I mean. All we really need (and we don't need it right away) is a new headboard and our room is quite livable for now. Eventually I'll get proper curtains in their but for now the sheets are doing the job quite nicely. It's amazing how nice sheets can look when you use fancy hardware to hang them up!

sudbury saturday night

I suppose that right now, it's not technically night and I know that this isn't Sudbury. I also have not been listening to Stompin'Tom but this afternoon I've been reminded of a time long, long ago. I was a little kid, Stompin' Tom was frequently heard on the radios in our neighbourhood. I say radios because everyone would stick their transistor radios into their windows, tuned to the same country music station. This was the early 70's so you'd hear a lot of George & Tammy, Conway & Loretta, Freddy Fender and yes, Stompin' Tom. My dad jokes that all of the kids in our little complex learned to spell while singing along to "D-I-V-O-R-C-E." He's probably right.

This afternoon, Mark and I were sitting out on our deck (gosh I love saying that!) and we could hear the rumblings of a party happening. It sounded like it was coming from over the fence and two doors down. We couldn't see anything for the trees but you could hear voices clearly and it seemed like there were a lot of folks coming and going. It didn't bother us at all, even though it was kind of loud. It was a nice sound, a summer party. It wasn't rowdy or obnoxious and you could tell that it wasn't going to get wild. You know how sometimes, you just know?

We came into the house at around 5 or so. We just couldn't take the heat anymore. Just now, Mark went back out to light the barbecue and he called me outside. The party was now in full swing and you could hear the music just blaring. Again, it wasn't super duper loud (because these folks have an unbelievably shitty stereo, whenever someone tries to turn it up too loud, you can hear the tears in the speakers) and it amused us greatly. From what we heard, these folks only buy live or "greatest hits" collections of their favourite bands. So far, we've heard Blue Rodeo, Paul McCartney and some Bob Seger. I won't be surprised if later on, we hear some Guess Who, Elton John and/or Van Morrison. I don't think that these folks are into new music, if you know what I mean.

Still, it's a neat sound and it's taken me back to Murray Place, where we lived from around the time I was 4 (I think) until I was 8. The really cool thing about it was that as soon as we go back into the house, we can't hear the music so I know that Joe's not being bothered by it. If he were out in the back yard, it would drive him crazy (because that's who he is) but for now, it's kind of a nice soundtrack to this particularly steamy Saturday, even if it's not Sudbury and the girls aren't at the bingo.

hurray for Friday!

Well it's almost the weekend again. I will admit that at the moment I'm a little bit brain dead. I'm blaming it all on the weather. I'm sure that wherever you are reading this from, it's steamy hot too. This particular heat wave seems to be widespread. Last night it never cooled off, not even after the sun went down. It's a little scary, particularly here in the "great white north" that it's so hot this early in the season. I mean, it's not even officially summer for another 10 or so days. The upside of it, I suppose, is that it's too hot for the grass to grow. When it doesn't grow, you don't have to cut it. I don't mind that at all!

Mark's off this weekend and we don't have much planned other than the obvious puttering around the house. There are still piles of boxes in my office, the guest room and in the basement. It's not bothering me though. The stuff we really need is either unpacked or easily accessible. This weekend, in the cool of the basement, I'd like to get around to unpacking our records and CD's. That will put a big dent into the pile and will force us to organize the rest of the boxes. Before we do too much of that though, Mark needs to sort out the floor in his "rock room." The room in the basement where his stereo will live (this is his huge ass 70's era stereo -- we have a petite but powerful home theatre system in the living room) used to be a bedroom. We think that it had a waterbed in it and that the carpet had been cut away from around the bed. Right now, there is a rectangle of carpet underlay seemingly crazy glued to the basement floor. Mark wants to get some kind of scraper to get that up before anything goes in there. It's gonna be a neat room when it's done though, it actually has two windows and is a decent size. The stereo should sound pretty good in there and it'll be nice to have our turntables hooked up again.

new gas meter
Originally uploaded by Julep67.

The lovely gents from the city installed our gas meter yesterday. They had to make a hole in the pavement in front of the house, two holes in the lawn and two holes in our driveway. When we booked this, we asked the fellow from the city if we could have the pavers patch the driveway when they did the road (at our expense of course). The fellow Mark's been dealing with (who, I might add has been a total dream to work with!) said that it wouldn't be a problem. When we got home tonight, we saw that they had filled the hole in the street but that our driveway and lawn were just kind of rubble-y, very roughly filled.

