Surprise!

Yep, I am finally writing!  So much has gone on the past few months I pretty much put myself on lockdown to get some things done.  The puppies are grown now, Shotzie is actually experiencing her first heat.  She remains slightly larger than Gretchen but, they are crate trained and potty trained, they do well on walks through the woods too, and they will both sit for treats.  They are little chow hounds and love scrambled eggs.  I did get a good portion of my garden planted and am starting to see small tomatoes, green beans and peppers.  It is not as much as I would like to have planted but, when you have as many chores as I do and you are doing a bathroom remodel virtually by yourself, I think I did pretty well.  My husband has been mowing more this year, so that helps a lot.

There have been a lot of firsts for me, with the bathroom remodel.  We, yes I am including my husband because he did do the ripping out part, some repairs to walls, and got the frame set for the cement shower base, and we got the new thicker cement board up, poured or smashed the concrete to create the base.  He plumbed and wired too.  We put up the vapor barrier and taped it together before the cement board went up.  He put up a piece of insulation that was missing and redid part of the plumbing that had sprung a leak too.  We did a lot together over the last year and a half.  It is not perfect, but it is a lot better than a broken 6’x4’ broken whirlpool tub with deteriorating Masonite board surrounding it.  I did all the tile work by myself, cut and placed new sheet rock, taped, mudded and textured the wall that needed it, painted, built the console for the sink base and put the sink and faucet on.  My husband got the toilet with a flange in and finished up hooking up the drain and water on the faucet.

It feels good to be able to use that bathroom again!  I did white subway tile on both ends of the shower all the way to the ceiling and a wood look tile in a herringbone pattern on the back wall, the bathroom floor is also the wood look herringbone tile.  I still need to work on the threshold or talk my husband in to it...the carpet to tile transition should be fairly easy.  I tiled out to the edge of the door frame, but still don’t have the barn door built, so no use rushing it.  Anyway, the tile was a bit tough on me, laying tile was not too bad, I am not fond of grouting and cleaning up a wet saw.  I still need to come up with storage solutions too.  I just have a metal basket stand, a few plastic drawers and I think it is a silverware caddy for storage at the moment.  The bathroom is not very big.

I have a lot of catching up to do now.  But, things are starting to get ripe, like Dewberries and Blueberries, I will have green beans shortly too.  I need to do spring cleaning and yard work. I haven’t finished outside tasks like drainage in the backyard or putting a roof on the run to my breeding pens either.  I will have to wait on any major brush removal, although my husband has taken down a few dead trees.  I really don’t want to get poison ivy again this year and much of the brush has it entwined through it.

Now on a more somber note.  My baby brother was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor, he went in to have a biopsy and they did full on brain surgery instead of just the biopsy.  He is not feeling well at all.  They removed a section of his skull to get to the tumors and he has a metal plate in his head now.  It has affected his vision, he gets dizzy and nauseous, and has areas on his face that he cannot feel anything where they cut nerves and muscle.  He has a bunch of staples in a semicircle from the center of his forehead, down to in front of his right ear.  It reminds me of Frankenstein...it looks like it hurts and he assures me it does...a lot!  I am glad that he is still able to walk this earth with us though and hope that the pain gets better soon.  We are waiting for his biopsy results, today is Day 12 after surgery...post-op?  I live far away from him now, but have been texting him every few days and have spoken with him on the phone.  I need to call and actually talk to him today.  I dislike talking on the phone, but need to hear his voice.  They believe he has cancer, but that it is a less aggressive form of cancer...we will know more fairly soon, I hope.  I want my baby brother to be good for at least another fifty years!  He told me they are planning on doing radiation on him after he gets his staples out.  I wish he didn’t have to go through all of this.  They took their sweet time setting up the biopsy in the first place.  But, when you don’t have insurance I guess everything moves at a snails pace.