tales of a summer housewife...

So I decided this year (after a summer school hiring debacle) that I was going to take the summer for myself. What do I mean by that? Well in the 14 years I have been teaching I have never once had a "free" summer. There was always classes to take for my masters, then to keep my teaching certificate, teaching summer school or working a summer job for extra money... you get the picture. Well not this summer. I am allowing myself to take it easy-to be a summer housewife. Sleep in, exercise, do what I want... what a dream.

Garage Sale and Spring Cleaning

It's 6:50 am on a Saturday... what the heck am I doing up so early? Well, this weekend is the HOA/Subdivisions annual garage sale and spring cleaning weekend. You all know (from previous posts) that Jim and I have been working to get the garage cleaned up and things sorted for the sale. So hopefully it goes well today and we can add to the garage door fund. What ever we have left is going to charity. Granted we have decided to put a few things on craigslist, but we are cleaning out-- finally sifting through all of his things and his father's things and that feels good. But can I tell you--holy cow the garbage we have. I bet we could fill a dumpster ourselves--I had no idea that his dad was such a packrat and I now know where Jim gets it from. How about this...We opened up one of the rubbermate tubs that belonged to dad and it had 2-20lb bags of rice in it. Who stores 40lbs of rice in a tub? Was dad planning on a mass disaster where there would be no food? The two of us hardly get through a 5lb bag in a month... good grief?!?!?!?

I have my husband for 4 days!!!

I am so excited.... Jim has today (Thursday) AND tomorrow off!!! We get four days together. Now what to do? There are so many little projects that need to get done the house and of course the stupid bathroom is still waiting. So is the garage... we started sorting and clearing last Sunday in the hopes of selling some stuff in a garage sale. I want to be able to use our two car garage for cars...not crates and boxes of stuff that has been sitting there forever. Where these days take us... who knows. I'll keep you updated.

It's been awhile

So I haven't posted in over a month..life gets busy and things get put by the wayside. Home improvement has all but stopped. Time has been a very short commodity in the Innes household and it has been a struggle for both of us--just hanging on. The end of the school year did not go well for me, and I seriously had doubts about my future at Harrison and whether it was the right place for me. I can say that I'm sticking it out and hoping for the best. When you believe the in the vision and the direction, you hope you can make a difference. I believe in the school, so that is where I'll be, but I am clearing my plate. I give too much, and there is not enough left for myself and my marriage. Now if the administration will live up to it's promises... Add to that the added stress dealing with the federal government--we are STILL waiting on Jim's clearance to come through... it is so frustrating. The investigation was done in March...will someone just look at the stupid file and make a decision? Jim is so frustrated and I know how much he wants this. It feels like we are just sitting on the sidelines watching the world go by and we can't jump in and go with it. There is so much more we want to do, but I guess it will have to wait.

On a more positive note, school is out tomorrow and I have the summer! No teaching summer school, no taking classes to keep up my certification, none of it... I have time for me and for us. What a feeling. I cannot wait to start.

I hate wall board!

This is getting ridiculous. I have told Jim to go buy a frikin' reciprocating saw and don't come home with out one! And now since he has gone to the Depot for what seems like the gazillionth time, I am jumping on to update you all--can I just say the old wall board in the bathroom is horrible and will not cut, score or anything and I'm getting really upset. Thus the temper tantrum about the reciprocating saw. Oh, and don't get me started on the shower basin--OMG was that a pain. The basin is squared, but the pipe is not--it is about 1/4 of inch off. ARGHHH! Sometimes I feel like we are never going to get this dang bathroom done. On the brighter side, after banging and pushing we got the drain to fit up to the pipe, and I have picked out the paint and the flooring and it is great. The paint is a grey blue and the flooring is a peel and stick white/grey slate look-a-like with bits of slate blue running thru it. The white subway tile really pops against everything and with nickel finishes, its going to look great. If we ever get there. I am really temped to try and convince Jim that we need to hire someone to help us when it comes to tiling the kitchen and fixing it up. This only working on the weekends thing blows and we want this house fixed up ASAP as we are thinking about putting it up on the market. Who knows now.

Happy Easter... the bathroom renovation continues...

So we had to take a few weeks off doing the bathroom, actually a month due to my surgery, but the bathroom renovation is finally back on. Today we put in the insulation and put up a 6mm poly moisture barrier. We dry fitted the new shower basin, but ran into a snag... no drain. So off to Home Depot and ran into yet another snag... Home Depot closed early today--and we missed it by 2 minutes. I took some pictures so I can go visit our favorite guy Dave tomorrow after school. He has given us SO much help and will hopefully be able to put me on the right track and I can figure this out before Jim gets home.

The Results are IN...

and NO cancer. WOOT! WOOT! I did have the type of tumor that could have become cancerous if left to its own devices so my doctor is very happy we caught it early. Got to see pictures and holy moo it was big. My utlrasound results in Feburary showed the mass it was bigger than a golf ball but smaller than a tennis ball--just one month later it had grown to the size of a grapefruit and had begun to attach itself to my abdomen wall and grown into my fallopian tube. My doctor did have to take my ovary and my fallopian tube.. but the good news is that he did check my right ovary and it is healthy and looks good. I will count that as a blessing. Now if I could only get rid of this farkin' pain. I had no idea that my stomach and core muscles would revolt so badly. This is worse than my gallbladder surgery--and I'm not liking it at all. I am such a baby when it comes to pain, but this is crazy. I'm trying not to take the vicodin, (been doing 600mg of advil instead) but I may just give in today and take one. It makes me so sleep and woozy that I can't get much done. Like I can actually do much...

Surgery!!

So it is the beginning of Spring Break and I'm scheduled for sugery this week--two days to be exact. I'm having a tumor removed from my ovary--how exciting?!?! Can you hear the sarcasm? Granted I am very lucky that we caught it. I am forever a believer in annual physicals from this time forward. The biggest worry is if the tumor is cancerous or not. My CA125 test came back negative for antibodies, but I've been told that it can give a false positive or negative. But I am hopeful. What also worries me is the "having kids" part of life if they have to take my ovary and fallopian tube. How easy or difficult will that be? Are we going to have to think about IVF or other fertility options? I am praying that all turns out normal and they don't have to take the ovary, but that is a very slim chance? And does this mean there could be a chance that I'm dealing with less estrogen and would that make it even harder to try and concieve? Jim wants to think about freezing eggs, but if they have to take the ovary there will be no chance of that becuase the tumor will have invaded the ovary and it won't be possible. So much to think about and mull in my head.

Our first 'mis' adventure...

HOME IMPROVEMENT! Yep, that's right. We have long been wanting to update our place and now thanks to wedding money and our tax refund we've begun. First up--the upstairs bathroom.

With both of our busy schedules, it's taken us a couple of weeks to get everything ready and demo-ed. Demolition has got to be the best part--cleaning up, not so much. I had so much fun wacking out that backerboard, it was theraputic that's for sure. And who knew gardening gloves could serve such a dual purpose? What did we find? UGH--terrible things. Seems that the builders did not do a "great job", no moisture barrier and the insulation (one of the walls is an outside wall) had molded--crap! That added a bit of expense to the plan, but hey, I want it done right. So needless to say, down came that insulation.

We also decided that we wanted to change out the fixture and that is going to take a bit of plumbing work... I picked out the new handle and it's going to look great.