What an Adventure

Wow, this week has been something to behold. I just don't have the energy to go through all the details, but here's the breakdown.

Garage - finished and wonderful.




The baby shower yesterday was wonderful. I can't believe how many people came in from out of town to help celebrate. And my friends' generosity (of time, love and yes, "stuff") leaves me speechless.

And the biggest event of all - three full days at Northside Hospital last week - due to a strange bout with pneumonia. Monday night after dinner, I began to feel very uncomfortable - achy and such - and then spiked a fever that reached 101.65. The fever broke in the middle of the night, but I still felt awful on Tuesday morning. Thanks to all the publicity about pregnant women and the swine flu, I was a bit nervous and called the doctor. They told me to go to Labor and Delivery. We walked in and were promptly given masks, and then I was treated to a whole host of pokes and prods (at least seven blood draws and an IV). Once various flu strains were ruled out, I was given a chest x-ray and told that I had pneumonia, regardless of there being no cough or congestion of any kind that week or weekend. I would be let go once my white blood count came down.

It did come down by Wednesday night, so I thought I would be going home Thursday, but then J. decided to get in on the act, and throughout Wednesday night/Thursday morning, every couple of hours when I'd have a contraction (something else I didn't realize I was having), his heart rate would drop. This happened three or four times throughout the night (resulting in my being connected not only to an IV and leg compression sleeves, but also a pulse oxymeter, oxygen mask, baby monitor, and contraction monitor - and therefore feeling completely tied down and bordering on a panic attack at midnight). So even though I seemed all mended, the doctors wanted me to stay one more night and make sure he didn't do that again. Thursday passed without incident, and Friday I was told to go home, rest, stay out of the heat and drink tons of water.

Although I do feel much better, I am amazed at how quickly I get tired. Yesterday's shower absolutely wore me out, even though I really just sat around, ate and opened gifts. I had to nap today, too. Thank goodness I had already taken the day off to see my friend safely to the airport. I'm a little nervous about tomorrow - my first day back at work in a week.

Updates

Well, we're seven weeks out, and the house projects are moving along. We didn't get quite as much done as we had hoped last weekend, though. We've waved the white flag on the garage door installation, and someone will be coming out next week (hopefully) to finish it up for us. It's already amazing, though, because Dave did an incredible job cleaning out the two rooms while I was at my shower last weekend. I'll have more pictures a little later.

We went to see District 9 last night, and it was incredible. It's wonderfully different. I never knew what was going to happen next. It was very moving, which I didn't expect.

House Project

In preparation for J's arrival, we're doing a bit of a construction project on the house - converting the enclosed garage back into a real garage. Here is the first day of major work.

I'm too ashamed to show many of the before pictures because the old garage and workroom had really become dumping grounds worthy of Clean Sweep or some other TV show. There are a few I'm OK with posting, though.

Before

The "inside" section of the garage. Notice the garage windows on the right. From the front of the house, it still looks like a normal garage.


more on the "inside" section. that wall behind the shelves is coming down.


Virtually empty dumpster at the start of the project. You see, though, we're even throwing out the kitchen sink.


Left side facing the house - this is the "outside" part of the garage. This is the side that can be accessed by the actual garage door.


The doors are wood and more than 20 years old. It's definitely time they were replaced. Insulated steel this time around. Those pictures will come later - hopefully next weekend.


Right side door. This is the one that doesn't actually open and is dry-walled from the inside.


The inside of the outside access section.


During

Back wall of the "outside" section coming out.


Say "hi" to Dave.


Notice that they did actually frame a door in here, but they decided to drywall over it. So we've never had access to the inside of the house from the garage.


One wall out!


Second wall on its way down.


The inside looking out - a view we've never had.


Now we can see the other half of the garage.


After

Second wall gone!



We still need to demo the inside wall on the other side but won't do that until we're ready to install the new door.


Dumpster half-full after only one day!

We still have to go through a lot of the stuff and reorganize/throw away/give away, but we made a huge amount of progress today. Today was demolition day. Tomorrow is either reorganization or replacing one of the doors. We haven't really figured out which yet. And then next weekend is the last of the demolition and final door replacement.