Hurricanes and Hospitals

Once again, it's been another long time since my last post.  It has been a hectic month.  We survived the earthquake and Hurricane Irene just fine.  We also survived the rain the following week that caused so much more damage to Pennsylvania than Irene did.  We are very thankful that we had the trees taken care of last fall.  We feel very fortunate and hope that those friends and colleagues of ours who are still dealing with the clean-up from these events are able to recover quickly.

The other thing that has kept us very busy is that our son, who just started his senior year in high school, has been very sick.  He was finally admitted to the hospital last week for tests and stayed there until Thursday.  The weeks leading up to it were packed with doctor's appointments and all sorts of tests.  Overall, our son has been handling it very well.  He is glad to be back at school, though, so he can graduate on time.  Tim and I are exhausted.

Tim is getting close to finishing the south-wing bathroom.  He has to remove part of a new wall so that he can attach the sink-top to the studs behind it.  He's not thrilled about it, so is procrastinating.

One thing the last few weeks of storms and rain did prove to us is that our phone lines really do need to be dealt with.  Anytime it rains or the wind blows, we lose our land-line.  This past weekend, while I was finally planting the mums I bought just before Irene, Tim started tracing all the phone lines back to find out where the issue is.  When we switched to Verizon last year, they added a new box downstairs, but connected it to the old outside box through this weird connector-thing inside.  The connector-thing (I really don't have a better name for it) is corroded and very old.   We also have two different types of phone wires here.  The best thing to do is rip out all the phone lines and replace it all with new - attaching it to the new Verizon box.

We have, I believe, 10 different phone jacks here in the house.  Some are the old four-pronged jacks and some are the new ones.  It's a lot of new phone wires, but it will be good to have it all done correctly and updated.  That's been the theme here - replacing the old and worn-out completely, rather than just trying to piece it together.  It's easier and safer.

So that's another quick update.  I hope to be able to post more house-remodeling pictures soon!