To preface this post: Yes, the house is ours. :)

In the days before closing, it became apparent that the insurance agent (KB) had not communicated with the mortgage company (KB) or the builder (KB) so there was no proof of our insurance nor any numbers for them to put on the closing docs. The agent didn't reply for a full day, then finally spoke with the mortgage closing rep within the last possibe hour and sent off the paperwork. The next morning we closed and got the keys.

We stopped by Sears to see if they will extend us credit to buy a washer and dryer. They only give us $500, so we would have to pay quite a bit out-of-pocket. We thought we might be able to cover it with Thursday's paycheck - but then we got a call from Karen's family, who needed help to keep their electric bill from being turned off. New plan - laundry will be done at Frel's house for a while.

I picked up the lights I bought for the bedrooms and went shopping for tempoary blinds. Target? None wide enough. Lowe's and Home Depot? Too expensive for something we're throwing away in a few months. It is getting late, so I get two blinds at Target that are half the window's width and try that. The windows are all sliding windows, so there is a bar down the middle - but when the two blinds were installed, you could still see in from outside.

So, I try to install the lights instead, in the dark, and run into problems getting the bracket to mount on the electrical box. After fussing for some time, I give up for the night. I only have one more night before we start moving.

Last night, I come home from work to find my netbook laptop is broken. The hinges were coming apart. It is three weeks old. So, goodbye plans to find better blinds, we're off to Best Buy to take it in. In the end, they let me exchange it for another model at a $80 discount, even though it was past the 14-day return date. I'm getting progressively happier with Best Buy every time I go to their store.

While I'm dealing with that, Karen fills out a credit application. They approve her for $3000. Off to the appliances we go, mulling the options for a while. We pick a set that will suit our needs well, and while they work up the pricing, we ask about a display fridge they've been trying to sell for many weeks at a huge discout because of a big dent on the bottom door. We have always had to have two fridges because we can't fit it all in one, but this one will solve that problem, and it's even black. They cut another $100 off the price of it, discount the installation accessories we needed for everything, and made the total price with delivery and installation just under the limit of the credit they gave us.

After a quick celebration, we stop by Walmart and find cheap blinds that will fit the windows, and I did some research on the internet and figured out how to make the lights work. I installed one to make sure, then went off to bed.

So, we have a house, we have all of our appliances, we have at least temporary furniture for everything we need to get settled in. Not only that, but as Karen works extra shifts in the coming weeks, we don't have to worry about choosing between buying appliances or sending it to my family, who will be needing help soon too.

Now we just have to move (and install those lights and blinds before the first night). That process starts in about 4 hours...

Now that we're on the week of closing, I'm now keeping track of it by hours. Closing will be in 47 hours, and we will have keys in 50.

We plan to rent a big truck Friday night, load it up through Saturday, stop by the storage unit on the way, and unload through Sunday. The cable installer should be there Sunday morning so we have internet service. The other utilities are already on and just have to be transferred. It's really almost over.

Going to end up borrowing Frel's old fridge from Oklahoma, along with our white fridge also from Oklahoma, so we have room for both families' food. And we don't have a washer or dryer yet. Or a living room couch. Or... well, you get the idea. We have a pretty big to-buy list, prioritized into various levels of importance. Like, we could get by doing laundry at Frel's house, though that will be a big hassle for as much laundry as we'll have. But window blinds absolutely have to be bought and installed before we move in this weekend, at least for the bedrooms. Karen hopes to work a lot and pay for some of those things, but we still may have to do the rent-to-own route for some of it.

UGM is almost over. Leave here this afternoon, plane takes off for Chicago just after 5 Madison time.

Day is over, back at hotel. The rain finally stopped shortly before the sessions were over, and I grabbed food and headed out. Had thought I might go down to the park by the lake, which is pretty close to the hotel, but I have so much work to catch up on that it won't be happening tonight. Maybe tomorrow, after dinner.

I am hoping the weather is less rainy tomorrow. They have a Wild West theme at the UGM this year, so there are more outdoor activities than usual. Tomorrow is the big Dinner on the Range, in the big outdoor tent that was flooded today because of the rain.

Not much else to say. Back to work...

Made it in yesterday afternoon. Found a little convenience store about two blocks away and bought some bread and peanut butter so I can avoid eating out. :)

Today is the first day of the conference, which for me is an all-day periop session. It started raining on the way in to the EPIC campus, and it is your typical midwest rain so it will likely keep raining all day. The rain is cold but the weather othwerwise is nice - cool but not cold. Not that I would mind cold either, but anyway.

Trying to get work done during breaks and even some of the more boring presentations. I have no backup at TMC (well, I do, but she is on maternity leave) so I'm having to watch over a lot of stuff from here, while learning stuff from EPIC and other customers. Too bad I can't charge my hours twice. :)

Here's a quick snap of the kitchen.



Sorry for the poor mspaint resize of a poor cellphone picture. I'm too lazy to do any better.

Getting ready for the yearly trip to Epic in Madison, WI. My
flight leaves at 6am tomorrow, and I'll get back in town at 10pm on Friday.

