The End is Near (of the mess....)

The kitchen cabinets are back in and the stove, oven, sink, dishwasher, and microwave are all in working order (finally).  The last two weeks have been long.  There were contractors here most nights until 8 or 9 pm.  Exhausting...

There are still a few small things to do. Sidney isn't into her bathroom yet because the cabinets aren't done. We also need a bit more trim.  But the end is in sight one month after the mess started.  Not bad I guess...

Kirk was released from the hospital just over a week ago but he went right back in.  They changed his mood drugs, removing two and adding two, and it was just a bit too much.  So he went back in over the weekend and was discharged on Tuesday.  We have actually gotten rid of all the mood drugs except the very mild one that helps him sleep.  We are going to try to start back at the minimum possible and go slower with change.  He seems to be doing pretty well right now.

Sidney is half way through the school year.  She had a rough last six weeks but somehow managed to get all A's.  I am very proud of her. The counselor she had been seeing is back so hopefully Sidney can get back on track.  She was nominated for the National Honor Society.

We are also nearly a year into swimming with the Sharks.  We had a little lunch get together on Saturday as a team. All the kids got a little medal and certificate. We had a swim meet last Sunday and Sidney did well in the 100 Yard IM and the 50 Free.  Unfortunately her goggles came off in the backstroke and she was holding them in her hand.  It caused her to have some trouble and although she didn't get her B time, she didn't loose time even with the situation.

She also played the piano for a judge at the music festival this weekend.  She won a blue ribbon.  We are still waiting to see how she did in her theory.  If she won a blue ribbon with that, she only needs one more festival to get a small trophy (assuming she gets another blue ribbon).  The festival is where kids play for a judge and are graded on their technique, etc.

The last two nights have been the most normal we have had in a while.  A proper dinner at a normal time and a quiet evening with no contractors.  The cleaning people come tomorrow and then I hope to get Sidney into her bathroom, finally.

The thing I think about most now since the accident is that I am the only one with the memories.  Kirk doesn't remember how we met (Bataan Commemorative Death March), or our wedding in Colorado.  He doesn't remember the fear of Sidney's early birth (29 weeks) or watching her gain weight and grow.  He doesn't remember any of our life together and for that I am sad.  I miss him terribly.  I am thankful for the care he is getting and that he is mostly content.  I am thankful for Sidney who loves me even when I blow it and who is a loving, kind child.  And I am thankful for you, all of you who hold my hand and carry me if needed.

A Small Piece of Normal (Almost)

Kitchen with attack plastic

I will be able to sleep in my bed tonight and shower in my shower in the morning.  My vanity isn't complete yet but I can use the other one.  I have a bit of work left in my room to get it completely back to normal but it is much better.

Kitchen ceiling with repairs

Dry wall and texture went in this week.  All the machines left Monday.  So I am no longer heating the attic.  It's also quiet and more comfortable. I suspect paint will happen early in the week.  No idea on cabinets yet.  There is also a lot of molding to complete and work in Sidney's bathroom.  We should be able to move her back into her room in the next few days.


All the plastic came down from the kitchen on Friday.  It feels really weird.  The last round of plastic was attack plastic.  It billowed out into the living room when the heat was on and would make you get stuck in the pantry.  Glad to see it go.

Master bedroom

Sidney was home sick on Thursday.  A mild little stomach bug.  So she didn't swim Thursday and swimming was canceled Friday and Saturday.  Getting enough water time is frustrating.  She is officially half way through the school year.  The first 2/3 of the semester were pretty good but she had a harder time in the last 6 weeks.  A lot of missing assignments and bad grades.... We have some work to do.  I think she will come out of the semester OK overall if there aren't any surprises.

