In Which Mom And Dad Take Off And We Garden Some More

We took my parents back to the airport today; I'm sad to see them go!  We had a great time with them, and hope we'll get the chance to see them again soon.

After we saw them off, I spent most of the rest of the day doing garden-related things.  I put the rest of the plants from my last buying spree in the ground, and then promptly went out and bought more of them to fill out another bed in the front yard.  Sometimes these projects kind of take on a life of their own.  I also purchased a taller shepherd's hook for my bird feeders in the backyard, as one of the neighbor's cats has decided my feeders are her own personal buffet table.  She nearly caught one of my chickadees today because the feeder was only a few feet off the ground.  Now she'll at least have to work much harder to get to them. 

I've seen enough bird carnage this week, thank you very much. 

Other than that, we mostly hung around the house today.  Tomorrow we're probably getting the deck ready to restain; since we're not likely to get rain the next few days it's the perfect time.  Then it will be back to the patio project and probably a lot more gardening.  Once I start gaining momentum it's kind of hard to stop!

~Jess

In Which I'm Getting Sick And Singing About Elephants

I seem to be coming down with a bit of something, which is always fun.  Either that or I've finally managed to develop some allergies to something in this area other than the grass, and they're acting up in a big way.  At any rate, I was supposed to be cleaning today, but instead I spent most of my time lying around the house being unproductive while Jeremy did productive yard work.  Oh well.

Jer finished removing the last of the sod today and has most of the patio area dug down to where we need it, so now I'm looking into ordering some gravel so we can start the next part of our project!  So there's still currently a giant hole in the yard, but at least it's an attractive square shape now.

I'm plodding along with my Thai; right now I'm trying to learn "The Elephant Song."  This is a children's song that is kind of the Thai version of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in that absolutely everybody knows it, so I figure it's something that Ellen will probably be very familiar with.  Even if my pronunciation is terrible, if she hears the tune she should be able to figure out what I'm singing.  Here's a youtube video of the song, for those of you who are interested.  Of course the typical teenager isn't much into nursery rhymes, but I think it would probably be comforting anyway.

~Jess

In Which I Sleep Way, Way In And Do Some Digging

Connor was a little clingy today; basically any time he wasn't in my lap or Jer's he was yelling at the top of his lungs.  He knows how to make things happen around here.  I think he's missing his school routine and feeling like he needs a bit of extra attention. 

Jer let me sleep in all the way until early afternoon; I can't believe I slept that late!  I've been having a bit of trouble sleeping recently-- I think it's probably because we don't have blackout curtains and the sun is rising at five in the morning here right now since it's the middle of summer.  Evidently my body decided to play catch-up today, and he was a total sweetheart and let me sleep in.  I don't think I've slept that late in years!

Once I actually dragged myself out of bed, I went outside and finished cutting up the remaining sod in our future patio area into strips so that Jer can dig it out.  I had to stop digging it out and moving it myself when I discovered my glorious allergy to grass, so the project has been taking longer than I anticipated.  At this rate I'll be lucky to have a patio before Christmas!  Hopefully in the next week or so we'll be able to start laying gravel, and hopefully things will go a little bit more smoothly from there.

I just want to get it done before Ellen gets here.  I don't want her first view of our backyard to have a giant hole in it!

~Jess

In Which Connor Feels Much Better And I Make More Ridiculously Complicated Garden Plans

Today was Camping Day at Connor's school, so I sent him off with a sleeping bag, dressed in a plaid shirt.  He was ridiculously cute, and other than my overwhelming desire to whistle "The Lumberjack Song" under my breath whenever I looked at him, the morning was uneventful.  He apparently had a bit of an upset stomach at school though, because he came home in different clothes. 

They absolutely wore him out too, because he crashed hard during his quiet time and slept for almost four straight hours.  I think that he's still recovering from his hard week.  He didn't have any Benedryl on board, either-- his hives disappeared overnight so we discontinued it.  I was a little worried that he wouldn't sleep at night because of his midday snooze, but he actually fell asleep on Jeremy's lap before his usual bedtime.  That was one tired kid!

I spent a good portion of the time he was asleep sketching up fanciful designs for a way to cover part of the patio we're making.  I know I want to eventually put in a sun/rain shelter for Connor so he can enjoy the garden all through the year, but I'm not sure where I want to put it yet!  I'd originally thought about putting it beneath the big trees at the end of the garden, but I'm concerned about disturbing too much of their root system, as the floor of the shelter would need to be ground level (or ramped) so that we could get Connor's wheelchair in.  So I'm thinking about covering a portion of the patio closer to the house. 

Of course it would be much easier to just install the patio shelter as we're building the patio, but I don't think that's in the budget or time scheme this year, so I'll spend the winter designing exactly what I want and maybe I'll make that next year's project.  Luckily the tiles that the patio will be made of are easy to remove, so it shouldn't be too difficult to pry some up and sink concrete piers if that's what I end up deciding to do!

~Jess

In Which I Dig A Whole Lot And Connor Is A Big Boy

I've had a ton more energy since I've actually had the chance to start sleeping this week.  Instead of doing something productive, like cleaning the house, I'm using it to dig a huge hole in the middle of my backyard.

Yes, it's the season for the Gardening Bug, which hits me every year right around this time.  Right now I'm digging the hole for what will eventually be our new patio.  I thought it was going to take me most of the summer to get this thing done, but it's going much, much faster than expected. 

