I have been begging Lance to do this for the longest time...
As a follow-up to the post regarding our new roof, I thought I would share a story:
The first day that Lance tore off the old roof, I was climbing up and over the pile of rubbish in our front yard when, well-shod as I was, my heel was pierced by a 22 year-old roofing nail. It went ALL the way into my heel through my flip-flop-- about 3/4 of an inch into my foot.
I quickly pulled it out and was surprised at how little it hurt and how quickly it healed. Everyone I spoke to cautioned that I should immediately get a tetanus shot since I had no recollection of when I received one last. I hate going to doctors and never, ever go if I can avoid it. But just to be on the safe side, I did a bit of light reading on tetanus (big mistake).
This is some of what I learned: Symptoms of tetanus manifest themselves in 5-14 days and include: Muscle tightness, difficulty swallowing, headaches, and most importantly- tightness of the jaw. As a disease, it is fatal in about 50- 60% of the cases.
Well, wouldn't you know it that my back and neck start to feel tight and five days after the incident of the nail, I wake up in the middle of the night with a massive headache and difficulty swallowing. I was scared but forced my self to go back to sleep. A few hours later, I awake with my jaw being ON FIRE!! I couldn't even open it all the way.
Okay-- so what would you do here? Seeing as how this is a FATAL disease, I wake up Lance and drop the kids off at my friend's house (did I mention it was 3 am?) and off to the E.R. we go.
There is nothing like walking into the ER and declaring that you have a disease that was all but cured an entire century ago. A very smug doctor said after looking into my ears and throat, "I doubt you have tetanus. You probably just slept on your back funny." (Naturally, that would explain the lockjaw and difficulty swallowing!) Well, of course at that moment, I was secretly hoping that I actually DID have tetanus just to prove Dr. McSmuggy wrong!
Epilogue: It has been several weeks since my embarrassing trip to the ER. Turns our McSmuggy was right-- I strained a muscle in my neck.
Lesson Learned: DO NOT USE THE INTERNET TO RESEARCH A DISEASE YOU FEAR YOU HAVE. It will inevitably convince you that you do,in fact, have typhoid, rabies, tuberculosis, etc...
I REALLY owe one to Lance for being so patient with me in the ER and for Brittany for taking my kids in at 3 am.
Lance was a professional roofer by trade before we moved to Florida. When we renovated our home, we chose not to replace the roof and have thus pushed our luck with it over the past 4 1/2 years. When our living room ceiling began to turn to mush after each tiny little drizzle, we knew we had to intervene before Hurricane Season.
Lance tackled the tear-off and replaced the underlying plywood, the chimney, the tar paper, and then re-shingled. ... all in one LONG weekend! It is so great to have a handy husband. This project would have cost us nearly $10k if we had a roofing company do it.
Thanks to our friends who came and helped out-- some staying until almost midnight one night! Brad, Jordan, Phill, Ariel, "Engine Pull" Jared, and especially Andrew-- who was Lance's right hand man.
The kids and I stayed busy feeding the workers, refilling the cooler with Gatorades and in general, staying out of the way. I was also on Bengay duty at the end of the day.
It rained yesterday and we stayed dry and the living room ceiling remained "mush-less". The new roof looks awesome. Good job, Lance!
I love these kids.
They get along so well and have so much fun together. I am not naive (or dishonest) enough to say they never fight, but their spats are few and far between and short-lived. Zoie tells me everyday that Tobin is her best friend.
I took these pictures while they were playing "Class". Ever since we started looking around at possible VPK providers for Zoie this fall, she has been obsessed with school. She is always the teacher and this is how she sits when she teaches:
I don't have the heart to tell her that teachers do not usually end each class with a bear hug/choke hold.
My laptop isn't working, so I have no access to my recent pictures right now. I find I have trouble posting without some cute pictures to back it up. I pride myself on keeping this site updated, so I am doing a "Random Post".
I keep coming across the "25 Random Things" list. I vowed not to do one because I am far too boring. But this will be my "8 Random Things About Kira" list: Without further adieu...
1. I do not have one favorite color and I don't like being asked that question. I panic and blurt out a different color each time.
2. British cartoons creep me out.
3. I have a very deep and true love for cheese.
4. I love to sing-- although I haven't been able to carry a tune since high school. I especially love singing Disney Princess songs. Sometimes, I think I'm Belle. Anyway, I sing all the time and am not embarrassed to sing along to songs in the grocery store (although I should be-- I really should be.)
5. I hate talking on the phone-- But love to text people. I am an excellent "texter"-- always try to use proper punctuation and capitalization and will never succumb to using words that make a mockery of the English language like, "LOL".
6. I am a staunch Republican and think that maybe one day I would like to get into local politics.
7. I got a 1420 on my SATs (= 31 on ACTs), and yet I (a history major) once argued that Jefferson was never a U.S. President.
8. I love games and competition in general. Card games, dice games, trivia games, sports, etc...
I promise that my next post will be more interesting and more productive.
Last weekend, Lance and I were helping out some friends who own a mail order business by taping keys to mail inserts. We had committed to doing 5,000 of them. What this means is that we spent a good ten hours working on this project.
It is times like this that I begin to appreciate, and long for, a good montage. I love montages. The music begins to play in the background (something upbeat and motivational) and by the end of the song, the person in the film has lost weight, or built a boat, or prepared for a difficult exam. Every good movie has a montage of some sort (particularly 80's movies). It makes a long, arduous task seem so easy and brief.
Please do not confuse the montage with the horrible "music videos" that plague so many 80's movies (see Rocky IV).
I wanted more than anything to work on the mail inserts intently with Lance for the length of a song then end with a high-five and be done.
I was, of course, talking about movie montages with Lance ad nauseum throughout the project. He is so patient. He looks at me and says, "I love hearing you talk about montages... I do. But do you think maybe you could continue working while you do it?"
Lance and his friends, Ariel and Jared have always spent hours looking at pictures of classic cars on the internet when we get together. Cindy, Brittany and I (the wives) have dubbed them the "Car Club".
This past December was a big month for the Car Club. Ariel bought a 1968 Ford Mustang for the Car Club to restore and they renovated their garage to make a suitable car shop. Jared bought official Car Club t-shirts to mark the occasion.
The wives decided that any decent car shop ought to have the obligatory "pin up girl" poster. We were only too happy to pose for said poster. (Somehow the idea devolved into 80's hair and colorful sweat suits... not sure how that came about). ???
We surprised the guys (wearing their official Car Club gear) with the HUGE poster on Christmas Day. 
I know what you are thinking-- "wow... costumes, weird hair, and loads of makeup for a photo shoot-- what a 6th grade thing to do."
You are absolutely right. But the looks on the guys' faces was totally worth it.
