Neighbors House Fire

On the 3rd of July, our good friends and neighbors lost their home to a fire. Luckily, nobody was home at the time of the fire. In twenty minutes it was gone.

This is the back of the house. Our thoughts and prayers and best wishes are with them as they go through the next few months of rebuilding their lives.

Old Age and Over-Worked Back Issues

About 2 weeks ago, on my lovely day off, I bent over to tie my shoes and something slipped in my back. It has happened before (several times). I always rest and in a day or two I am feeling much better. Well, I ended up going to the Chiropractor (twice), the doctor, the hospital (for x-rays, nothing serious), and finally a physical therapist. The x-rays show Osteo-arthritis and a possible herniated disk. I have been told to take it easy on my exercise (which is frustrating to say the least, when I am in the middle of a weight reduction battle!! 17 lbs. and counting) and I have been placed on FMLA from work.

I was able to move about fairly normally after 4 or 5 days, but am not allowed to lift more than 5-10 lbs. and "no bending, stooping or pulling" which basically means everything! And definitely not stocking shelves at COSTCO! There isn't anything there that only weighs 5-10 lbs.

I went back in to the doctor today, for some more paperwork for Costco and now he wants to do an MRI. They asked if I was claustrophobic....which I am. Not looking forward to that test....but what I am looking forward to is a more specific diagnosis, or prognosis. How long is this going to take? Will I be able to return to work and exercise the way I want to? Am I going to have pain for the rest of my life? Hopefully not!! I think probably attitude is at least 50% of the battle, right? Now if the stress-/frustration-/angry- EATING would stop, I'd be ok!! :)

It Came Upon a Midnight....Wet!

Last night we were sound asleep (about 12:30 a.m.) when our 17 year old daughter, Lisa woke us up a little panicked! Apparently she had started the washer and the "float" that controls when the water shuts off has apparently quit working. (Who can blame it, really? 10 years of slave labor and abuse with at least a load or two a day...) Luckily she hadn't started it and just gone to bed or who knows what damage we may have had! She put a load in and went to get ready for bed. I don't know how long it had been running (for a little while at least!) but after she washed her face, then shut off the water she could still hear water running. So she went to investigate, discovered a mess, shut things down and came to get us!

There was a good inch of water all over the laundry room, kitchen and entry tile floor and it had seeped down the walls into the basement. In the storage room directly below the laundry room there was at least 2 inches of water. It was dripping and leaking and running all over the place. So we spent the next 2 1/2 hours sucking up all the water with the shop vac, and sopping up the carpet with towels and our carpet cleaner, and catching drips in buckets and wiping down very wet things.

Today we had a flood recovery service come and start cleaning things up. They have all sorts of fans and de-humidifiers running. They had to rip up the carpet just outside of the storage room door and it is toast....so new carpet, I guess. They had to cut holes in walls to dry the sheet rock out and what a mess we are in. Hopefully the adjuster can come tomorrow and get things going.

The good news is I'm getting my tile cleaned! And who cries about getting new carpet? I just have a huge mess to deal with for a few days.