The rest of the story

Well, since the last time I wrote, things have been really crazy. I had talked to Jamie just before writing that blog and she seemed happy and confident that John would pull through. However, he took a serious turn for the worse that afternoon and died about 6:30 that evening. I think I was one of the first people to hear about it, and it was a big shock. Imagine us sitting down to dinner and praying for John's recovery, only to get a call five minutes later that he had died. I think I've cried more in the past couple of days than I have in a long time. Maybe that means my cry-quota has been filled and I won't have to do it anymore for a while, but with the funeral tomorrow I doubt that will happen. I'll be in the kitchen helping with the dinner tomorrow, which means I'll be around the funeral-stuff from around 10 am till after we clean up the dinner, whenever that is.

On a much lighter but still frustrating note, I was going to write about the other things that have been happening the last week or so. Last Friday was a rainy day; it rained outside, and it also rained inside. You might ask yourself how it could possibly rain in our apartment when we live on the first floor? The answer is that the connection between the water pipe and the hot water heater on the second floor burst at about 9:30 in the morning. All the water from the tank and more water from the pipe came down into our apartment, specifically Karen's room (closet actually) and the front bathroom, with some spillage in the 'hallway' between the kitchen and living room. Water came through the heater-vents, the bathroom exhaust fan, and the walls. Luckily it was during the office hours and the maintenance guys got here quick to help me move our stuff out of the way. Most of the stuff in the closet was in plastic tubs-the stuff that we don't have room for in our apartment, Karen's too-small clothes, and stuff like that. Most of the furniture had no problems or only slight water damage on the bottom where the water tried to get at it. They had a carpet guy come in and take out the soaking-wet pad under the carpet and bring in a giant fan to dry out the floor/carpet.

Saturday we worked on getting the carpets dry and monitoring the water spots that appeared in the ceiling.

Sunday we got up and went to church. When we got home, we noticed that the ceiling in Karen's room was sagging more than it had been, right near the water spots. We called our home teacher to help us move all the stuff that was still in the room in case the ceiling fell or something. During the night it did start to drip-noisily.

Monday they said a guy was going to come and open a hole in the ceiling to make sure it was getting dry in there. It wasn't dripping as much as it had been, but the nasty wet smell when they opened it up said there was or had been quite a bit of water up there. It was also worrysome that he cut through the sheetrock like it was butter. Note: at this point we have Karen's crib, bunkbeds, and lots of other 'junk' just sitting around our living room, leaving us almost no room to 'live' in, since it was still wet feeling/smelling in Karen's room.

Tuesday they checked on the hole, made it a little bigger, and that was it. Wednesday they patched the hole. To do this took an interesting process, since the rest of the ceiling around the hole is sagging quite severely. First, they put in some shims (little wooden wedges usually used for things like getting doorframes or other construction works up just a bit if the floor isn't exactly level.) to bring the level of the ceiling there a little lower. Then they screwed the piece of sheetrock into the pile of shims. After that it still wasn't quite low enough, so they put a very thick layer of 'mud' on it to make it more or less level with the rest of the ceiling. They're going to have someone come next week to make it more invisible by putting the 'popcorn' looking stuff on it and then paint that little portion of ceiling.

Thursday they came back to inspect their very poor handywork. They said it was 'fixed' and we should move all the stuff back into the bedroom; the guy will put cloths or plastic down when he paints next week. One of the sets of sister missionaries also came over to help wash all the construction dust off the walls. It was helpful in that it would have taken me three or four times as long to do the work, but it was during nap time and Karen woke up early and was somewhat beastly all afternoon. After Joe got out of class at 7 pm, we started moving things back in. We'd called our home teacher to help us move it all back, and after going to an appointment with the Elders, the three of them came and helped put the bunk beds back together (actually we only put the top bunk back together; it has rails on it so Karen can sleep in it sooner than the bottom bunk because it has a place where she can get out, but it would be difficult for her to fall out of bed. By 9 pm we had most of the stuff back into the room, and Karen could finally go to bed. It was a long day, but I got my house back together.

So, in addition to everything that's been going on in the ward the past week or so, we had a domestic disaster as well. What I'm thankful for is that now it's mostly over and we can start getting back to normal, whatever that really means. We're all safe and healthy, if a bit exhausted from the past week, and we're looking forward to next week being much more calm (or at least no more crazy than this week was!!!) After we finally get around to putting all our flood pictures on the computer I'll put a couple up here so you can all see-that's one thing on the list for next week!!

Accidents happen...

I know it's been a while since I put anything up. Ever since last Tuesday it has been really crazy around here. Last Tuesday morning I went to the WIC office for my appointment; it was at 8:30 a.m., and I got there at 8. It took two hours, and I was rushing like a crazy person to get to the church for the class I'm in. (It's called 'let's talk about it' and "it" refers to anything that's going on for you...anyway I go and learn a few things and cry a bunch and it's really nice... back to the point.) After class I came home, and Karen took a nap then had lunch around 2 or 3... Then around 3 I got a call from a friend in the ward telling me that John Martinson, a friend of ours in the ward, had been in a most terrible car accident. This was no ordinary car accident; he had multiple breaks on all limbs, with lots of internal bleeding and other damage as well. This was a huge shock, since I, like most people my age, feel not invincible but pretty close to it. I visit teach John's wife Jamie (some of you may know them; they graduated from BYU the same time Joe and I did-April '06), who is pregnant with their first child. My first reaction (after calling Joe in shock) was to sit on the couch and cry for about 20 minutes (that's one of the worst things about being pregnant for me right now-I feel like a faucet that won't turn off). The rest of the day I didn't feel like doing anything, but I felt bad doing nothing.... and I can't remember exactly what we did, but I kept getting phone calls from people making sure that I knew what was going on, and every time someone called to tell me about it, I would cry some more (but thankfully not as much as the first time).

