It's been nearly 2 freaking years since I updated this thread.
Oops.
Life has been...
...interesting.
On 7 November 2024, my mother died of complications of a lovely little disease called Corticobasal Degeneration, "a rare, progressive neurological disease characterized by the death of nerve cells and shrinkage in the cerebral cortex and basal ganglia. It leads to severe motor, cognitive, and speech impairments, typically beginning between ages 50 and 70."
For the 5+ years previous, my sister and I took turns helping her and my father. My sister lives about an hour from them (now just dad), while I live a good 10 hours away. She would go over several times a week, and I would go down and stay with them about a week per month to her a break.
In the meantime, my noggin decided it was dissatisfied with this arrangement, and so the frequency of the lovely little headaches I get increased by several fold.
And then there were the fun detours such as when my wife broke her finger and needed corrective surgery, the asshat who decided to key my car, etc., etc., etc..
Interspersed with all that, we were increasing out trips to visit my in-laws in New Mexico. My father-in-law was fighting a 14 year long battle with Pulmonary Fibrosis, and had gotten to a point where the end was obviously drawing near, and he could no longer travel. As my wife has MS and cannot get into a tub without help, I drove out and replaced the guest bathroom tub with a shower stall so she could visit without me having to be there. This made it so I could continue to tend to my parents, while she was able to see her parents quite a bit that last year.
He passed away 3 November 2025.
As to Kristy (my wife) and her MS, last year she had a pump installed which pumps Baclofen (and antispasmodic) directly into her spine (making it 1,000 times more effective) to help with the spasticity in her legs. The good news is, now she can bend her legs much more easily. The bad news is, with them being pretty much locked up for so long, she has no strength and actually needs more hep getting around. She should have been doing better than she is currently, but with all the goings on, we weren't aggressive enough in upping the dosage and so she hasn't been able to do the exercises needed to get strong again. She's about got it dialed in, so we're hoping she'll be a lot more mobile in the next year or so.
So, as you might imagine, most projects pretty much came to a halt. Between not having the time and spending all our money on trips to her folks or mine, not much got done.
Where I am now...
Projects. Current project is rehabilitating the front room (if one could call it that) in our house. Originally, there was a set of sliding glass doors and a small patio, but at some point some genius decided to put a roof over the patio (enlarging it by 8' in width, but doing nothing in depth) to create a pretty much useless room. Worse, as I have found while trying to unf#@k the construction, it wasn't built very well, either.
Pulling the floor up I discovered the concrete slab/porch. On 4' of either side, it's just dirt.
I discovered a window!
The bottom of this wall was completely rotted out.
I'm replacing the walls with 6X6s and 2X8 headers. The ridge (not currently well supported at all) will be supported by 6X6s and a 2X8 ridge beam.
Once finished, the entire thing will be screened in. In the place where I discovered a window, there will be an entrance door (we'll actually have a front door!), and a set of French Doors will go approximately where the opening between the room and the dining room was.
I'll use gravel and crusher run to level the sections on either side of the pad, then finish the floor with pavers.
Peaking out in the background you can see my Jeep. I'm working on rebuilding the suspension and redoing the interior (to be continued)...
Oops.
Life has been...
...interesting.
On 7 November 2024, my mother died of complications of a lovely little disease called Corticobasal Degeneration, "a rare, progressive neurological disease characterized by the death of nerve cells and shrinkage in the cerebral cortex and basal ganglia. It leads to severe motor, cognitive, and speech impairments, typically beginning between ages 50 and 70."
For the 5+ years previous, my sister and I took turns helping her and my father. My sister lives about an hour from them (now just dad), while I live a good 10 hours away. She would go over several times a week, and I would go down and stay with them about a week per month to her a break.
In the meantime, my noggin decided it was dissatisfied with this arrangement, and so the frequency of the lovely little headaches I get increased by several fold.
And then there were the fun detours such as when my wife broke her finger and needed corrective surgery, the asshat who decided to key my car, etc., etc., etc..
Interspersed with all that, we were increasing out trips to visit my in-laws in New Mexico. My father-in-law was fighting a 14 year long battle with Pulmonary Fibrosis, and had gotten to a point where the end was obviously drawing near, and he could no longer travel. As my wife has MS and cannot get into a tub without help, I drove out and replaced the guest bathroom tub with a shower stall so she could visit without me having to be there. This made it so I could continue to tend to my parents, while she was able to see her parents quite a bit that last year.
He passed away 3 November 2025.
As to Kristy (my wife) and her MS, last year she had a pump installed which pumps Baclofen (and antispasmodic) directly into her spine (making it 1,000 times more effective) to help with the spasticity in her legs. The good news is, now she can bend her legs much more easily. The bad news is, with them being pretty much locked up for so long, she has no strength and actually needs more hep getting around. She should have been doing better than she is currently, but with all the goings on, we weren't aggressive enough in upping the dosage and so she hasn't been able to do the exercises needed to get strong again. She's about got it dialed in, so we're hoping she'll be a lot more mobile in the next year or so.
So, as you might imagine, most projects pretty much came to a halt. Between not having the time and spending all our money on trips to her folks or mine, not much got done.
Where I am now...
Projects. Current project is rehabilitating the front room (if one could call it that) in our house. Originally, there was a set of sliding glass doors and a small patio, but at some point some genius decided to put a roof over the patio (enlarging it by 8' in width, but doing nothing in depth) to create a pretty much useless room. Worse, as I have found while trying to unf#@k the construction, it wasn't built very well, either.
Pulling the floor up I discovered the concrete slab/porch. On 4' of either side, it's just dirt.
I discovered a window!
The bottom of this wall was completely rotted out.
I'm replacing the walls with 6X6s and 2X8 headers. The ridge (not currently well supported at all) will be supported by 6X6s and a 2X8 ridge beam.
Once finished, the entire thing will be screened in. In the place where I discovered a window, there will be an entrance door (we'll actually have a front door!), and a set of French Doors will go approximately where the opening between the room and the dining room was.
I'll use gravel and crusher run to level the sections on either side of the pad, then finish the floor with pavers.
Peaking out in the background you can see my Jeep. I'm working on rebuilding the suspension and redoing the interior (to be continued)...