I think I was basing this on how long it took us to get the deck done, but I'd forgotten that we had to dig the deck down as far as three feet or more in places to make it level, and I'm only digging down about four to six inches, depending on which part of the yard I'm in.  Also half the deck was in an area only about ten feet away from a couple of the neighbors' maple trees, and so was nothing but a giant web of tree roots.  The patio is in the middle of the yard and is blissfully tree root free. 

So in the past three days I've managed to dig out a little less than a third of the patio, mostly by working on it while Connor is in school because for some reason the little guy doesn't find watching me shovel a whole bunch of dirt to be particularly entertaining.  He gets this very concerned look on his face as he watches me work; I think he's wondering whether or not I've completely lost it and if maybe I should go lie down or something.

The birds also seem to think I'm insane, but they also seem to find it highly entertaining, as they've started congregating in ever-increasing numbers on the tree a few feet away from where I'm working.  Every time I take a wheelbarrow of turf over to the area where I'm piling it up (more on that project later) they fly down to see what kind of tasty bugs have been exposed in the area I just dug.  There's one chickadee who doesn't even bother waiting for me to move; he flies down and starts picking things straight out of the wheelbarrow.  Today he narrowly avoided being crushed on a couple of occasions because he didn't want to move out of the way for the next load.  Cheeky little thing.

So besides the hour or so I've worked on it while Connor was in school today and yesterday, I also spent some time out there this afternoon since Jer got off of work a little early.  That way Connor could hang out with him inside and do infinitely cooler things than watching me dig a giant hole-- like watching YouTube videos of people falling down in funny ways and He-Man lip synching terrible songs from the 1970s.  There he is applauding He-Man's performance.  Jeremy is ruining Connor's musical tastes. 

I swear Connor looks more like his daddy every year.  I mean, they have the exact same ears.  I totally didn't realize that until I looked at this picture.  Also that kid is getting way, way too big.  I'm going to have to tie a brick to his head or something.  He's cutting his six-year molars right now and I'm pretty sure next month he's going to be driving the car. 

Slow down, kid!

~Jess

In Which I Start Another Crazy Garden Project

The white noise machine worked like a charm!  I was out within twenty minutes.  Clearly what works on more than 90% of crying babies also works on me. 

Today was yet another gorgeous day in the run of gorgeous days we've been having; looks like spring finally decided to go ahead and show up.  It's about time!  I took advantage of the weather and spent the time Connor was in school prepping for and getting started on my latest project out in the garden: our paver patio.  This will be a 15'x15' area that will attach to the main ramp and stairway coming off the deck into our backyard.  I'm going to take a chance and try out a brand new product that I think might work really, really well for both Jeremy and Ellen's legs and Connor's wheelchair: recycled rubber pavers. 

I'm really, really excited about these-- I'd looked into the possibility of using rubber surfacing before, but this is the first product I've seen that lends itself to a DIY project.  They mimic the look of terracotta tile, but they should give us the same sort of forgiving, wheelchair-friendly surface they use in inclusive playgrounds like our beloved Bradley Lake Park. 

They're a little bit pricey, but there are a couple of mitigating factors that bring them down to my budget.  I don't have to buy as much gravel or sand as I would with typical pavers, we're using the fill dirt elsewhere in the garden for another project, and I'm doing all the work myself.  So in the end they should work out to about the same price as regular cement pavers would be to install if we had to pay someone to haul the dirt away (which we would, if we were excavating seven inches down instead of four since there's a limit to the number of hills I can make in my yard without screwing up the grade and ruining my foundation) and had to buy a lot more sand and gravel.  Also having a surface that the whole family can enjoy without trouble will go a long, long way towards justifying the cost.

It will probably take me most of the summer to excavate the area since I'm doing it by hand, so this will be another one of those slow projects like our deck.  Hopefully in a year or two, though, we'll have a great looking patio!

~Jess

In Which Connor Doesn't Feel So Hot And We Finish The Deck

Today Connor had a small seizure-- his first in about two weeks.  We think he might be coming down with a virus; our respite care worker's daughter is sick and the timing would be about right.  He seemed a little worn down and clingy today, so it may be that he's not feeling very good.  We'll see what things look like tomorrow.

Can I just say that going for two whole weeks without any seizures has been pretty fantastic?  Seriously-- it's been a huge weight off my shoulders to see a happy, healthy kid for a little while and know that he's had a chance to recover.  I think that it'll make it so much easier for him to bounce back quickly if our suspicions are correct and he is getting sick. 

In between snuggle sessions Connor today I still managed to get quite a bit done.  While Jeremy alternated between playing with the little guy and tinkering with the washing machine I put a second coat of stain on our deck.  So the deck is now officially finished!  Well, until the next time it needs to be restained, anyway.  Hopefully that won't be for a little while.  We found this tool called a

Jeremy also vacuumed the house and cleaned the kitchen, because he is awesome like that. 

After the deck dried and we were able to walk on it again, Jer and I wheeled the boy outside and got to work installing the arbor.  It's been leaning up against the house for weeks now, so it's high time we got it in the ground.  After a lot of digging, checking levels, digging again, checking levels again, filling in holes and so on and so forth we managed to get it pretty upright and even.  It's cemented in place now, so whether or not it's perfectly level it's not going anywhere!  I'll plant the akebia vine tomorrow and then we'll have one more project finished.  Next on the list is staining the inside of the fence.  Hopefully that will go quickly and I'll be able to install our trellises.  After that I'll mulch, and then I think that the biggest construction-type projects we plan to accomplish outdoors this summer will be finished! 