Wednesday was a 'normal' day. I don't remember doing anything really except debating in my mind whether I should call Jamie again that day or leave her alone because all the family was in town. I ended up not calling her, but we did get a link to a blog that they were updating a few times a day. It was a relief to know what was happening without having to be continually bugging them. Here's the link to the blog: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/john_martinson , I hope it works right.

Anyway, with this accident it was very scary until about Saturday, when he became more stable even though he's still on the ventilator and a bunch of other machines. The ward fast held for him on Sunday seemed very powerful, and for the first time in any pregnant/nursing state I wished I could fast. John is now working on slowly waking up and breathing some on his own. I believe he will eventually make a full recovery, but it will take a long time.

Sunday, a most unexpected thing happened though. A new RS presidency was called, and the new president asked me to be in charge of meals for the family, since the compassionate service leader is the sister-in-law of John and Jamie. It's kinda scary for me, since I don't like to just call people and ask if they would like to take food to someone... but it's worked out so far and will probably continue to. I just hope this isn't a preview of a new calling for me. I think it would drive me crazy.

This is just a small part of our oh-so-eventful week, and I'll put more info up soon. As this is the more disasterous news I thought I should get it out of the way first. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some more time to write stuff here.

Time...

Where does all the time go? I post something one day, and it seems like I come back the next day and see that it's been more than a week since I last wrote anything. It doesn't feel like much has happened, but I know that by the end of this I'll think to myself "whoa, I need to write more often so these aren't so long".

Well...most of last week was pretty standard: laundry, cooking, cleaning... and all those 'exciting' mom-things I get to do. However, the weekend was pretty good. Saturday afternoon we went to Justin and Kitara Beasley's apartment for our fantasy football draft (sponsored by the EQ). We got a good draft order, and ended up with our favorite Peyton Manning as well as quite a few others that will hopefully turn out well. After the draft was the BYU season opener against Arizona. Having missed almost the whole season last year it was great to get back in the spirit of the game. Once again I had to relearn a valuable lesson about BYU football: don't leave before the game is over. We left with about a minute and a half left in the 4th, only to miss just about the most exciting part of the half...oh well. It was almost 9pm and Karen needed a bath for church the next day.

Sunday we made Haitian food, probably for the last time before the baby comes in 5 months. However much I love the stuff, it's really bad for a pregnant-lady diet since it's almost all extremely salty, fried, and/or spicy. I think I'm still retaining water from eating it... Anyway we made tons of food and realized we couldn't eat it all before it goes bad. Luckily there's another former Haitian missionary in the ward, and he just happens to have a wife and 7 kids...so we took a bunch of the leftovers to them and visited a while, which was nice. Their family is nice, but I don't think I could handle having 7 or 8 kids; I really think I'd go crazy.

Monday was labor day-as my dad says, it's the day we're all supposed to do lots of labor. That goes against what the real reason for labor day is, which was to have a day off from your labor, but whatever works I guess. We bought a little charcoal grill at Walmart and had some friends over to BBQ-chicken, burgers, hot dogs, and brauts...we had lots of meat and other good things

Tuesday was a very hormonal pregnant lady day... one of those days where everything seems a lot worse than it really is. I ended up crying for hours for no real reason. I couldn't sleep that night...except when I had nightmares of Karen growing up to hate me or my parents getting divorced because they couldn't agree on whether to buy a new car or a new minivan...yeah it was a wierd day... Oh, and one of my family members was found dead-our suckerfish named Sharkbait; we had to flush him and buy a new smaller one (which cost $6!). Assuming he survives a week or so we'll have to find a name for the newest addition to our family.

Wednesday I took Karen to get what are almost her last shots before starting school. This was the worst trip to the doctor that she's ever had. I think she remembers the last time she was there or something because she totally threw a fit whenever a nurse person or doctor came close to her. In the past three months Karen has grown another 3 inches longer (now 32 in. total) and gained another 2 pounds (24 lb. total). She's in the 75th percentile for both height and weight, and is now no longer required to dring whole milk but can take a full dose of baby tylenol. Her growth rate is supposed to be slowing down now, but it hasn't slowed much. At this rate she'll be 3 1/2 feet tall by the time she's two, and weigh almost enough to be out of a booster seat... I hope she slows down! Also last night at our Activity with my 8-12 yr. old girls (15 of them last night!) I taught them how to play 'do you love your neighbor?' and they thought it was the coolest thing in the whole world. Now they want a party night where they can play games like that the whole time... only I can't remember any more of them... any help? I could teach them 'signs' but I think they're a little young for that...

Anyway, things are going well here. Joe finished the last section of his 'thesis' project today. After a little more polishing it will be completely done!!!! Also tonight is the NFL season opener: Colts v. Saints, and about half of our fantasy team is playing (against each other!!). Maybe I should take some pictures to put on here...it's been a while....