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Heart-to-Heart at 6 am

Posted on May 26, 2007 by Annie

We’re doing okay – but we had to have an honest talk with ourselves about the $$ we’ve socked away for the kitchen, and what this coming year may bring.

We were lucky enough that when we sold our house we ended up with a small pocket of cash we’d earmarked for the kitchen redo.

Of course, given the past 3 months, we’ve begun to eat into it, which is frighteningly easy to do. When I was sick 5 years ago we rang up a bunch of credit card debt which I wasn’t aware of until a year later (Gerry was protecting me, but when I found out I felt like the floor had just caved in! It wasn’t like he had much of a choice – I was earning NOTHING and his work was curtailed to take care of me.) That took some time to climb out of, but we did!

Right now I’m piling on the teaching engagements – but because of Gerry’s health, we will most likely need some kind of nanny / housekeeper type of person to pop in when I’m out of town.

Add to this the fact that half of our wacky kitchen is now foundation-less, we’ve decided to scrap the Addition portion of the redo. Everything to the right of the double dashed line is on posts, not over a foundation. This portion was originally a porch, which was finished and insulated to be part of the kitchen.

We still need a bathroom, and if you’ve seen our kitchen you’ll understand that it’s a lot of room, but not well designed – and ugly – so we do need to address that.

So here’s our latest, most realistic of layouts. Gerry woke up this morning wondering if we even NEED a contractor, but I’m thinking with all of the other stuff that we’re carrying on our backs, the last thing we need is to act as our own contractor. Oy.
I think – having been there – that a long-term or chronic illness makes one see how things are today, and think that’s how they’ll be forever. But things change.

I remember having really good, high energy days when I was recovering from my hysto a few years back. I’d make BIG plans, assuming that the energy boost was here to stay. But then a few days later I’d crash. Tired, hard to move, barely able to get downstairs – let alone reseed the back yard, put in a stone patio, whatever I’d decided three days earlier I just HAD to do.

It may be that Gerry’s feeling that now – we’ve had a good week – a few REALLY good days – but still the pain is very much here and I can tell he’s absolutely exhausted. Perhaps part of the ‘no contractor’ thinking was due to the pain pill I got him at 4:30 when he woke up very sore? Who knows.

Those pain pills can make you feel like you can do anything.

We’ll have a better idea of how debilitating this episode will be after Tuesday, but between the stem cell stuff and the shunt, it sounds pretty intense. I think we’re living in a calm period before the storm of chemo hits us. It’s like we’re waiting for Hurricane Chemotrina.

I’m thinking it wouldn’t be the time to take on a major do-it-yourself project without the guidance of a contractor. But so far the quotes we’ve received are higher than we were expecting (and I thought we were being realistic – actually extravagant – in our expectations!)

I guess it’s kind of clear which side of this I come down on. Now let’s hear what the other quotes are, and how upset the contractors we’ve met with are that we’ve changed our original plan…

Burn, baby, burn!

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