Kitchen still missing cabinets

Sidney's bathroom

Kirk will be discharged on Thursday.  There is no further diagnosis.  They cannot tell definitively if he had a stroke or not and there is really nothing more that can be done to help him.  I am so happy with the care from the VA and the effort they made to see if there was anything more they could do.  He is not unhappy and they will do some basic physical therapy when he goes back to the foster home.  They will also be watching his weight and diet as he did have high A1C results.  He will go back to day camp in a week or so.  He started that right before Christmas and seemed to enjoy it.  He can do crafts and karaoke and gets good and tired every day.  He is going 4 days a week and it is funded by the VA.

Sidney gets a three day weekend.  I am grilling brats tonight and cooking pirogies on the burner on the grill. Tomorrow I will make burgers and otherwise it is microwave.  But the freezer is getting empty.



 

The Big Mess Continues

Where the kitchen should be

I don't see any end to the big mess. There is indeed an enclosure around the kitchen because the ceiling is out. The temporary sink is in the enclosure which makes it nearly useless. The zipper to the enclosure requires a stool to open and the ability to hurdle to get in so I am washing dishes in the powder room sink. They have also since removed part of the wall to the garage from the laundry room to dry that. There are 5 industrial dehumidifiers and 8 big blowers int he house. It is stunningly loud.

The Kitchen in the Dining Room

I was supposed to move back into the master bedroom this weekend but there isn't carpet or paint yet. At least several more days.....And I have no expectations of the kitchen. Maybe middle of February.  One of the little culprits has been removed from earth. He may be the only one, I hope.

I can grill on the weekends and cook on the single burner on the grill. Weekdays we eat out of the freezer. Things you can microwave. Friday night we stop and get a meal to bring home from somewhere. It's an interesting way to live. Sidney doesn't seem to care much.

My bedroom at least has sheet rock and part of the vanity back in.  Oh for normal.

Walls back in the bedroom

I don't have much update on Kirk.  They did an MRI Wednesday but I haven't heard any results. I also talked with a psychologist who was seeing him. The psychologist believes he has PTSD from his time in the military. She said it is not uncommon for people to have perfect control over feelings about what they experienced in the military until something drastically changes in their mind, like from a brain injury or stroke. She will do what she can to help him with this aspect of who he is now. And I will wait for more information.  What I do know and can't say enough is that his care has been wonderful from the instant he became eligible for VA care. San Antonio is the right place to be if you are a veteran who needs help.

This is another difficult phase in our lives. Sidney is very resilient but I am really tired and overwhelmed.  I desperately need a longer period of quiet normalcy.

Germany and a Big Mess

Sidney and I had a very nice trip to Germany. We didn't do much so the notes will be short.

Sidney in the Cockpit

We arrived on December 21 tired and jet lagged so we really did nothing that day except a nice walk and a quick trip to the store. On Tuesday, December 22 we got to eat my nieces best ever Spaghetti Bolognese. We stay with my niece and nephew and their two kids when we go over. My niece, Jas, is my age and her husband, Mark, is English and about Kirk's age. They have two kids, Katharina 19 and Matthew 16.  They also have the biggest, furriest dog ever and 4 cats. We went to the Christmas Market on Tuesday as well and enjoyed a couple of glasses of traditional hot Christmas wine and some tasty bratwursts. The food was being sold out of a fountain that had been drained for the winter and a wooden bar added around the edge. There was a ladder to gain entry for the staff.  We also saw the most unique advent calendar. It is the windows of a school with paintings in each window. A new painting indicating the day is revealed each day. We also went on the Ferris wheel which was fun.

The fountain converted to a wine and food bar

On Wednesday Jas made a tortellini casserole. Like everything she make it was super tasty. We also went to see "Star Wars". It was shown for three days in English. We surprised Sidney, not telling her we were going to the movie and just that we had to go shopping. She figured it out when we walked into the theater.  It was great. Unfortunately Jas, who was the primary person to see the movie, got super sick and couldn't go. We enjoyed the movie but were sad to not have Jas with us.