~Jess

In Which Connor And I Do 80 Bazillion Things




So day two of Jessie's Outdoor Workathon went pretty well!  

Connor and I spent the morning putting a brick border in along one side of the shade garden.  I say "Connor and I" because he sat on my lap while I worked and in between digging and laying bricks I buried Connor's feet in the dirt, had him help me hold the shovel, and let him feel, smell and (depending on the plant) taste the lovely green growing things around us.  He really liked the feel of the rough bricks, and if I set one in his lap he'd run his hands carefully back and forth across it.  He also seemed to enjoy helping me put the soil back in place once I positioned a brick correctly; I think he liked how cool the earth felt on his hands, even if he didn't really care for it on his feet.  We talked about the life cycle of plants and about the earthworms we found, which he thought really tickled.  I figured if I'm going to be doing things in the garden anyway I should try and include him as much as possible.  Now if I can get him to weed I'll be golden.

Then he helped me give everything a good soaking-- including himself and me.  Connor goes kind of crazy when I put him in charge of directing the hose; it takes him a while to realize that water comes out the end.  Oh well.

So we mostly finished up that project-- the last few bricks will wait until the arbor is in place, which will happen as soon as Jeremy digs me some post holes.  I took that picture just before I started digging in the bricks.  When you consider that a year ago that space was wall-to-wall ivy and weeds, I think things are looking pretty good!  Once the plants fill out this may be one of my favorite beds in the garden.  I love that it runs right along our wheelchair ramp so Connor can see everything as we go down.  Once the arbor is in place, I mulch everything, we stain the fence and power wash the ramp and concrete pad, this area will be completely finished!  That makes me really excited, because it'll be the first area of the yard I can say that about.

After lunch we drove out to Portland Avenue Nursery and did some shopping for still more fun things to put in the ground.  I bought three trellises to go on the fence near our deck; they were priced at about what it would cost me to make them, so I figured I'd save myself the trouble and just get them ready-made.  I also picked up three clematis to go on the trellises, a few small plants for my last empty terracotta pot and a couple more plants for the shade garden, which is filling out nicely.  Connor and I came home and planted everything except for the clematis; they won't go in until I have the fence behind them and the trellises stained.  After that we did a little bit of therapy and then hopped back in the car for our weekly trip to the grocery store.

We got back home just as Jeremy pulled into the driveway.  It was still plenty light outside, so while Jeremy and Connor played together I went back out and touched up the outside of the fence with a second coat of stain.  The days when Connor's feeling good, the weather cooperates and it's still light outside when Jeremy gets home are all too fleeting, so I have to make the most of them!  I came back inside around 9:00pm, thoroughly worn out but satisfied with the amount of work I got done. 

Tomorrow is supposed to be relatively dry, if a little gloomy, so we'll probably be out there again!

~Jess

In Which I Play With Power Tools And Connor Has Some Seizures, But Thankfully Not At The Same Time

Well today was sort of a mixed bag.

Connor stayed up until 3:30 in the morning last night, which I did not particularly appreciate.  I let him sleep in until the last possible minute before waking him up for school, and believe me when I say that this was not entirely for his benefit.  After I gave him his morning medication (through his g-tube, so he could sleep through it) I went back to bed and I got up about five minutes before he did. 

He kept his eyes squeezed shut in protest and pretended like he was asleep (only asleep sitting up, clapping his hands and singing to himself, of course) from the time we pulled into the school parking lot, where he immediately perked up and was his normal, happy self.  He apparently thoroughly enjoyed himself at school, and had a great day. 

I considered going back to bed after I dropped Connor off, but I really had a lot of things I wanted to get done outside while he was at school.  So I went and found myself some caffeine, after which I came back home and spent some time out in the backyard with a measuring tape.  Then I sat down at the kitchen and drew up plans for an arbor.  We've decided to put one in the backyard over the wheelchair ramp to separate the side yard from the backyard and make the area more attractive, and I think I'm going to try and tackle the project on my own!  If I can manage to build this thing without really screwing up or losing any major body parts, it'll be the first thing I'll have made using power tools all on my own.  Luckily it doesn't have to be terribly sturdy because we're putting a plant called akebia vine on it, which is really light and pretty self-supporting.  Akebia vine is a shade tolerant, fast grower with interesting foliage.  It's also highly invasive in the southeastern states, (so don't plant it if you live there) but is nicely behaved here.  So if I end up with a rickety mess, at least the plant will be forgiving. 

Anyway, I drove down to the hardware store and picked up the supplies I needed for the basic framework of the arbor.  I ran into bit of a snag when I discovered that instead of the ten foot cedar posts I needed and knew would fit in Rowbert The Wheelchair Van (I measured!) all they had were the eight foot and twelve foot posts.  The eight foot wouldn't work because this is going over a wheelchair ramp, which is raised a couple of feet off the ground.  If I sink the posts a foot and a half into the ground than there would only be four and a half feet of clearance to walk under the arbor, which would mean that Connor (and possibly Ellen) would be the only ones in this family not having to bend over to walk under the thing.  So I had to go home with the twelve foot posts instead.  They were about a foot too long to fit in the van, and so I ended up driving home really slowly with the warning lights on and the trunk open.  Fun times.