While I'm gone, the house will be finished - the only step left is installing the A/C unit and appliances. The team walk is on Thursday, and Karen will go to that. We do our "orientation" on October 1st, where they tell us how to use the irrigation system, spell out the warranty info, and let us inspect for anything that isn't complete. Closing is on the 7th.

Karen will be spending today at the hospital with a doula client. She expects that will be done by this evening. The income from that will be very helpful, since we've got to get a new washer and dryer, fridge, window blinds, ceiling fixtures, and so on. The list grows every day. :)

Bea, the kitty we picked up Saturday night, did not make it. She ate food and drank at times yesterday, but just wet on herself and never had a bowel movement. She had strange muscle spasms and was in a lot of pain. The plan had been to find a regular vet today that would make payment arrangements, and decide if she should be put to sleep or find a way to make her better, but she passed away at 4:15 this morning.

What a day.

We've had a neighbor bring a sick baby rabbit to us this evening, thinking we could do something for it - then dropped it. There sure wasn't anything we could do then.

We spotted a cat that had obviously been hit, running across an intersection at 11pm, and after 20 minutes of struggle got it into the car and to the emergency vet.

We can spend nothing at all on this cat or we won't have enough money for our house. So we took it home with pain meds and are going to do the old medical standby of watchful waiting.

On the way to get a crate from storage, at 2am, we came across an accident on the interstate, 4 cars, at least one of them smashed like an aluminum can. We were the first bystander to stop, though police and ambulances were there just a few moments later.

Of course we couldn't get into storage, so we just found a cardboard box at the old house and went home.

The cat is doing okay so far, as of 4:30, drinking water and taking the pain med easily.

And this is just today. This week I also had the back window shot out of my Honda while it was parked in front of the apartment. And there's been other drama at home too, but I won't get into that here.

Nick got to go home on Monday.

Sorry not to have gotten an update sooner. Spent Monday evening at the old house, Tuesday was a 6am-6pm day at work, and I haven't spent more than a couple minutes in front of a computer at home.

Nick was admitted to the hospital yesterday to prep for his surgery this morning. He had a bronchoscopy and PICC line insertion in addition to the ileostomy closure. Everything went well, and he is now back in his room, sleeping.

We expect to be here for a while, at least a week.

During the procedure, the surgeon found old stool in his colon, where there should have been nothing. She was not expecting to see that, and it is just one more curious puzzle in Nick's story.

I would like to say I'm sick of the media, but on the other hand, the media is just providing what the masses want. That's what makes it mass media.

I was tired of the coverage of Michael Jackson's death the first day of it. I knew it would last through the weekend. But it has been more than a week, and I can't sit in the cafeteria for 15 minutes without special updates about the situation. The news channels are abuzz with intervews, documentary features and investigative reports. Folks, he isn't going to rise from the grave. He's dead.

The funeral is going on now. (Just overheard there are 3000 police and firefighters at the service. Good use of our public resources.) Karen thinks it will go away now, but I am skeptical.

I have a lot of things to write about, but I told myself I wouldn't post anything until I had written about my grandma. Every time I've thought about it, though, any words I could say seemed too insignificant. I don't know that it is any different today, but I can't put it off forever.

Alice Pope passed away at 8:00 on April 25, 2009, after a short hospitalization. Just two weeks before, she was as active as ever, taking full care of my grandpa who suffered a stroke about 10 years ago.

When I was a kid, we went to Arkansas frequently on weekends and visited both sets of grandparents. I was still young when mom's parents died, but we continued to visit dad's parents regularly. Every summer, my sister and I would take turns spending a week at their lake house. It was always a special birthday present.

There are so many memories. In their first lake house, there was a stone firplace with grout that was the perfect width to be a road for Hotwheels cars. For as long as I remember, they had a pool table, and we played every time we visited. (I was fond of the poor black bear that was always under the table, too.) We would swim from their dock, go fishing, drive around the lake on their pontoon boat - always getting at least one sunburn each summer.

All of that changed when grandpa had his stroke. They sold their house and RV, and moved through several assisted living homes over the years. I had my own family, too, working and going to school and then moving a thousand miles away to Arizona... so we only visited for the occasional holiday.

I drove out to Oklahoma the day before she passed away, because her condition in the hospital was deteriorating. She was in a coma as a side effect of her sudden renal failure, and I had a gut feeling she would not make it through the weekend. I arrived at about 1 AM on Saturday. My mom offered to take me up to the hospital right then, but I was beat after the long drive and didn't want to be an inconvenience so I just crashed in bed. As I was getting dressed in the morning, we got the call. I still went to her bedside before the funeral home came, to see her one last time.

Below is the obituary from the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise.

Following a brief illness, Alice Pope, 81, beloved wife and mother, passed away at Jane Phillips Hospital in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, April 25th. She was born in Farmington, Arkansas, to Hunter and Bonnie Broyles.  A proud Arkansawyer, she graduated with honors from the University of Arkansas at the age of 18 and began her long career in education.  Following WW II, she answered an ad seeking applicants to teach military personnel overseas and was assigned to a base in Japan where she met Alfred Ray Pope.  She and Ray were married in December of 1951.  Ray’s Air Force service took them to numerous stops in the US, including their favorite, Alaska.  When Ray retired, they moved back to the area of Rogers, Arkansas, where Alice continued to teach elementary math. When she retired, they continued to pursue their love of the outdoors and traveling in an RV, until Ray’s stroke in 2001.  From then on, she was his devoted caretaker.  To be closer to family, they moved to Tulsa, OK, and later to Bartlesville. She always said
she was a shy person, yet most would describe her as a “people person”.  She was warm and witty with a ready smile and she always made friends wherever
she went. She will be greatly missed by many.

