the week so far

OK, here it is another several days have gone by since I posted! Here's what's been happening. On Sunday John's parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary! On Monday, John started his week vacation. We were both up early and out of the house by 7:30 am to take Asher to school. Then ran a couple of errands killing time until John's 9 am appointment at the oral surgeon to have his top two wisdom teeth removed. Allie and I waited for him during the procedure. After about 40 minutes, someone came out to get us, saying he was having a hard time waking up from the anesthesia and they wanted us to come back and help encourage him. It was so weird to see him knocked out! He has never had conscious sedation before - he barely takes a Tylenol - and it really fried him. Anyway, the doc said he did fine and the teeth came out very easily and he expected his recovery to go well. We finally got him out of there and took him home, where he promptly crashed on the couch for 2.5 hours. I alternated ice and changed his gauze, all of that lovely stuff - anyway when he got up he was practically back to normal which blew us both away as when I had my wisdom teeth out (all 4 of them) I was knocked on my butt for 4 or 5 days. So by the end of the day he was a little sore but otherwise fine. I managed to flood the hot tub Monday afternoon. The water level was low, so I hooked up the hose and was filling it. I watched the clock and should have checked it at 15 minutes, but I thought it needed 30. So I went downstairs to get the tote of Allie's summer clothes from the storm shelter room, and water is dripping down the walls in there in several spots! Eek! (That room is directly underneath the back deck where the hot tub is.) I sprinted up the stairs and out of the back door, where the water is just gushing out of the top of the hot tub and flooding the entire deck (which is concrete). I hurried to turn off the hose, then ran back downstairs with towels to move totes and boxes away from the leaks and try to mop up best I could. John used the push broom to try to sweep off the excess water. Whew, what a mess! John will have to caulk the edges of the deck to prevent leaks in the future. I am just glad we caught it right when it was happening (somewhat) and were able to move the things in the basement, as water was dripping directly on some totes. On Tuesday, John was up early with me, and volunteered to take Asher to school which floored me, as it hadn't even been 24 hours since his surgery. He said he felt fine other than his mouth was a little sore. He was only taking Tylenol and Advil for the pain. So he took Ash to school, after I made him promise to not tell people I "made him take Ash to school not even 24 hours from oral surgery" while Allie and I started in on sorting through baby clothes for my niece's baby, Hannah. Made some considerable progress sorting through FOUR huge boxes of outgrown baby clothes. Also finally got Allie's closet sorted through and the clothes brought downstairs (instead of on the closet floor in a heap!) and also got Asher's drawers/closet sorted through - wasn't nearly as much to pull in his closet. John got back and we had a big breakfast, then he went outside to start doing stuff in his shop and whatnot. He has been building a bee vacuum, which is used for capturing swarming bees. I will take pics when he is done, which he is really close. He bought an upright shop-vac at Lowe's and has constructed two separate boxes, an inner and outer, and he will literally hold the shop-vac hose up to the swarm of bees and suck them into the inner box, then bring them home to a hive and let them loose in it. We found out from the County Extension service that there are around 15-20 calls a year from people reporting a swarm of bees, and the County has no one on a list to call to help! So John is to be the one to call if someone reports a swarm. Now of course he may not be able to do it if he is busy at work, out of town, etc, but at least his name and number are getting out there as "the bee man" and maybe we can build up our colonies. Our heat/air guy called mid-morning and said the part was finally in for our heat pump. The manufacturer had to make the part as it is rare what happened (the fan shearing off) and they don't just have those in stock. So he came out around noon and fixed the unit, thank goodness! It is nice to have that off our minds. I was able to finish sorting all of the baby clothes, and boxed up the 3-6 month sizes for my niece. Before we went to get Asher, John drove my Expedition around to the walk-out basement and loaded up as much as he could for Goodwill. I have been working on that donation pile for what, 6 months now? Not even half of it would fit in the back of my car! Plus we had to squeeze the boxes for my niece in there. We all went to get Asher from school and then shipped the boxes UPS and also dropped off at our Goodwill. Oh, Asher said a funny thing. John said something to him, like "here you go, sir" and Asher said, "I'm not a sir! I don't have a mustache!" LOL! We were totally cracking up. Came home and it was such a pretty day - sunny and breezy, around 60 degrees. The kids and I weeded the front landscaping while John started tilling and working in the upper garden. Then I got Allie dinner while the boys stayed outside working in the garden. After I got Allie bathed and to bed, I went back outside to mow. John and Ash tilled and planted three rows in the garden - a row of potatoes and two rows of lettuce. I spent the next couple of hours mowing - ahhh love it! - while John and Ash finished up outside, then John got Ash dinner and showered and to bed. I actually didn't get all of the property mowed, but 95% of it done so I will finish up the rest today. Yesterday John talked with our dog trainer about bringing one of the pups to start training; the trainer said we could bring her any day this week. The pups are 10 months old now. This trainer is a judge in field trials and also trains bird dogs. The reason we picked him is that he was recommended by the breeder, plus he has one of the litter mates of our girls! He lives in Orlean, VA which is about a 7-8 hour drive. John is planning on getting up early Saturday morning and taking Jill and driving over, spending an hour or so with the trainer (whose name is also John) and then driving home. Jill will stay at least 2 months and we will evaluate where she is at that point. John would like for her to be "finished" but we will see. They may need a little more age on them; we may let them each train for a couple months now and then a couple months next summer. Anyway, we decided to send them separately as we want to be able to have some one-on-one time with the pup that is left behind, plus I would miss them too much to both be gone!! We think it will be a good thing though, on many fronts. When we pick Jill up, we'll drop Penny off and she will start her couple of months training. Today will be busy. Our 17 trees should arrive. They were supposed to arrive yesterday, but never did. Our UPS guy has a key to the gate, so we didn't leave it open. Well, the trees never showed up, and this morning I checked the online status and it said "receiver unable to sign, will attempt second delivery" so our regular guy must have been off yesterday. We will leave the gate open today just in case as we certainly don't want the trees being sent back! Also today we are planning on moving the baby chicks to the barn. Yay! They are stinky and just getting too big for the garage brooding area. We are tempted to just mix them in with the big hens, but they are not quite 6 weeks old and we were told to wait until 8 weeks. So guess we will just put them in the old stripping (tobacco) room of the barn and give it some more time. John is ready to power wash the garage down. It is so incredibly dusty from the chicks. Everything in there is covered. I haven't parked my car in there for weeks. Also need to mark where we want these 17 trees to go, and the holes can go ahead and be dug out in preparation. And I need to mow the area that didn't get down yesterday. Tomorrow I think we are going to keep Ash home from school and make a day trip somewhere fun. Maybe the zoo or something. We want to get away, just the 4 of us, out of the daily grind. OK, Allie needs to be changed so I am outta here!