But anyway, I've got all the pieces cut out for the top of the arbor and the four main poles, and tomorrow while Connor's in school I'll go back for the lattice work and start drilling pilot holes so I can put the whole thing together.  Hopefully I'll be able to stain it on Thursday and then Jeremy and I can put it in the ground this weekend and I'll be able to complete my plantings in the side yard.  Then (other than the mulching) we'll have one part of the yard totally finished!

So I was feeling pretty good about what I'd accomplished so far today when I went to pick Connor up from school.  He and I both took a much-needed nap and slept for a couple hours, which was pretty fantastic.  Then the day started going downhill.  Between three in the afternoon and seven at night, Connor had four seizures.  Also he threw up on my shoes. 

This comes totally out of the blue; I don't know if they were triggered by him not having enough sleep, or if he's getting sick or what.  At any rate, despite sleeping after each seizure he was exhausted by the end of the day and went down quietly and quickly.  It looks like he's probably going to sleep through the night.

So we'll see what he looks like tomorrow morning; I'm hoping that he'll be feeling better.  Otherwise my grandiose arbor-building plans might need to be put on hold for a while until we figure out what's going on with the little guy.  He likes to keep me on my toes!

~Jess

In Which Our Deck Is Finished!

The New Deck!

Our beautiful new deck is finished! 

All that's left to do is put another coat of stain on, and that won't really be feasible until the weather dries out.  I've put up "before" (taken when we bought the house) and "after" pictures for your viewing pleasure. 

The deck is fully wheelchair accessible; there's a second ramp not shown in this picture that runs down the side of the house and connects up with our cement pad back there, so it's now possible to actually take Connor from the front yard into the backyard without going into the house. 

Right now both the deck and the ramps have low "bumpers" to keep a wheelchair from going over the edge but no railing because it's not likely we'll need it before we have to redo the deck another twenty years or so down the road.  We significantly expanded the deck's size and now it's much easier to get around and fit our patio furniture on with plenty of space left over.  The ramp in the picture ends in grass right now, but eventually it will lead down to a nice patio space that I'm still tweaking the design for.  Oh, and the bottom step will be finished off once we put in said patio-- which may be a while.  But otherwise it's done, and I'm excited to try it out this summer!

The Old Deck

What I spent the vast majority of my time working on is the other half-finished project you see to the right in the "after" shot.  That's going to be my herb garden!  I spent about seven hours today playing with a bricks, bags of sand and a shovel and as a result all of the edging on the garden is now set.  Tomorrow I'll start work on the pathway through the center of the garden that you can see laid out.   Each divided area will have a single type of herb in it; I like planting enough that I have plenty to cut for cooking without decimating any individual plant.  There are twelve spaces in all for herbs, and then the center ring around the bird bath will be planted in flowers.  I'm planning on putting creeping thyme in between the bricks on the pathway.  Hopefully in a few years it will look truly lovely.

Since Connor's not planning on taking up cooking any time soon, we've got raised planting beds in the works for all of Jeremy's cooking needs (the man eats his weight in spinach every year) and Ellen should easily be able to navigate the foot path I'm not as concerned about making the herb wheel accessible right now.  There will be plenty of accessible space in the yard, so it's okay to have a spot just for me!  Plus it shouldn't be too hard to modify the space later if we need to; I'm not using any mortar or making any sort of a permanant structure there.



Ramp!



Other projects we're planning for our backyard in the future include an arbor, the aforementioned patio (possibly with a fire pit-- we haven't decided yet), raised beds, either a trellis or planting boxes affixed to the fence on the side of the house, an accessible pathway around the other side of the house and a small patio area in the front yard.  Oh, and also I want to take out the rest of the sod in the backyard and put in a no-mow fragrant groundcover mix, and of course there's all the planting still to do.  I think that will keep us busy for a few years!

I think I'll need a break for a couple of days after I finish the herb garden though.  All that digging has made me pretty sore!

~Jess

In Which We Get To Work

After yesterday's much needed break time, we felt like it was time to get moving!

Today we had respite care all day, and instead of going out on a date we used it to get some things done in the yard.  Jeremy stained the rest of the decking boards while our friend Jake worked on installing them, and I got started on staining our fence.  We had to wait for a while before weatherproofing it because the boards were really wet when we built it (water would drip out when you screwed the boards in place), and we didn't want to lock the moisture in.  Hopefully staining it will help it last longer in our extremely wet weather.  Of course the boards just soak in the stain and we have a really big yard, so it's going to take me a while to get the whole thing done.  I got about three-fourths of the way down one side of the fence today, and that took me about three and a half hours.  Oh well-- I'll just keep chipping away at it and eventually it will be finished.

I also spent some time laying down landscaping fabric where I've cleared the ivy, salal, bindweed and blackberry from along our fence and retaining wall.  Once I've finished that I'll plant some perennials and then cover the whole thing with mulch.  It's taking much longer than I expected because I haven't been able to take Connor outside to work on it due to the heat, but since our temperatures are back down to reasonable levels hopefully things will move faster.  I think it's going to look pretty great when it's done!  If it is ever done, that is.  I've been fighting a losing battle with the ivy for nine months now, because I keep pulling it all up and then having some crisis and neglecting it to all grow back.  I'm hoping that the combination of weeding, Roundup (a necessary evil with this stuff), landscape fabric and mulch will do finally do the trick.

