Glad This Week is Drawing To An End

I’m so very glad that this week is almost over.  Now if the fumes in the house from the paint would dissipate,  I would be a great deal happier with a much smaller headache.  Poor Joe has been captive at the house since Thursday of last week.  Just him, Dolly (the cat) and a host of power washers, carpenters, and painters.  The exterior of the house is finished and looks great!  The family room, kitchen, loft and master bath also are all finished and about 95 % back to normal.  We still have to find a few things that Joe moved out of the rooms and doesn’t seem to remember where they were put, but I’m sure we will find them….eventually.  Today, the last room, our master bedroom should be completed.  Hopefully by the time I get home I can start reloading everything back in there.  Having a house painted is stressful, as was evident by our previous post earlier in the week.  However, the drama didn’t just stop with the patio furniture spread out over the newly seeded lawn.   Once they finished in the backyard, they took to putting all their equipment in the front yard even though we have a perfectly good driveway made of concrete that would work much better.  Each night I’ve come home and moved planters, trash cans and other items off the grass and back onto the concrete where they belong.  I’m still now quite sure why the 2 planters that sit at the sidewalk up to the front door had to be moved into the front yard since the closest painting job (the front porch/stoop) is a good 3-4 feet away.  All I can see are $$ signs from where we paid to have the lawn done a month ago.  To add insult to injury, Joe had taken his car into the VW dealership on Tuesday evening for service and they called him yesterday afternoon to let him know the VAST number of repairs that needed to be done and the cost.   Maybe I should capitalize the word COST.  It’s a 10 year old, almost 11 year old, car.  We wouldn’t even get 25% of the cost of repair if we were to try to sell it.  My lunchtime relaxation yesterday was spoiled by that news.  But since we have had issues in the past with the VW dealership here in Durham, Joe decided to call a VW repair shop called Autohaus that is very near PGUMC and get their opinion.  He’ll have to take it in Tuesday morning.  The only real issue with that right now is that the VW mechanic at the dealership said the only real worry with driving the car right now is that it could catch on fire.  Really?  That doesn’t seem so bad, right?  So theoretically, on the way to take the car to Raleigh Tuesday morning, the car could blow up.  That makes me feel much better.

So to summarize, what was to be a 1 day exterior paint job took 3, what was to be a 2 day interior paint job is now in it’s 4^th day, the newly seeded lawn which had turned so green and pretty now has big brown muddy spots where the new grass has been smushed to smithereens,  and the repair of Joe’s car will cost 4 times what the car is worth, if it doesn’t catch on fire first.

Now for the good stuff.  Joe has felt well, although he may have pulled a muscle in his back at some point this week, but he is completely mobile.  Monday’s chemo treatment at Duke will not include a trip to the doctor before, just blood drawn for labs and then off to the Chemo infusion center to wait.  Since we are one car down, either Joe will have to drive himself after dropping me off at work, or I will have to stay with him for the duration.  However, we’ll cross that bridge on Monday morning.  Joe had a good turnout for choir practice on Wednesday, which always lifts his spirits and then had a TGMC performance at First Presbyterian of Durham last night (Thursday).  That meant I went to Bible study alone, but had the chance to talk to and get better acquainted with some folks, (thanks Kelsey & Dave), and opened myself up for good natured jabbing from the group by telling a road rage story of mine.  I may have found a new radio station to soothe my morning commute as a result: 93.9KissFM Check it out!

Tomorrow will be a day of putting the house back in order and then Sunday an extra hour of sleep!  Everybody should enjoy that part.   I hope everyone has a great weekend.  Have fun but be safe.

Continued thanks to everyone for their continued prayers and support.  It is greatly appreciated.  Please also remember Mary & Bob Anderson.  Besides the cancer that Mary is dealing with they have had a death in their immediate family and they can use some extra prayers headed their way.