The Advent Calendar

Thursday was Christmas Eve. That is the day that all the festivities occur in Germany. Santa Claus is not a tradition but instead the Christ Child delivers gifts sometime during the day of Christmas Eve. That is also when the gifts are opened. We enjoyed a nice dinner of racolette with Mark, Jas, Kat and Matt as well as Jas's dad and step-mom. Raclette is social way to eat. There is an electric grill in the center of the table and on top you cook meat, onions and mushrooms. And each person has a small tray that you put veggies topped with a slice of cheese that you put underneath the grill. The veggies warm up and the cheese melts. There is a lot of passing of food and cheese and trays so it is really fun. After dinner we opened gifts.

Jonathan

I went for a nice run on Christmas morning. It was cool and pleasant. We had my half sister, Dorina, and her two younger boys, Steve and Jason, over for dinner. Jas and Mark cooked a turkey, stuffing, roasted vegetables, red cabbage, potato soup, and knodel.  We also had a gravy that I had not had before. I was made of vegetables which were cooked until soft and then blended. It was almost like vegetable soup puree gravy. It was very nice. Steve and Jason used to be small boys and now they are tall young men. It has been a treat to watch all the kids in Germany grow up. I also got to see Carsten, my nephew, and his wife Jenni and their 1 month old boy Jonathan. Made my day. Jonathan is a cute little baby.

Sidney and Bella (Newfoundland)

December 26 is Boxing Day, another holiday in Europe. We ate leftovers for dinner and went for a walk in the woods. We were looking for a little water fall for Jas to take some photos. We found the waterfall and Jas went to the far side. Sidney joined her and ended up hopelessly stuck in mud. She got out onto a rock but her shoes were completely buried in 6 inches of mud. I got her off the rock to dry ground in her socks and got onto the rock in order to dig out her shoes, all while trying not to endure the same fate. I got her shoes out and had to rinse them in the stream so she walked home in cold, muddy, smelly wet socks and shoes. The shoes are still in Germany. The mud stunk terribly. I called the shoes a loss.

My half brother, William, came over in the evening and we had a nice visit. Then Mark, Jas and I played Ligretto. It's a fun card game kind of like solitaire for several people and its fast an furious. Mark and Jas play a lot. I got my tail kicked on my first set of games.

The name not he side of the plane is "Cimber"

I started the morning of December 27 with another run. We had fish sticks, potatoes, and broccoli for our big meal before heading to the Technical Museum in Speyer.  It was a great little museum. Lots of antique vehicles including cars, motorcycles, trains, helicopters, planes, boats, and submarines. You could walk through many of the planes, helicopters and subs. They also had a space section with a great deal of NASA stuff and also a lot of information about the Russian space program. That was great. They had a special English Exhibit with English cars and motorcycles. There were three Player pianos that play themselves and usually have a piano or organ, some brass and other instruments. The were fabulous. One even had articulated statues that actually played the bell or symbol. It was a really great museum and we had a ton of fun looking around. There was also a German single person torpedo submarine. These missions were basically suicide missions for the mariner as his tiny sub was attached to the torpedo.  After the museum we picked up some delicious Turkish Kabobs.

On December 28 we started the day with an English breakfast of bacon and sausage, beans, toast, eggs, and stewed tomatoes. It was quite nice. Then we were off to Heppenheim to walk around the lake and play on the various playgrounds. Unfortunately Heppenheim was completely fogged in and really cold. We did play for a while and took some nice photos but we were happy to head back to Fahrenbach where the sun was out and it was a bit warmer.

Lea and Peach giving each other a bath

I got my last run in on December 29 before a pretzel and cheese breakfast. My last run was unfortunately proceeded with not great news from home. There was a water line leak in the master bedroom that flooded part of that room and the bath room. My neighbor had been trying to handle it without telling me but it was too big of a disaster and professional help was needed. Therefore I had to authorize the work.  My neighbor did a great job getting help to move all the furniture and save everything that could be saved.  I owe him for the rest of my life. Then we were off to Felsenmeer to climb up the boulders. We have been here several times. It is the discard pile from the Roman Granite quarry. It stretches from the bottom to the top of a good sized hill and is popular attraction for the kids who try to find their way up over the boulders sized as small as pig to as big as a car. Dinner was sauerbraten and homemade spätzle. We also cooked the goulash soup that would be tomorrow's dinner. All told we spent about 4 hours in the kitchen cooking. We played Yahtzee which I won and Ligretto which I also won....