I didn't want to work too hard today, so I knocked things off around four in the afternoon or so and got cleaned up.  My plan was to leave for a coffee shop to do some reading and writing around five or so, but I ended up not leaving until close to six because Connor had a seizure.  This one was pretty short; it was probably about a minute or so long.  I was sort of hoping since we didn't see any yesterday that the little guy would get a break from them for a while, but I guess it wasn't to be.  He's pretty exhausted right now; the seizures are hard on his little body and he's not getting enough of a break between them to recover fully.  We'll be stepping up his new medication for the first time on Tuesday and I'm hoping they'll start to taper off. 

So after the little guy was settled in bed, I took off for the coffee shop and spent the evening curled up in a comfy leather chair reading-- just what I needed to recharge my batteries after the adrenaline rush wore off.  I feel much better for having the chance to escape and get a little bit of alone time out of the house, and that's a good thing.

I have the feeling I'm going to need that energy this week.

~Jess

In Which I Put Batteries In My Camera

So you might have noticed that I restocked on batteries for my camera.  I went a little crazy today as a result, so you get a lot of pictures.  Kind of random, disjointed pictures, but then this is my blog, after all, and so you've probably come to expect that sort of thing.

And yes, that is Connor giving us his a hoity-toity look.  With a lemur.  I think he pulls it off well.

Anyway, I had a rare few hours of weekday respite care, so I took the opportunity to stop by the library and bid a sad farewell to The Worst Keyboard That Ever Was.  I'm heartbroken, let me tell you.  I decided on zoo animals for our next theme box, and I may have been just slightly influenced in my choice by the fact that the box does not contain any objects that make noise.  It did, however, contain Connor's new buddy Lemur as well as this awesome raccoon puppet, which I took one look at and decided to name "Roadkill." 

Seriously, what is wrong with this puppet? 

Anyway, Roadkill and Cricket are the best of friends now, and I actually caught her trying to carry her new pal around in her mouth earlier today.  She doesn't feel quite the same way about Lemur, despite my best attempts to make them better acquainted.  They are Not Friends.  She began attempting to disembowel him five seconds after this picture was taken.

I'm so mean.

It's about four in the afternoon in that picture of Connor, by the way, and he's stripped down to a diaper because it's so dang hot here right now.  When I moved to Washington State from Texas, I assumed I'd left the 90 degree weather behind me.  Normally this time of year the average temperature for this area is 75 degrees.  I looked it up on the weather channel website and everything.  Well, it hit 91 today, and yesterday the high was 96 degrees-- a record for this area.  Not fun in a place where most houses and small businesses don't have air conditioning.  And since so far as we can tell Connor doesn't sweat, we've been sticking pretty close to home recently, and he's been spending a lot of time sans clothing.  So he spent most of the day in nothing but a diaper, a lemur and his hearing aids, which I picked up new earmolds for a couple of days ago.  I'm hoping the blue will be a little easier to find if he decided to yank them apart and throw an earmold across a parking lot again.

And now for something completely different. 

Here's our deck as of this afternoon; a few of you have asked to see how it's coming along.  You can really see the shape it will take now, and start to get a good idea of what it will look like when it's finished.  Those T-shaped supports sticking up are the beginnings of our benches.  Another ramp will run down the side of our house where the pile of decking material is stacked in the far left corner of the deck.  The deck and ramp both aren't high enough to need a big railing; we'll be adding a "bumper" around the sides that will come up about four inches high all around and prevent tragic wheelchair accidents.  The ramp already in will come out onto our patio, which will probably be our next project after this one is finished.  Work has slowed way, way down because it's so hot outside and the deck is in full sun and has proved to be an excellent reflector of heat.  I wouldn't expect it to take too much longer, though.

Anyway, Connor had a good day, I erased Cricket's memory of Lemur-related trauma by letting her snuggle with Roadkill and feeding her catnip, and I didn't get any pictures of Loki because he was too busy skidding around our house in a mad catnip-induced frenzy.  Note to self: take pictures of Loki before catnip.  Here's Cricket and Roadkill once the catnip wore off.  Loki was still running back and forth up and down our hallways at thirty miles an hour.

In conclusion, our cats are insane.

~Jess

In Which Jer And Connor Have A Daddy Day, And I Work On The Deck

I had an awesomely productive day today.

It was mostly Jeremy and Connor free, though, because the guys went on a field trip together!  Connor doesn't get to go out with just his daddy very often, so he was pretty excited about it.  They spent the whole day together; they were gone from ten in the morning until five in the evening!  They started out at the Glass Museum (where they watched the artists make snakes out of glass!), wandered around downtown Tacoma for a while and found some lunch, and then drove back to Puyallup and saw Toy Story 3.  Or about two-thirds of Toy Story 3, anyway; apparently Connor got bored towards the end and started making way more noise than was movie-appropriate, so they ducked out early.  Oh well.  Then they finished up the day with some ice cream!  I'm so happy that the two of them got to spend some quality time out and about together, and Connor had a blast.

I spent most of the day either cleaning the house or working on the deck; Jake was here today and we mixed and poured the concrete for the front ramp landing.  Jake gave it a brush finish, which looks fantastic.  I'd never worked with concrete on this scale before, and after having now done one measly 8 foot by 4 foot ramp landing, I'm relatively sure I never, ever want to hand mix concrete for any larger projects.  The twenty-some-odd bags we had to mix for this were more than enough to make me sure I will have very sore shoulders tomorrow.  We'll be pouring the landing and sidewalk for the ramp that runs down the side of the house in a few weeks, and I'm pretty sure we'll be bringing in a truck for that, because there's no way my shoulders and back would be happy mixing up that amount of concrete.