Tonight when we got home, we saw that the driveway holes had been filled with asphalt and that the holes in the lawn had been filled with topsoil and grass seed. They did a fabulous job, I was shocked actually. It was way more than we expected. Now we just have to wait for our pipe fitter to come back and do the hook up from the meter to the stove. Once he's done, the city will come back, inspect his work and, if all's well, we'll have gas to our new stove. It's been nice barbecuing over the past couple of weeks but it'll be really good to have a stove again!

cloudy

It's getting dark outside and it sort of smells like it might rain. Wouldn't that be nice? I'm not expecting too much though, we haven't had any proper rain in weeks. I think it's going to be a dry, hot summer.

Other than the weather, there isn't much to report on this week. So far, so quite, err, good. Quiet is always good. I had quite enough insane noise over the past three weeks.

I have to admit, just recently, I'd much rather take photos than write so, you'll probably see things updated more frequently over at my flickr page than here over the next little while.

At least you can't say that you weren't warned!!

we're having a heatwave

Everyone's lawn is dead, it's hazy outside, the humidity is insanely high. It feels like the dog days of summer and it's only the first full week of June. I'm not complaining though, the central air in our new house is working fine and we spent a fair amount of time out on the deck this weekend (most of the time we were working but hey, we were outside!). The forecast keeps calling for thunder showers but we aren't getting any, so far anyway.

How was your weekend?? Ours was busy. When we got home on Friday night, Joe told me that his grandson had called and that he was in town. I assumed that he was attending convocation but it turns out that his wife was having a follow-up visit with a surgeon about something she'd had done here (when she was a student -- a few years ago). They ended up coming over Saturday afternoon for most of the afternoon and we had dinner together.

I finally got some "curtains" up in our bedroom. We went out and bought a really nice, wrought iron rod and some of those ring/clip things. I had a couple dark green, flat sheets that we've temporarily hooked hung on our large window. It looks so much better than the newspaper I had taped up before. I also put a sheet up over the window on the west wall of our bedroom. Since this heat wave started, the sun had just been pounding in that window, so much so that the A/C couldn't keep up. The bedroom looks much better now that there is something on the window. We also bought a new bed on the weekend. We needed to buy a new bed for our guest room but we decided to move our old bed into the guest room instead and bought ourselves a new one. It's so nice, I tell ya. We got a great deal on it, they also threw in the frame for 1/2 price and gave me a great discount on a mattress cover for it. I also had to buy new sheets for it because we upgraded to a King from a Queen. Eventually I'll need to buy a comforter and stuff but the upside of buying a new bed during a heat wave is that you don't have to worry about heavy blankets right away.

The spending money like it's going out of style has officially ended. I mean, I still need to buy some kind of covering for a couple of windows and we need a new light fixture in the kitchen (over the sink, we put in a new ceiling fan already) but that can wait for a little while. As long I have sheets to put up all over the place, when I need to, that's fine with me for now.

fish update

Our tiniest fish, Gefilte, died on Saturday. I could tell in the morning that she wasn't very well. The other female, Goldie, looked sick too. They had ick which probably happened when Mark had to change the water the other day. He didn't use a water conditioner at the time.

I noticed that Gefilte wasn't moving much just before dinner on Saturday night. I abandoned our company to race to the pet shop while Mark cooked. By the time I got home, Gefilte was dead. Luckily though, the medicine seems to be helping Goldie. Her poor tail was all red, in addition to having those little white spots. We think that the other fish were beating up on her when she got sick. It's really amazing how attached you can get to a little fish. I was so sad when Mark told me that Gefilte was dead, I think that she was just too tiny to fight the ick, it seems like Goldie will make a full recovery though!

I keep wondering if I had noticed the problem earlier and had gone out for the medicine in the morning, if she would be okay (she seemed fine on Thursday and Friday). Goodness, I hate to think about how much I'd be writing here if we had a dog or cat or something that actually walks around the house!!

tgif

I sat down this morning to make a grocery list. Tomorrow, Mark and I will likely be out doing errands and I like to start the list a day ahead of time, I'm less likely to forget stuff this way. Anyway, the list slowly shifted from a grocery list to one of things "to do." I'm the queen of the "to do" list, seriously. I write the list, cross stuff off, and then make a new one. This morning's "to do" list wasn't totally unreasonable on the surface. The problem with it, as I see it, is that I don't really want to have to do anything this weekend. I mean, obviously, we have to do errands, clothes need to be washed and meals need to be prepared but, beyond that, I don't want to do anything.

