For those who don't know, my husband has been on the job hunt for 10+ months. Since he has a college degree, and has applied for at least 100 jobs, there's obviously a lot of people interested in jobs right now. So the last few days he's taken up farming, with none other than my dear dad.
Dear gussie.
Right now is peak farming time. Cotton needs to be picked, peanuts have to be dug then picked, and at some point soybeans will have to be harvested too. Picking cotton is the first priority right now, and it isn't an easy process. There's no less than 3 pieces of equipment used to just get those square things called modules you see on the side of the road made.
Someone has to operate each piece of equipment, and the more people participating, the easier (and faster) it goes. That would be how hubby got recruited. While my husband grew up in the Mecca of all things agricultural--Tifton, GA--he would be considered, at most, a novice for operating equipment. However, after day one, dear dad has claimed he's learned faster anyone he's taught. Considering that one guy who works for dear dad has attended school a total of two weeks in his life, and the other guy has worked in a dairy milking cows since he was 14, the odds were in hubby's favor.
Of course, there's also a certain song that was popular this summer that the two of us can't quit singing right now either.
I'll get some pictures of him operating all that large equipment as soon as I can find him in a field.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
The Big C update
After an 11 day hiatus from the working world, I'm trying to psych myself up for tomorrow. Yes, I realize I will be spoiled with a 3 day work week, but being out of the office that long also means mounds of paperwork and who knows how many phone calls and emails to reply to...not to mention the pile of work I still had to leave and hope to accomplish when I returned to the office this week. Besides the obvious rest from the real world, this week of rest has made me realize something--I must be accountable to myself. I may be the world's worst procrastinator. Seriously (just ask my old roommates, they can attest). Procrastination does not equal less stress in the working world, it typically equals more. So, starting tomorrow at work I'm going to be accountable to the deadlines I set for myself and be accountable, most importantly, to the clients I work with on a daily basis. That would be why I'm writing tonight. It's my first effort in being accountable, because I said yesterday that I was going to update about dear DT, and I'm trying to follow through on that promise (because I know you all were checking all day to see if I had an update, right?).
Dear DT is still in Atlanta in the hospital, sadly. She's actually doing quite well, but her doctors are waiting to see the results of some CT scans before they officially send her home. Her surgery went very well, but 12 inches of her large intestines and rectum had to be removed. They also removed 20 lymph nodes, and 7 of them tested positive for cancer, which puts her diagnosis in stage 3. DT was pretty discouraged when she got the pathology results, because she was truly hoping the surgery would be the only thing she'd have to do. Instead, she has a very long recovery and treatment process ahead of her. She's met with a few oncologists, but is still trying to determine exactly where she wants to undergo her treatments, since she'll have 6 months of chemotherapy, with probably a full month of radiation wrapped in with her chemo. With such an aggressive therapy ahead of her, DT's pretty nervous and is trying to stay upbeat. The hope is that they'll send her home from the hospital tomorrow to let her fully recover for the next month before they start her treatments. Hubby will be heading down to good old T-town over the weekend so he can help his parents out once they get home...
..so that's as brief of an update as possible on DT. Prayers are certainly welcome right now!!
Dear DT is still in Atlanta in the hospital, sadly. She's actually doing quite well, but her doctors are waiting to see the results of some CT scans before they officially send her home. Her surgery went very well, but 12 inches of her large intestines and rectum had to be removed. They also removed 20 lymph nodes, and 7 of them tested positive for cancer, which puts her diagnosis in stage 3. DT was pretty discouraged when she got the pathology results, because she was truly hoping the surgery would be the only thing she'd have to do. Instead, she has a very long recovery and treatment process ahead of her. She's met with a few oncologists, but is still trying to determine exactly where she wants to undergo her treatments, since she'll have 6 months of chemotherapy, with probably a full month of radiation wrapped in with her chemo. With such an aggressive therapy ahead of her, DT's pretty nervous and is trying to stay upbeat. The hope is that they'll send her home from the hospital tomorrow to let her fully recover for the next month before they start her treatments. Hubby will be heading down to good old T-town over the weekend so he can help his parents out once they get home...
..so that's as brief of an update as possible on DT. Prayers are certainly welcome right now!!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Happier Things
For future reference, let me say that I refer to my mother-in-law as DT. I don't call her this in person, it's just a nickname I use to reference her, and it's just her initials, but I think it's amusing because it's also the nickname for my vehicle. Tomorrow I will give a full update on DT's progress. Today I'm going to talk about something fun.
Things that are fun to me are not necessarily fun to my poor husband. I don't think he realized this when he married me. In fact, I know he didn't realize it. I told him once when we were engaged "I really like to do stuff...you know, crafts, flower arrangements, home improvements, and just Suzy-homemaker-style stuff". He has told me since that time that he didn't realize what that really meant. Or that when I get a notion in my head about what I want to do, that's all my mind gets set on. I see it as stress relief mainly. Poor hubby sees most of this as work, because most of my notions involve him doing something to make me happy and not something he particularly enjoys.