We also planned out how high the benches on the deck will be set, and I spent some time this evening designing our paver patio that will go in next to the deck and calculating out costs and the number of pavers we'd need for the pattern I drew.  I believe the patio will be the next project after the deck is completely finished; we're just kind of working out way out into the yard.  I don't think the patio will be quite as intensive a project, though, because we'll be sand-setting the pavers instead of using concrete.  Most of the work will be digging out the area to lay the gravel, sand and pavers.  Which is more than enough work, believe me.

This thing is going to be so cool when it's finished.

~Jess

In Which We Help Friends Move, And I Traumatize Their Neighbors, And Also Our Deck Looks Awesome

We had a busy day today!

Jake got here about nine this morning and we worked on the deck together for a couple of hours.  I got to use the circular saw again, and I didn't cut my fingers off or anything!  Then Jeremy and I left Connor with his respite care worker, Joanna, and headed up to Seattle to help some friends of ours move.  They bought a beautiful craftsman style home with, among other amazing features, an actual Hobbit door!  Even if the rest of the house wasn't totally cool, that would clinch it. 

Rowbert, our wheelchair van, is terribly handy for moving, by the way, because not only does he have a whole bunch of room inside and reinforced shocks, but he also has that nifty ramp so you can simply slide heavy boxes up into his interior or, if you have a piano mover, roll them inside.  He makes things super easy.

So we spent a few hours helping our friends move.  In my case this involved, at one point, strutting down their street dressed in a leather tunic (originally part of an orc costume) and touting a seven-foot long spear. 

Don't ask.

When we got back to the house around five, we discovered Jake had finished just about all of the framing for the deck!  Doesn't it look awesome?  We have yet to frame out the ramps, as we have to pour some concrete pads first to make sure they have a really solid base, but we're getting there!  To give you an idea of what you are looking at-- the basic "rectangle" of the deck is 15' by 24', with an additional 4' by 8' landing.  One of the ramps will run down the front of the deck off that landing on the right-- from this view we'd be looking up that ramp.  The other ramp will run down the side of the house.  Hopefully it will blend pretty well with the rest of the landscaping-- we'll just have to see!

~Jess

In Which I Get A New Cell Phone And Use It For Nefarious Purposes

Jake and I worked on the deck again this morning while Connor and Jeremy hung out together.  We got the sill plate on today and some of the jousts, so it's coming along!  I'll post a picture of the progress we made this weekend tomorrow so you can see where we are.  As we move further along on the framing, it's easier to visualize what the deck will look like when it's finished.  It's really neat to see something that I drew out on paper take shape on our house!  Hopefully it'll look as good as I imagined.

I've been playing around with my new cell phone this week.  My poor, much-abused ex-cell phone finally bit the dust, and since it's absolutely essential that I have a cell phone because of Connor's seizures, we set out to get a new one that was as indestructible as possible.  This is important because I tend to do things like toss my cell out of canoes, accidentally throw it across the parking lot (hey-- I'd just put on hand lotion, okay?), and other lovely destructive things.

The model I ended up with is touted as having "rugged military design," and the salesman assured me that I could throw it against the wall without it being a problem.  This phone is a Very Serious phone.  It spends a lot of time working out, and didn't do very well in school.  It looks like I could beat people with it.  Mostly I plan to just use it to place phone calls, though.

I also got one of those little wireless earpieces for it, purportedly so that I can talk on my cell phone in the car, but actually so that I can walk around and mess with people.

Basically my plan is to use it as a prop to walk around, say, the mall and hold one-sided conversations on bizarre topics.  No one will actually be on the other end of the line, of course, but it's impossible to tell with those things so it should work out just fine.  I will stage messy breakups with my imaginary boyfriend because he does not know the difference between "your" and "you're" and bought me a nose hair remover for my birthday.  I will order extremely weird things from mail-order companies.  I will tell stories that involve a lot of animal noises.  I will do my very best to hold these conversations around people who are actually having private conversations on their cell phones in public areas-- especially if they are in the bathroom.  I will also make sure to take the stall next to them and flush the toilet multiple times.

This idea was inspired by a woman in the checkout line in front of me at one of our local stores who was screaming at her boyfriend Roger (and by proxy, me, the checker, the bagger, the three other customers in line and a number of passing people) for choosing a career (before he met her, mind you) that would cause him to travel out of the country and thus away from her, and if he got on that plane to England they were Over, with a capital 'O,' and Frank still wanted to take her back so he better make his choice quickly because she wasn't going to wait around for him and there were plenty of men out there who would snap her up in a second.  By the time she was finished paying and stomped out of the store, I (along with probably the rest of the captive listeners) was really hoping Roger would get on the plane. 

If I'd had my little wireless earpiece with me, I could totally have drowned her out with moose calls.  Or at least told my imaginary caller that I would get back in touch with them because I was standing in line and didn't want to be rude by talking on my phone while checking out. 

The joys of technology!