Normally, taking a weekend off wouldn't be a big deal. As you know though, we've moved recently and stuff is still very disorganized. I suspect that some kind of compromise will be made. I'll probably veg out a lot but some things will get done. The weather is supposed to be really nice this weekend so I'd like to get outside and enjoy as much of it as I can, if possible.

Funnily enough, whether we intend to or not, it ends up that Mark and I are doing little things every day, around the house. Slowly it's shaping up. I plan to take some photos of the outside of the house this weekend as I've received a request for them. One of the things that I like best about our new house is that it's very ordinary looking on the outside. From the street, it looks like a tiny little war time house (which it was at one time). Once inside though, it's a very big house, to us anyway.

Right now, all I can think about is the item at the top of my list for tomorrow: "sleep in." I've actually been thinking about it all week and can't wait. Sad huh?

normal, or something like it

I might be fooling myself but I actually feel sort of normalish right now and I've only had one coffee. That's got to be a sign that we're almost recovered from the move!

Good news!! We are definitely going to be reimbursed for the money we spent on the crap from the crawlspace haulage. I am faxing copies of our receipts to our real estate agent today and they should have the money to us in a few days. It was $340 dollars so I'm glad that we'll be getting it back. I don't care if the vendor pays us or the agents pay us out of their commission. There is no way that we should be on the hook for that amount of debris. I mean, I know that there is always a little bit of stuff that folks leave behind but, two truck loads?? that's ridiculous.

Our agent and the listing agent were over last night. When we got home from work, I noticed that the compressor for the air conditioner was running (it's right outside our bathroom window) but that there was no cold air coming through the vents. Mark had turned it on when he stopped by the house on his way to pick me up. It was a little warm in the front part of the house so he had decided to test it. When I told him that it didn't seem to be working, he turned it off, turned it on again and then went down stairs to investigate. It seemed like the compressor was working just fine but that the fan was blown. Because we had written in a condition with our purchase of the house, that the A/C would be guaranteed to work, we called our agent. They came over a few hours later, walked in, turned it back on and it worked perfectly. Mark and I both think that something might be wrong with the fan though so we're going to arrange for a service call once we figure out who installed it. It's entirely possible that it's still under warranty because it looks really new. I'm just glad it was working, it got kind of muggy during the evening and running it for an hour or so cooled the house right off. After years of living with window air conditioners, having the central air is soooo nice.

I'm not sure what we'll be doing this evening. I'd really like to get to bed early-ish. We've had a few later than normal nights this week and it's taking it out of me. I feel fine right now but I know that once 7 p.m. rolls around, I'll be looking for my pillow. Normally, I don't wish the week away but I'm really looking forward to sleeping late on Saturday. I'm not as bad as Mark though, he actually had a dream the other night about sleeping in. You know you're overtired when you dream about sleeping!!

over caffeinated

In case you hadn't noticed, I have spent the past day or so, editing and posting all of the notes I took during our move. I wanted to keep a journal of events relating to the move but either couldn't or didn't get online to post them as they were happening. So, I apologize for the lack of posts followed by a barrage of them but, that happens sometimes in blog land!

Fish update: The tank is now as clear as it's ever been and the fish are great. I have never lived in a house with fish before and didn't realize how animated they can be. Also, since the tank has cleared up, it's really easy to see the detail on them. I know that they are just goldfish but they are really pretty and I'm glad that we ended up with this tank.

There have been a couple of rather large brush fires in this area over the past few days. Last night, after my folks' left, we had to go do an errand just north of here and I couldn't believe how much smoke there was. I took a couple of shots with my phone camera and will post them over on flickr later. I hope that this doesn't keep happening all summer. It's been really dry around here just recently. It's been almost two weeks (I think) since we've had any rain and they suspect that these fires are being caused by arson. It's going to be a scary summer around here if it keep up.

For the first time in days, I'm feeling better, more normal. This could be down to all of the coffee I've been drinking (after months of having none) or I may just be catching up with my sleep. The move really beat the crap out of me. June will be a less stressful, more fun month than May was I'm sure. On that note, I'll wish you all a happy hump day and say no more. I'm off to work now!