It’s hard for me to believe that the first week of May has already gone by. The past several weeks have been nothing short of mentally excruciating, at times feeling very much like things would never work out, would never complete, would never… just anything.

But let me just say we made it through our no-red-meat effort. We celebrated with homemade hamburgers done in Care’s convection oven, and this week we had the eye of round that had been waiting patiently for us to do it up. Almost four full days in a marinade then a half hour in, again, the convection oven.

Heaven.

Back to the blog…lol. Once I stopped worrying my head off for Scarlett and her mom (oh yeah, and my brother too, I suppose.. lol) everything else came back with a vengeance.

Things that were supposed to get done, couldn’t. Things I’d booked for, didn’t turn out. Things that were supposed to finalized, finalized elsewhere. First quarter wasn’t as great as I’d hoped and doing the books and statements up made me feel really bad for not doing more/better/etc. for the authors. Thankfully the second quarter has gone a long way to making up for it, making me listen to my own words: After Christmas belt-tightening happens everywhere.

Rhia and Care have had issues (I know you’re reading this girls, and it’s true… so ) with school, in particular a teacher they don’t get along with. Life ain’t fair and not all teachers can be Mrs. Robinson (seriously, their gr. 2 teacher was Mrs. Robinson) or Mrs. Driedger. BUT now that the drama production is over, and they’ve decided (sniffle) to forgo baseball this year, it should pick up and they can get their assignments done and turned in. I’ve ranted before about Care’s issues with her physics/chemistry teacher, so I won’t go further with that. Suffice to say, she’s happier this semester, even though she’s had almost as much time out with her tonsils and jaw as the previous.

And, her sleep study came back normal (snicker) so she’s been scheduled to have her tonsils and possibly adenoids yanked in June. There was much rejoicing and celebrating…for about an hour until Care’s jaw inflamed and she was unable to move it. :-/ For two days afterwards, she was barely able to open her mouth, and it affected her ear and throat as well.

Going back a bit, as I’ve already posted, Nyx crossed the rainbow bridge. She’s still missed by all of us, most particularly the other rats. I swear Jynx still looks for her when she’s out of the cage. Also as previously posted, Milo is really sick. Male cats tend to have these blockages, due to tiny urethras, but he’s compounding this by not cooperating with the vet – he pulls out the catheter and his IVs, then trashes his kennel. When she called today to report on how he fared overnight, she said he’d pulled them out again, but that he was much brighter today, and peeing on his own. Not much, but some, so they’re monitoring him for now.

To add insult to injury, I had her neuter him while he was under anesthesia to place the catheter and drain his bladder. Not that he was ever really interested in the opposite sex, if you get my meaning. He’s madly in love with Care’s polydactyl cat, Tyler. Tyler on the other hand is madly in love with himself. Still, I can imagine he’s furious over losing the dangly-bits; I remember well the icy stares and ceremonial clawing of my stuff after bringing the other boys home from their noodling. Due to one wonderfully awesome benefactor, the down payment on Milo’s bill has been covered, and I can pay it back over time. This takes a huge load of stress off, and I don’t need to fine-tooth-comb everything this week to scrape up the cash.

Going back a bit farther, the ice build-up on our roof (because it’s a shallow roof and there is NO insulation in the attic) caused serious leaking issues inside the house. From what was running down the walls, I imagine even more ran down inside them, behind the plasterboard and paneling. Needless to say, part of the ceiling came down in the hallway, mostly from the shaped doorway. After speaking to the landlord, we had someone come and clean it off, and that bill came due. Thankfully the landlord had agreed to allow me to take it off the rent. Yes, I know it’s his responsibility, but someone could have gone up there and scraped off the snow every week, too. Probably should have. If we’re here next winter, we’ll do that.

And then the basement flooded. About a foot of water, from the looks of the wall at the bottom of the stairs. I don’t go down there anymore, for various reasons, but Care does. She’d only barely given it a good cleaning – floor scrubbed and all – so most of our stuff was up off the floor. The rest? Well, it’s gone now. See people, this is why replacing brick/concrete walls with wood is a bad thing, particularly if you’re not going to shore up the ground on the outside. The previous owner was a … well, I won’t say. Even at the age I was when the ex lived here (briefly, during a split we had) I knew they’d done it wrong.

So be it, though, right? I mean we’re freaking lucky this was the first and only year it’s done it to that extent. Usually, either in spring or after particularly heavy rainfall, we have a spot of wet at the foot of the stairs, maybe a half-inch deep, if that. I could have handled that stress, because it’s just a matter of course. A foot of water was something else entirely.

I felt bad because I was stressing out over the water in our basement, when folks a half hour from here are on the verge of losing their homes to floodwaters every damn year, and most of them shrug, evacuate when necessary, and move on.

All in all, it’s just little things. But the little things start to add up until there’s just too many, and so – this week – I’ve been away from Belfire, away from TNBP. I finished one editing project, returned to two others, started some other formatting work, a web client, and putzed around.

I have this weekend as well, and then it’s back to the full grindstone, much refreshed, much more in tune, much more relaxed.