Ceiling in Sidney's Bathroom

December 30 was our last day in Germany. I went for my last walk up into the woods. It is so very peaceful and nice. It was Mark's birthday so we did some work around the house to prepare for the party. That is also what the soup was for. Both William and Dorina came to the party and it was so very nice to see them again.  We had a nice evening or eating and being social, knowing our relaxing time was coming to an end. The trip was all we had hoped for to see family and relax. The only thing we didn't get was snow... Sidney was very sad.  I have more pictures from Germany that I'll get posted later. 

Master Bedroom Walls

We departed early on December 31 for the long trip home. Everything was going along great until I went to turn up the heat in the house so it would be nice for our arrival. I looked at the video footage while I was in the app and saw water everywhere. I really mean everywhere. I called the neighbor who went over and their was a new leak resulting in water pouring out of the kitchen ceiling. The leak source was actually above the second floor above Sidney's bathroom. It had run all over her bathroom and closet and down to the ceiling of the kitchen. The entire ceiling in the kitchen had water on it. It then poured through the ceiling all over the first floor. Only the dining room and study were spared. Looking back at other recorded video, it started somewhere around 4 am and I saw it close to 4 pm. We couldn't stay in the house when we got home. It was too overwhelming. 

Kitchen with nothing left

We spent New Year's day trying to move back into the house. We had to get groceries and the dog. We also had a pile of laundry. And we tried to start taking stock of the damage. I however way underestimated. 

A crew came on January 2 to remove the bathroom cabinet from the master to rebuild it. The particle board that the box is built of absorbed the water like a sponge and if not disposed, will mold. The guys ended up working all day. They had to take Sidney's bathroom cabinet, the mudroom cabinet and all the kitchen cabinets on the floor but one. They also had to take two upper cabinets. It was an all day nightmare. They removed the stove, oven, and sink. The microwave is out but at least usable. Every thing from the cabinets is in the dining room. Half my bedroom furniture is in the living room. Sidney and I are living upstairs using the one remaining full bathroom. All the cabinets will have to be rebuilt. 

Why the cabinets had to go

There are guys here today starting the wall and ceiling demo in Sidney's room.  I an not sure what else they will get to. I think they will have to build an enclosure in the kitchen because there is so much to remove. Hopefully tomorrow I will get a temporary kitchen sink. We also know there is still water in some places. In particular under the stairs. I think they will chase that tomorrow.  

The first leak will be covered under the home warranty  I have just learned that the second won't.  I'll have to use my insurance   It will be far more expensive and much slower.  I am pretty down about that.  I have learned that I will turn off the water when I leave. I will be using the grill a lot to feed us. It also has a burner so I can use that to cook stuff in pots. And we will eat a lot of leftovers from the freezer. Camping in the kitchen.  

The exterminator has come and expects to have the problem solved in short order. I feel much better about that.  I'll keep you posted with progress at home.

Damage tot he kitchen ceiling

Kirk will be admitted into the Poly Trauma Rehabilitation Unit at the VA for a couple of weeks. They want to bring him in to understand more about his injury and see if there is anything else we can do to help him. He is sleeping better with a mild sleep aid and started Day Hab or Day Care. He goes 4 days a week and seems to be enjoying it. It is a facility that provides an opportunity to do all sorts of fun activities including crafts, games and movies. He continues to have occasional out bursts but they are far fewer and he seems to be fairly content. I don't expect anything ground breaking from his admission but I welcome anything I can learn about him and how to make his life better.