So this weekend, in light of our un-fun week, I decided to tackle our next project--the utility room--because I thought it would be fun. Let me first say, we have an awesome utility room, and I call it a utility room because it holds more than just our washer and dryer. For a house the age and size of ours, the utility room is amazing. I'm fairly certain it's larger than our guest bedroom. However, it's also become the black hole of our house. With all of the other rooms receiving some TLC, the utility room became the place where everything that didn't have a place went. Luckily, when I made the suggestion to hubby Saturday about starting the great utility room painting project, he agreed, but that's only because he's been wanting to tackle the black hole for at least 2 months. We made the agreement that as long as he organized all the stuff I would do the painting, because he hates to paint, and I'd rather live in clutter than tackle a pile of junk. Here's a few before pictures, clutter included:
This is the view from the door:
If you look closely on the left side of this, you'll see hubby's handiwork where he removed a door (and you can see me painting down in the bottom). Yeah, he's gotten pretty handy. I think I'll keep him:
My husband was also in charge of picture taking and somehow managed to forget taking a picture of the main point of this room, the washer and dryer...oh well, those will just be saved for after pictures. Now, the room is nowhere close to being done, but it looks SO much better:
Ok, not so much. It looks more like a teenage girl with bad highlights, but it's coming along. This is the one room we decided to keep the paneling in. In order to paint the paneling, you of course have to prime it first. I choose Kilz 2 (always...this stuff works miracles people).
In order to cover up these dark stripes, you have to use primer on them separately before you prime the whole room. It's what they say to do, so I do it. (They primarily consists of my mother and grandmother).
That's the stage we're currently in. Trust me, when you're the only one doing the painting it can take awhile. I'll update as soon as I make more progress.
Things that are fun to me are not necessarily fun to my poor husband. I don't think he realized this when he married me. In fact, I know he didn't realize it. I told him once when we were engaged "I really like to do stuff...you know, crafts, flower arrangements, home improvements, and just Suzy-homemaker-style stuff". He has told me since that time that he didn't realize what that really meant. Or that when I get a notion in my head about what I want to do, that's all my mind gets set on. I see it as stress relief mainly. Poor hubby sees most of this as work, because most of my notions involve him doing something to make me happy and not something he particularly enjoys.
So this weekend, in light of our un-fun week, I decided to tackle our next project--the utility room--because I thought it would be fun. Let me first say, we have an awesome utility room, and I call it a utility room because it holds more than just our washer and dryer. For a house the age and size of ours, the utility room is amazing. I'm fairly certain it's larger than our guest bedroom. However, it's also become the black hole of our house. With all of the other rooms receiving some TLC, the utility room became the place where everything that didn't have a place went. Luckily, when I made the suggestion to hubby Saturday about starting the great utility room painting project, he agreed, but that's only because he's been wanting to tackle the black hole for at least 2 months. We made the agreement that as long as he organized all the stuff I would do the painting, because he hates to paint, and I'd rather live in clutter than tackle a pile of junk. Here's a few before pictures, clutter included:
This is the view from the door:
If you look closely on the left side of this, you'll see hubby's handiwork where he removed a door (and you can see me painting down in the bottom). Yeah, he's gotten pretty handy. I think I'll keep him:
My husband was also in charge of picture taking and somehow managed to forget taking a picture of the main point of this room, the washer and dryer...oh well, those will just be saved for after pictures. Now, the room is nowhere close to being done, but it looks SO much better:
Ok, not so much. It looks more like a teenage girl with bad highlights, but it's coming along. This is the one room we decided to keep the paneling in. In order to paint the paneling, you of course have to prime it first. I choose Kilz 2 (always...this stuff works miracles people).
In order to cover up these dark stripes, you have to use primer on them separately before you prime the whole room. It's what they say to do, so I do it. (They primarily consists of my mother and grandmother).
That's the stage we're currently in. Trust me, when you're the only one doing the painting it can take awhile. I'll update as soon as I make more progress.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
The Big C
When I started this blog, one of the primary reasons I wanted to do it was to try and condense my thoughts and all the happenings in my crazy newlywed life. I will say that in our first year of marriage, my husband and I have dealt with a great deal--a new job for me, a lack of a job for him, relocating, and extensively renovating our house have been difficult to deal with, especially when they are combined together. However, nothing was as difficult as what I know we'll soon be facing (because we need to learn how to handle one more thing, right?). My mother-in-law was diagnosed with Colorectal cancer last week, and will have surgery Monday, followed by some type of treatment after the doctors determine what stage her cancer is in. For my husband and most of his family, starting this whole experience is very intimidating and scary. For me, it largely feels like old hat, not because I've had to battle my own personal "Big C" experience of course, but because my family has had it's fair share of Big C's; from my grandfather to many uncles, I've learned the ins and outs of dealing with it.
I know that out of this will come many blessings for my husband's family, as difficult as that is to think about right now. I also know that this will be a journey of faith for all of us. Today we were talking about how many blessings we've already seen as a result of our faith--his mother found a doctor and scheduled an appointment within 3 days of her initial test results, I made plans to be on vacation from work the week of her surgery well before we knew about any of this, or the fact that while hubby doesn't have a job, it will probably allow him to spend as much time with his mom as necessary. Ultimately though, we know it will be a true journey of our family's faith, and just another test of our young marriage.
I know that out of this will come many blessings for my husband's family, as difficult as that is to think about right now. I also know that this will be a journey of faith for all of us. Today we were talking about how many blessings we've already seen as a result of our faith--his mother found a doctor and scheduled an appointment within 3 days of her initial test results, I made plans to be on vacation from work the week of her surgery well before we knew about any of this, or the fact that while hubby doesn't have a job, it will probably allow him to spend as much time with his mom as necessary. Ultimately though, we know it will be a true journey of our family's faith, and just another test of our young marriage.
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