Sickness and Repairs

 I feel like I should rename this blog: Chronicles of My Family Getting Sick.  Because we've just had so much going around.  On Monday David started feeling really gross so he went to the doctor and they gave him meds for Strep.  Ava has been super congested for the last week (she can't breathe out of her nose at all) and I had been doing absolutely everything I could for her.  Cold medicine, humidifier, nose spray, allergy medicine, Vicks, hot showers.  But  nothing really helps.  

Yesterday I got a call from her teacher saying she was sitting in class crying because her stomach hurt.  I thought (and feel bad about now) that she was just being overly anxious about the congestion, but made an appointment to take her to the doctor.  I explained her symptoms and he looked her over.  He said her congestion was probably a viral infection and there wasn't much we could do about that.  But he also said he thought she had something else going on because her tonsils were so swollen it was almost making it hard for her to breathe, which probably also contributed to the congestion.  She never once complained about a sore throat, but when I told the doctor Asher had strep last week, he said she probably had it and so now 3 people in the house are taking antibiotics for strep.  I'm really hoping it just passes right over me!  Mia has had a little bit of a cough, but for the most part she's been fine.  

I saw a video on Facebook the other day of a woman saying she didn't understand how families can have both parents working full time because she has spent so much time with sick kids at home and having to take care of them.  I think the same thing!  I don't understand how people can do it.  Ava alone has missed more school this year than I did my whole time in High School.  I have made at least 20 trips to the school in the middle of the day.  And not only that, but we have had so many repairman come to our house!  I feel like most of what I do every day is put out fires.  I just move from one fire to another, so it's hard to articulate what I accomplish in a day, but it sure makes me tired!

Speaking of repairman, we had another one come this week.  Last weekend was a lot warmer so snow was melting which meant the leak that I discovered last fall started up again.  It drips down into our kitchen and I know it's a leak in our roof because it only happens when the snow is melting or it's raining.  Anyways, we took apart the cabinet when the leak was coming down to see if it was something we could fix ourselves.  We couldn't see anything so on Monday I called a roofer to see if he could figure out the problem.  I went to Rexburg to hang out at my mom's house because it was stressing me out too much to be home right then.  And it was a good distraction!  The roofer came on Wednesday and said it was all probably because of a missing screw on the base where an exhaust pipe comes out on the roof.  We could try to fix it ourselves with some silicon or pay them like $200 to do it.  I think we may try to do it ourselves...

My kitchen on Sunday.  I love having to take my house apart.

Because this was a rental house for so many years before we bought it, a lot of things have been neglected and we are trying to fix them as much as we can.  We have had many different types of repairmen come and I'd like to rank them from best to worst:

• Roofer!  Granted, all he did was look at things and didn't do any actual work.  But he was so quick, in and out in under 30 minutes!  He didn't have to go all over inside the house to do stuff, it was quiet, and there was no mess to clean up.
• Electrician. We've had a couple different guys come and they've all been very down to earth and fast getting things done.  They don't make too much of a mess and aren't super expensive.
• Tree Removal.  The company we used to take out our trees were awesome and they did a great job.  I also liked that they didn't have to come in the house (I like when I'm not left alone with random guys in the middle of the day).  They were also very fast (speed is a big plus for me!) They also cut up the tree so we could use it for firewood. But it is loud with the chainsaw and it took them a super long time to grind our stumps.  And it made a big mess with pine needles and small branches and we had to take our fence apart (which they helped put back together).  It also made our grass even more lumpy than it already was.  So didn't love that.
• Window Construction.  We put in an egress window a couple years ago.  It was a huge mess on the side of our house, their tractor tore up our grass, and it was an all day process with insanely loud tools because they were cutting through our concrete.  But, they were all super friendly and tried cleaning things up as best they could.  They also helped us figure out the best way to finish our basement and spent a lot of time talking us through the whole process.  
• And the repairmen I dislike having come to our house the most is......plumber!  Honestly, the actual people that come to our house have all been very nice.  I have noticed that plumbers tend to be a little more rough around the edges.  A lot more tattoos and earrings than on other repairmen.  They also have to go all over your house to get to the water shutoff and sinks and drains and everything.  It also takes so much longer than other jobs.  Usually they're coming because of some big mess like the basement flooding so I already feel stressed out.  And it feels like they are more expensive than other jobs.  Ironically, we have had plumbers here more than any other repairmen.  Like when we call them they know who we are and where we live before we give our address.  So that's nice. 

I am glad for all of those people because I can't imagine trying to do any of this stuff on our own.  I'm just hoping that our next house will require a few less visits from them.

I'll just end with this picture.  I'm that person that brings my dog with me on errands.  If I know I'm going somewhere that will take less than 45 minutes (unless it's hot outside) then I'll bring Millie.  Sometimes I'll open the window (and crank up my heat) so she can stick her head out.  She's my buddy, especially now that it's just her and me during the day!