Ok, so I haven't posted pix of the front porch - yet. I'm waiting at least for the carpet to be put down before putting pix on my blog - and the carpet gets laid Tuesday. Maybe the New Eggplant Purple tile will be in by mid-next week for the windowsills. Jon/handyguy got all the old carpet and whatever else was under the carpet up and out of the front porch Wednesday and Thursday - with a lot of it going into my trash bin. And all the old carpet cut into decent-sized pieces, rolled up, taped so the rolls wouldn't unroll and are lined up in my garage to put in my trash bin Monday night after my trash is picked up. Plus there is more wood flooring on a planter in my yard that needs to go in my trash bin - so the wood will probably get tossed first since my bin isn't real big.
The back porch floor is done and has cured and looks - ok. Jon and I neither one are totally cracked about how it turned out and I put the furniture back on the porch this afternoon to see if that would help - sort of. The floor needs something - not sure what. I'll talk to Jon. And of course the walls of the back porch need to be painted. I debated about painting the walls last year when Larry redid the floor - all the way around the back porch - about six inches up from the floor the walls got messed up with the cleaner and product Larry had used - and what Jon used made it worse - so if the walls get painted the porch will look better.
Physical therapy is going pretty good. Not thrilled to get up at 5:15 a.m. though. My left arm doesn't hurt, ache or tingle near like it had been. Blake - my physical therapist - is having me do different exercises for part of our session, then he rubs my neck and shoulder blade. He could not believe how tight my left shoulder was and the lump he found there - it's getting better. I told him Friday it felt like my shoulders had actually dropped and he said that made sense because women my age and older tend to carry all their stress and life in their shoulder area and get stiff - and sitting at a computer all day doesn't help either. One of the exercises Blake wanted me to do was lie on a skinny thing like a punching bag boxers hit. The circumfernce of this thing is so small the only part of me that makes a connection to it is my back bone and if I don't lie on it correctly, I roll off it - lovely. I finally figured out how far apart to spread my feet to give me balance.....
Work has been good this week - getting back in the swing of things and helping team members with their projects. We had our monthly BBQ Friday and our BBQ theme was "Flip Flop Friday" where we were allowed and very much encouraged to wear flip flops. I don't know if flip flops are a "big pain" where you work but they were a huge pain at Wells Fargo. What is technically a flip flop - if it was something you would wear to the beach and it floated - you couldn't wear it to work. I think almost everyone had flip flops on at Submittal Exchange Friday - including me - which is HUGE because I just do NOT show my toes in public. So to be a team player I not only wore flip flops, I dug out some nail polish and did a fair job of painting my toe nails and tried to get the callus to not look so bad on my one foot.
I went to Pella today to help Dad with more thank you's. He wanted me to go through Mom's clothes so we did that really quick with me taking 3-4 things to keep (a sweatshirt and a couple of shirts). Mom and I never were able to "share clothes" like some mothers and daughters do. Dad seems to keep pretty busy - several nights when I call to "check in" he hasn't been home.
The big, dramatic thing that happened this week happened on Wednesday to Jon while he was working at the house. I get home, come through the basement up to the kitchen and notice one of Butler's bowls is missing (not realizing it's his water bowl) and think to myself that I knew I brought his food bowl down from upstairs when I left for work. I hear him kind of whining in the living room but don't see him, so I walk in the living room and he's laying on the floor next to a floor AC vent with his water bowl. I think he's fallen during the day, can't get up and Jon took pity on him and brought him his water bowl to have it near him. Then I listen to my voicemails and one is from Jon wanting to know how Butler was doing - because Butler had gotten out that afternoon....................
I call Jon and just laugh because once I got Butler up, he went outside ok, and seemed ok - which amazed me after hearing about "the adventure". Jon had my front porch door open while working on the porch for ventilation and my front house door barely open, like not even a centimeter. Jon had to do something in the back yard and when he got back on the front porch both my front doors were standing wide open. Jon walks in the living room going, "Butler, Butler" and no Butler. No Butler in the front yard. Jon decided to head north for some reason and sees Butler like a block and a half away - across the street! Jon says he calls Butler's name, Butler looks at Jon over his shoulder and kicks it up a notch to get away. Jon chases after Butler - it's hot - and finally corrals Butler like a sheep against a fence but doesn't know how he's going to get Butler back to my house. One of my neighbors saw what was happening and shows up with a leash to hook to Butler's collar. Jon gets Butler back to the front yard and let's him catch his breath before going up the stairs into the house. Once Butler gets in the house he collapses on the living room floor and starts twitching and Jon's going "no, no, no". Jon gets Butler by the floor AC vent, brings him his water bowl, makes sure Butler drinks some water and sits with him for a while. Honestly - in all reality Butler should have died because of his age, how hot it was, and the shape his lungs are in - but he didn't. Know why? Because every morning I pray for Butler just like I pray for family and friends and put Butler in God's hands - and that's why Butler is still here - to comfort me.
I watered my plants tonight and really looked at Stick - the hibiscus Dad bought me that we planted along with the three hibiscus plants I bought that weekend in April. I took a picture of Stick from that weekend and Stick was like 1/2 inch twig. Well Stick is really tall - not like a hibiscus bush at all - and tonight I noticed it had some buds at the top of it. So I'm curious to see what Stick will look like when it blooms - trust me I'll take pictures and post so we can figure out what Stitck really is.
