Cabinets, School, and Pain

Mmmm....sunshine streaming through the windows today - a welcome sight after this past week of all rain and cold!

That's me, with my Mothers' Day present. I went to church to pick up Will last Sat. from his trip to Adventureland and when I got back I discovered the contents of my cupboards on the table, and Paul and David busily hanging the new cupboards! When we moved in 5 1/2 yrs ago we immediately began replacing the cupboards, as money allowed. The ones they had were so old and sloped with age. This is the last of them! After Paul got the first one hung he realized that they had sent the wrong cupboards. He had ordered 30" cabinets, but they sent 33" ones instead. I told him I'd just as soon have the extra 6" of space, so we went ahead and hung them, even though it cuts over the window. That window will eventually come out, anyway, when we do the planned kitchen expansion. In the meantime, Paul is going to put a board in there so the windown will have the appearance of being normal - just narrower.

This week I've been dealing with the school and AEA regarding Ben's entrance into school. I'm a bit steamed that I had to be the one to contact the AEA, only to be informed by the lady that she had been "too busy" to work on Ben's IEP. She sent me a partially completed one. It's been a bit of an ordeal and it really has made me question - are we doing the right thing? Is Ben supposed to attend school, and if so, that school? But Wed. night my friend, Janice, at church reminded me that just because something is God's will, it doesn't mean that it will necessarily come easily. Yesterday I did get a phonecall from Mr. K, who will be Ben's teacher. He handles all the special needs students in the middle school. He is not happy with the way things have been handled, either (I knew I liked him!). So, the short version of the long story that keeps getting longer is that we have a meeting this coming Monday morning at 8:15 am. Our friend, Terry, from church is going with us and will advocate for us and for Ben, asking the questions that we aren't aware we need to ask. As it stands now, it looks like Ben will be starting school next Tuesday, dependent, of course, on the meeting Monday. It's later in the year than I wanted him to start, but there's not much I can do about it now. In talking to Mr. K yesterday, I decided to go ahead and enroll Ben in Extended Year Services for the first two weeks of June. He'll be at school from 1-3 every afternoon. I'd already agreed to this for August. So that will give him a little more transition time.

It's been a painful week for me. Wednesday I had to get a filling. Well, I thought I had to get a filling. It turned out that I needed something called a "pulpectomy" which sounds exceedingly disturbing. They had to pop out a filling I already had, clean up the decay, and then put in a new, deeper filling. My dentist darkly hinted at the possibility of a root canal and crown for that tooth. I like my dentist, Dr. Tesano. He looks just like Josh Groban. I enjoy just looking at him. He started to tell me about how his wife is due to have their first baby this week and I wanted to say, "Hush! Don't spoil this for me - let me just look at you!" That's probably kind of pathetic, huh - getting hot flashes over my 20-something dentist?! Ha, ha, ha!

But anyway, it's two days later and jaw is still incredibly sore. My tongue is battered and swollen and I still can't open my mouth all the way. I'm slurring my words and I'm having to wad up food and poke into my mouth because I can't bite normally. Dr. Tesano did comment on my tongue and said the same thing that every single dentist I've ever been to since I was 13 has said, "You sure have a big and powerful tongue!" I don't think that's a compliment, dirty as it sounds. At one point the dentist asked me to tuck my tongue into the right side of my mouth. I honestly tried. My brain told my tongue, "Move!" It didn't move. Dr. Tesano tapped me on the right side of my face, "over here - move it over here!" Duh! I know which side of my face is the right side! I finally told him, "It won't move!" There's just something about that tongue I guess. When I was 13 I had braces put on and I remember my orthodontist, Dr. Christiansen, (he's in Waterloo, likes to run for the school board - don't vote for him) swearing at me and throwing his dental tools down on my chest, mad that my tongue had messed up some of his brace work!

And then yesterday I bent over, stood up, and felt a sickening ripple up and down my spine. I've been in a lot of back pain ever since. Something went out of place. Every half hour or so I have to hobble over to my bed and lay down on my heating pad. Hopefully, that will work itself out soon. I had Paul pick up an extra large bottle of Advil yesterday, just in case it doesn't!

I was thrilled to discover yesterday that my latest FaithWriter's piece placed 3rd at the Intermediate level! Yay! I've been trying to break into that top 3 for so long! It was another devotional-type, piece, which I'll post here later. One of the comments I got was from a woman really high up in FW. I don't know if she judges or not, but I do know she teaches an on-line writing class and also does seminars at their convention every summer in Michigan. She said, "I'd love to see what you could do with fiction." That comment stayed with me all week long because writing fiction is my ultimate dream. But I'm scared to death to do it because I might not be very good at it and then - poof! There would go my dream! But a story began to slowly evolve in my mind over the next few days and I finally had one to go with the next assigned topic. I was pysched up and ready to write it when I got home from church Wed. night. Well, we pulled into town - and discovered that we had no electricity! It had been storming all night and knocked out the power to the town.

It was actually quite cozy arriving home. Paul had not made it to church because he was working, but he got home before we did and had placed lit candles into every downstairs room. But candles won't power a computer! So all I can conclude is that God doesn't want me to write fiction yet. Or, more likely, it's just something called, "life!"

Well, I think that's it for my report on this week. We may be going out tonight for date night - or maybe not. It depends on how late Paul works and if the basement dries up. He's ready to pour footings and is trying to get everything coordinated with the weather, his progress, and the concrete company. So, I told him, "whatever." It'd be nice to go out, but I don't want to get in the way of progress, either. This project is already taking way too long! I had a few stops I wanted to make in town with him, but I can do those tomorrow after I drop Ben off at respite care.

If Ben does go to school next week, it's going to be big. Pray for him - and his mother who may be a bit emotional about all of it!