~Jess

In Which Sylvie Has A Birthday, and We Get A Lot Done

We had another really busy day today!  Jer spent the day organizing our office, taking care of Connor and doing some general cleaning, which Jake and I worked outside on the deck.  We hauled away just over a ton of debris to the landfill, which was a lot of fun because we'd rented one of those two-axle dump trailers and I got to push the button to make it tilt up and dump its load.  Those things are really cool.  We also hauled a ton of bushes and other landscaping I'd dug out earlier in the week from the site where our new deck is going in.  We spent most of the rest of the day shoveling dirt to level the site so that we'll have proper ventilation underneath the new deck.  This will be my "homework" for the week, and I don't think I'll be needing any additional working out, let me tell you!  The new deck is significantly wider and longer than the old one to accommodate the ramps and wheelchair turn radius while still giving us enough room to have our outdoor furniture out there, so there's a lot of dirt we have to move.  We also did the prep for the ledger board today (this is a board that is bolted to the house which the deck is securely attached to) by cutting away the siding where the board will go.  It's exciting to know that in a few weeks we'll have a beautiful new deck!  Then we get to start on the paver patio and the sidewalks.  We're getting there!

For the whole second half of the day Joanna was here, which meant that we were able to get some significant work done.  I don't regret using some "date time" for this sort of thing; it's often difficult to get everything done that we need to do while taking care of Connor at the same time, so it's great that he gets some undivided attention while we get our projects taken care of.  I think he enjoys playing with Joanna but still having his parents around too, because then he gets to have the periodic attention of everybody!  It was raining most of the day today, so we shut the cats in the laundry room this morning and he spent some time early in the day hanging out just on the other side of our sliding door with the glass open and just the screen closed.  He really loves watching everybody; he especially loves the oscillating and circular saws, which he finds hilarious.  I'm so glad that we're doing this project now because while it's really easy to keep him entertained, it probably wouldn't be so easy to do this project with an active kindergartener who would want to not only watch, but participate as well.

Today was Sylvie's birthday; she's now five years old!  I thought about her a lot today; wondering what she was doing, whether or not anyone celebrated with her, and how hopefully this will be the last birthday she celebrates without family surrounding her.  Probably it was just another day for her; Thailand doesn't put a big emphasis on birthday celebrations in general, and with the number of children in her large orphanage complex (over 2000 kids) it's not likely that they would single her out and do anything special for her.  Sylvie may not even realize that it is here birthday today; it may not ever have been explained to her as she didn't have any language before she came to the orphanage.  It's likely that she's never had a birthday party or received any presents, as this isn't a Thai tradition.

I also wondered about what Sylvie's birth mom, if she is still living, would be doing today; whether or not she would take any time to commemorate a day that must have been one of the most important of her life.  It must be such a bittersweet day for her, and I hope that she's doing well.   

So happy birthday, Sylvie!  The next year will likely bring big changes for you, and with any luck next year we'll be able to celebrate with you!

~Jess

In Which Entirely Too Much Happens

We had a long day today.

This morning we officially started work on the deck, which meant that first we had to haul off all of the old fence and deck pieces to have some room to maneuver.  It's probably always best to finish an old job before starting a new one, anyway, so this was a good thing.  Anyway, we rented a flatbed trailer, hooked it up to Jake's truck, and took just over three tons of old materials to the dump before lunch (I am actually not exaggerating here-- they weigh it at the landfill).  Needless to say we didn't go to the gym today.  We still probably have one more ton of old fence and deck parts, as well as a bunch of yard waste (I dug up a whole bunch of bushes that were in the way of our deck expansion) that will go out tomorrow. 

It ended up being a really good thing that we decided to take out the deck entirely instead of just repairing it, by the way, because as it turns out whoever originally built the deck just attached it directly to the siding of the house, with no waterproofing or flashing at all.  All of the water draining from the deck was simply running straight down our foundation.  They left a bunch of rotting wood underneath it and didn't stain it for a number of years to top it off.  There were a couple of supporting boards and posts that were heavily infested with moisture ants, and their nest was slowly creeping towards the house.  In another year or so they probably would have been actively eating the siding, which was already showing signs of rot.  So I'm very glad we decided to go ahead and do this work, because we have the chance to do it properly! 

At any rate, after lunch we had a birthday party to go to, which was a lot of fun.  It was carnival themed, and while Connor was not particularly interested in the obstacle course or the face painting he just about ate his weight in cotton candy.  He'd never tried it before, and I believe he is now convinced he has discovered the perfect food; it dissolves instantly, tastes mind-numbingly sweet, and does not require any work on his part at all.  So needless to say he was just slightly wired when I took him home, and I had to put him down for a second quiet time because he was bouncing off the walls.  It was nice to see him doing something all of the other kids were doing (there were many children skipping home with major sugar highs this afternoon) and enjoying himself; we don't get very many opportunities to have that happen.

We got home just in time to have Joanna, our respite care worker arrive, because tonight was a date night for us.  So Jeremy and I dragged ourselves out to the bookstore, slumped into a sushi bar and then oozed on into a coffee shop at the end of the night, where it took us five minutes to order because we kept staring blankly into space instead of reading the menu.  We came home an hour early because Jer's feet were really stiffening up and we were both too tired to want to stay out any longer. 

So it was a fun day, and we got a lot done, but it was really, really long. 