The night before last, my Honda was broken into again, while parked on the street in front of the house.

Someone got my door unlocked through the window (left cracked). Once again, they picked up the radio, already uninstalled, unplugged, and sitting in the back seat, but decided it wasn't worth the effort of carrying out of the car. They went through a bag in the back seat also, but didn't bother taking my old license plate or any papers. They didn't mess with my work ID & keys that were hanging in the car either. They did take some screwdrivers and a wrench I had on the dash, though. I had them there because I'm in the middle of disassembling the heater/vent controls to try to get the fan blower working again. (Now I don't have a wrench that fits...)

But, that's not all. The vandal(s) then went up the driveway, tried opening the passenger door of the Taurus, but it was locked. They then opened Frel's car, because she never locks the doors, and they started trying to hotwire her car.

I don't know why they stopped - they got one screw out (Probably using my screwdriver. You're welcome.) and pried the steering column cover down over the ignition switch, and then broke a cover on the switch itself, and that's it. Either they gave up at this point because they found out it would be too hard to hotwire, or someone/something in the area scared them off.

Through all that, we heard nothing from inside the house, and Karen was up through around 3am. All the doors were closed in the morning, so they didn't leave in too big of a rush.

Oh - they also looked through her glovebox, but again, nothing was taken, since there was nothing valuable to take. The one car that actually has anything worth any value at all - the $50 satellite radio - they didn't get into, and all three cars are still here, so we were really quite lucky.

Home health is arranged, Nick is discharged, we are heading home. 14 more days of antibiotics.

Nick is in the OR right now, gwtting his infected Broviac catheter removed and a PICC line inserted.

Still no certain plan for discharge. The CF docs are okay with us going home once the PICC is in, the surgeons are okay with it, the peds docs don't care, but Infectious Disease doc might want him to wait around several more days. We will not be happy about that.

They want to be certain about what bugs are colonized in his line and what our risk is for sepsis. Our argument is that he is not on any monitoring in the hospital and is not receiving anything we can't do at home - and if he gets a fever or other signs of shock, we'll bring him right back.

The docs are adjusting Nick's IV antibiotic dosages based on the blood levels they drew last night, so that we can be set for doing the treatments at home.

Preliminary results on the cultures they did Friday are starting to come back. The lab is seeing bacterial growth from the central line, so it will probably need to get removed soon & replaced with a PICC.

More news when we have it...

...the kids took their AIMS tests, with less anxiety than last year. We also started enrolling Alex for next year.

...Karen had a root canal done, and found out she needs at least two more.

...we scheduled Nick to get his Broviac central line out today, but instead got a phone call from the CF clinic that he has grown Pseudomonas on his sputum culture last week. So he is being admitted today to start IV antibiotics over the weekend.

...I found out my grandma has gone from being my grandpa's caregiver to needing assistance with her own ADLs, and needs to have a biopsy to diagnose two tumors discovered on her lungs during the workups.

...we have gone from having 5 paid off credit cards to figuring out how much we can borrow after we max them again and use up our DDAs.

I don't give the kids an allowance. For one thing, we'd go bankrupt, and for another, we are petty generous about giving the kids things they want. And you know they aren't going to save any of it. Of course, everyone wants money, so the older ones have gotten paid for babysitting, and they often get money at birthdays from relatives so they can have the experience of wasting their own cash.

Frel felt sorry for the kids, so she decided a few months back to give them all an allowance directly from her. A whopping $5 a month. She paid them their first two months last week and is already upset with how it is being used.

For a couple weeks, Sam has planned to go to the movies, using her own money to pay for her ticket. After looking at the options, she picked an older movie playing late at the cheap theater for $1. That way, she could use some of money on snacks inside the theater instead. Chris then wanted to go, and could use his money too, since it was so cheap.

Today, they are in trouble with grandma because they spent their money on food. Because it was my job to buy the food, even though it was their idea to go, and their idea to buy candy instead of popcorn. She has threatened them with a first-and-only warning before they lose their allowance altogether.

So, she wants to give my kids money even though I didn't think she should, overrule what I think is appropriate use of said money, and then try to get the kids to blame me for having it taken away.

I feel like I'm playing BattleMaster in real life, only a less fun version where I hold my tongue and give in a lot more.

Yesterday we made it home with Nick. He still has his central line - home health came today to teach us how to manage the daily flushes and weekly dressing changes. He hasn't been eating really well, but is eating more here at home than he was at the hospital.

We're keeping the central line even though the surgeon would rather take it out - the other surgeon asked to put it in so that we would have a long-term catheter, and we're very reluctant to give it up when we're concerned about his nutrition and whether he's eating enough.