Someday I'll laugh about this

What a day. I know I have seemed to abandon my own blog... in a way I have. I've been trying to catch up with last minute dance practices for the recital coming up, quick trips, activities going on every night, and just being plain exhausted.

My grandpa has had skin cancer for quite a few years now, but last week they ran more tests to find that it has taken over and is now in his lymph nodes, etc. They said they weren't sure if he'd be gone in a few weeks or a few months. We decided to take a fast trip home this last weekend so that we'd have the chance to go and visit him for a little bit while he was still coherent and able to visit. It was nice to able to see him and he was in good spirits despite how weak he was. We also had a chance to stop in on Beau's grandma as well. It's been a while and sometimes it takes times like this to realize we should be doing it more often.

Today has been... well.... LONG. Really long.... We had weatherization people coming to weatherize our house. Doing the whole shibang.... since it's so old it has so many problems. They were going to fill the outside walls with insulation (since it didn't have any), winterize the attic crawl space and many other fun things. We knew it was happening this morning, and knew we had to have things moved out of the way....

Well Beau headed to work thinking that what we had cleared away was enough... not according to the guy that showed up. Everything had to be away from the wall. EVERYTHING... he kept emphasizing. All the book cases that are bolted into the wall? Yes. EVERYTHING.... so the curtain rods and everything have to be down... NO.. you can leave them up but EVERYTHING else has to come down... So what about this extended shelf that is built into the floor and wall? No you can leave that.... but EVERYTHING else. Good grief. Don't put such an emphasis on EVERYTHING if you don't really mean EVERYTHING! Well it meant clearing out closets we hadn't thought about, moving large heavy bookshelves, and unscrewing them from the walls all by myself with three little kids hanging on my legs.

He kept having this attitude though too... like all this needs to get down... in the time frame of... yesterday. Frustrating... then he looks at you and emphasizes again we need everything (yes I've gotten this point so far....) by TODAY. He had the adacity to say today. (Do I look dumb. Do I look like a sissy girl, that can't touch or do anything and will be unable to move this stuff by myself. I must. ) I just nodded again and said. Yeah, no problem I'll get it down and move everything.

He then told me where they would be drilling the 3 inch holes on the wall. I expected it on top, but did not expect the answer of below the windows. (Which makes sense and we should have thought of that earlier.) I looked down at the nice white bead board that it had only taken Beau a whole week to put up because it was such a pain. "Your going to drill right through the bead board?" Yep! Were' going to drill the holes right through the bead board.

You've got to be kidding me. How do they plan on patching up a nice 'unnoticeable' 3 inch hole every 16 inches apart on my beadboard. Alrighty.... I'm not ok with that, we'll find out if Beau is. I called him up and he had the same reaction I did. Hmmm... we forgot about under the windows. He thought he would have enough spares in the garage he could patch up those areas. He then called back to ask if I would just try tearing those pieces off the wall instead. Sure no problem... that should be a piece of cake. (sarcasm here) I was only willing because I also didn't want it drilled through, nor did I want to buy more pieces.

So the morning was spent ripping bead board off of 1/3 of the entire livingroom / kitchen area, cleaning the stuff out of the closets, moving everything to the center of the rooms, etc. I was finally offered help by one of the guys when one of them saw me trying to move a very large bookshelf of toys by myself and saw it tip slightly. Thanks buddy...

Then me and the kids got to spend quality time hanging out in the office, watching movies, fighting, arguing, and being plain old tired and grumpy from our fast trip out of town. Finally we decided to get out for a while and hang out at the park which was nice. We enjoyed some good weather, played, threw rocks in the river and did some drawing. We then went out for ice cream cones and came home to find them still going at it..... so back to the office we went.

THANK goodness for a friend of ours down the road who called up and invited the kids to come play. Could she have picked a better day. No way. She was perfect, I owe her! I left with them telling me I missed stuff in the pantry and need to clean off 1/3 of the pantry shelves of food, and clean off the brooms and things from the wall... alright.

So I came back to sign papers and give an evaluation about a job that wasn't quite done yet, and the pantry to clean up. It was about then that the day really came off well.... That's when the guy came it to tell me they couldn't blow insulation in the wall. (This was after they have already drilled numerous 3 inch holes in the middle of all my walls around the house.) WHAT! You've got to be kidding. He showed me why he couldn't do it. Supposedly they had filled three holes and they kept getting the paper stuff that was lining the outside wall stuck in the tube... so far they've tried three holes and gotten it stuck twice.

It was one of those moments that I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. I wanted to say. So what. Unplug it and keep going. If it get stuck unplug it and go again.... you've just made me take everything down and move it all morning long. I just ripped off all my bead board and now I have holes all over my house and freshly painted walls. I have a huge mess, and your just giving up because it got stuck twice. FIGURE IT OUT. Of course that's not what came out of my mouth... it was more like ok... and I went out to the office. Got on IM with Beau and told him what was going on, and admitted "I could not deal with this right now. I am exhausted. I am so burned out, if anyone even looks at me I'm going to cry. I'm crying right now. I just did all that work for nothing... well not for nothing... I did it for more holes in my wall, more messes and no insulation...." not a good moment. He wasn't too happy about it either and decided to high tail it home before they cleaned it up and left. I was happy to go and get him, because I could just not deal with it any more. I dropped him off to talk to them and I went and vented to my friend and picked up the kids.

I'm doing better now... my good husband made us dinner - his signature waffles, my friend loaned us her portable crib since everything was stacked in beds, so we at least have Caitlyn in a bed. Isaac is on the floor though. Poor guy. Another manager person overseeing the weatherization is going to see about coming and doing the insulation himself... since he agrees that it can be done. He also agrees they did a terrible job on leaving a mess and doing a sloppy job on other things. Sometimes just having someone understand is all you need.... so until we find out what will happen to these holes in the while... we get to live once again in construction while things were finally start to look good. It will be worth it and I'll be happy so long as those holes actually get insulation stuffed in them.. if not... I'll be rather grumpy

I know some day this will be funny. Right?