~Jess

In Which Connor Has Another Seizure, And We Demolish The Deck

Today we had respite care, so Jeremy and I drove out to Tacoma because Half Price Books was having a sale, and if there is one thing we never miss it is a sale at Half Price Books.  We browsed for a while, found a few random things and then headed out to do some more shopping.  We were just pulling up to Bertolino's Cafe (one of my favorite little coffee shops in Tacoma) when we got a phone call from Connor's respite care worker.  Connor had just had a seizure. 

This one only lasted about a minute and a half, and he was already asleep and fine so he didn't really need us checking up on him, but we made a u-turn anyway and headed back up to Puyallup because even if he was absolutely fine we didn't feel comfortable being a whole thirty minutes away.  So we ended up going to the Starbucks that is five minutes away from our house where we sat reading our books, drinking our hot beverages of choice and, on my part anyway, physically restraining myself from rushing home to make doubly sure that Connor was, in fact, fine.  Which he was, thankfully, though now of course we have to start the whole see-what-the-doctor-wants-to-do process all over again and once again we're playing Seizure Hot Potato and we upped his seizure medication four days ago, dang it.  Oh well. 

Other than that excitement, the other big thing that happened today was that Jake smashed our deck into a hundred billion pieces while we were out.  There's the view from our sliding door.  Isn't that awesome?  It looks like it was probably tremendous fun, too-- I'm kind of sorry we missed it.  We'll be taking all of the pieces, along with the pieces of the old fence, down to the dump this weekend so we can start on the new deck.  In the meantime we will not be venturing out into the backyard by that door. 

That first step's a doozy.

~Jess

In Which I Swear We Moved To Mayberry

I spent a good portion of this morning transplanting all of the stuff I planted in front of the deck a few months ago to new locations in the yard so that we can get started with demolishing.  This was not particularly fun, as pretty much all the good spots had already been taken.  Our backyard has a lot of shrubbery, so most of the beds are at least partially shaded, which will change once we have the rest of the hardscape in and are ready to really start ripping up the old landscaping, but in the meantime poses a bit of a problem when I just lost twenty feet worth of prime sunny area.  Hopefully most of the poor, maligned herb garden, strawberries and blueberry bushes will be able to hold on until I can transplant them back to a spot with full sun.  That'll teach me to get overenthusiastic about putting things in the ground before we have a game plan for what we're going to do!

Connor spent most of today in a pretty good mood, which was nice.  He and his daddy spent a lot of time hanging out together-- always a fun activity in Connor's book.  I went down to our little coffee shop this morning and picked us up some breakfast, but mostly we stuck around the house and took it easy.  We did go over and have tea at one of the neighbors' houses in the afternoon, though.  It was lovely, which I'm not really surprised by-- we are lucky enough to be surrounded by genuinely nice people, most of whom have lived in the neighborhood for a long time.  Keep in mind that we selected this house because it had a bathroom we could renovate (one of two on the market in the Puyallup area at the time that fit the criteria we were looking for) and so nice neighbors, close proximity to the hospital, fire station, Connor's school, a park, and shopping areas are all just fantastic bonuses for us.  Seriously, what were the odds that practically the only house in Puyallup we could buy that could be renovated for our needs would just happen to be smack in the middle of Mayberry? 

I swear I keep expecting to hear Andy Griffith whistling when I go out to check the mail.

~Jess

In Which We Get A Bit Carried Away

Since our deck demolition today was cancelled, I spent a good portion of the morning designing the new deck for our backyard.  Or rather, I started off designing a deck, and then I added a patio and we needed a walk around to the front of the house and Jeremy suggested that maybe we should add a patio up there too and then I got a little sidetracked figuring out where I would put in some raised beds and four hours later I realized that the day was half over and I had yet to do a single iota of housework, which was what I was supposed to be doing this morning.  I used to laugh at those people who decided to renovate, say, a spare bedroom and then eight months later had a totally new house, but I'm starting to understand how that could happen.  This stuff is kind of addicting.

I think we'll probably end up doing most of these projects, though, because we're really committed to making the backyard as accessible as we can.  We crunched the numbers and since we're going to be doing most of the work ourselves it's more reasonable than you might think.  As things stand right now it's extremely difficult for me to get Connor farther than about fifteen feet into the backyard because the steps on the deck are rotting through and there's no hardscape farther in.  It's been interesting trying to figure out where to put the ramps off the deck (one down the side of the house and one onto the patio) because they have to be at least sixteen feet long in order to not be too steep, and we want things to be not just accessible, but beautiful too.  I think we've finally hit on a solution, and I'm excited to get started on it!  When we're finished, hopefully we'll have a yard that everybody in the family can use.  And also by the end I'm going to have a whole lot more experience in using power tools and shoveling concrete.  No doubt this will come in handy at the most unlikely moment. 

We ended up deciding to make one of the ramps run parallel to the deck (with a large landing at one end complete with bench) so that it doesn't stand out in the yard.  It will lead down to a large patio level with the ground and perfect for a barbecue area or a table.  A pathway from the patio will lead around the side of the house to another, smaller patio in the front yard.  The other ramp will go straight down the side of the house and end in a short path which will connect to the concrete pad already poured on that side.  We've also talked about putting in a couple of raised beds-- I can use one for a water table or sensory garden for the kids now, and as a vegetable bed later-- and possibly replacing the grass lawn in the back with an herbacious lawn mix like Fleur de Lawn.  This will be enough projects to keep us occupied for the next year or so, and then I'm sure we'll figure out something else we want to do.

We're looking forward to having a space that everybody in the family can use!

~Jess