Other than my quick congratulations to my cousin on his marriage, I haven't written in a week. There is so much I COULD have written about, but I just always felt like I didn't have time, was too tired, or just didn't know how to articulate what was going on.
Sean (my younger brother) is coming home from inpatient rehab today! Actually, he should be on his way home very soon if he isn't already. Mom was going to be there by 9am (after already putting in 2 hours in the Financial Aid office here on campus because the $#!* hit the fans early this week) and they wanted him completely discharged before noon. I asked mom if she wanted me to go with her since Dad had an eye dr's appt this morning, but she said no, so I'm half-waiting for a frantic text from Sean. I don't know how soon he starts outpatient pt, but it's going to be 3x a week for an hour every session. We were lucky enough to be able to get him into AW Physical Therapy, which uses the little gym in the old village offices building down the road from us. I asked mom to check out membership prices when she goes in with him. I've been looking for a place to use an eliptical and spin bike since I have neither and there are some days my knees just won't stand running, but more on that later.
We spent yesterday evening getting the house ready in between phone calls with the hospital, insurance company, and physical therapy places. Since Sean's bed is too tall for him to crawl into, we "cleaned" the playroom/spare bedroom so he could sleep on the daybed in there. And since we knew it was going to take him a couple days to be able to come upstairs, we moved the trundle bed that's usually stored under the day bed downstairs to the computer/piano room. Yes, we have a LOT of beds in our house. My mom's brother's family is big and they all stay with us when they come in from out of town, so we're used to interesting sleeping arrangements. Anyway, The spare bedroom has been used mainly for storage since I moved home last year (you try to move an entire apartment's worth of stuff back into a house that already has 18 years worth of your life in it!) so it was interesting. I packed up another carload of stuff to take to my storage unit, but some stuff just CAN'T be stored, like open food, my sewing kits, and my art supplies (have you ever seen melted oil crayons? yea. exactly). Let's just say mom and I are the queens of tetris for a reason. lol. We rearranged the games in the closet to get more of my boxes in there and the rest went under the daybed where the trundle normally stores. Dad didn't like it (more on that in a minute), but oh well. Plus, we were cracking up listening to dad. He decided the hand-railing in the stairwell needed to be reinforced since Sean will be putting most of his weight on it as he goes up and down the steps. There used to be 4 support brackets and now there's one in every stud along the length of the railing, 8 in all. The entertaining part was listening to him trying to find the studs and drill the holes for the screws. Instead of just running the stud finder along the railing, he was trying to run it along horizontal and then eyeball up to where the bracket would need to be along the railing. He missed several times. That wall has never been "pretty" (a young cousin stuck a knee into the drywall as he fell down the steps years ago), but now it's just hilarious to look at with the extra screw holes, pencil marks, and 2 different colors of brackets.
Oh, so dad's little rant. Mom and I were standing in the room deciding how to best move stuff around so Sean could get the walker in and out of the room and be able to reach everything he needs when he's laying down without his back-brace and dad just stomps upstairs and stands there in the doorway staring at us. After a minute, he snaps "Just get all this shit out of here." When I ask him where would be a better place to put it for now, "I don't care, just get it out of here." Well, like I explained a little already, there is no place else to put stuff. When I moved out and went to college, I really only took my clothes, computer, and tv with me. 18+ years of CRAP was left at my parents' house. So when I moved home, I had to try to fit everything from my "away life" into what was left at home. All my furniture, kitchen stuff, some clothes, and other random crap went to a storage unit, but a lot of stuff that I use regularly had to come home with me. I've been slowly going through all my old stuff and condensing boxes, but apparently more than a day is far too long for my father, even though him and mom's shit is spread EVERYWHERE, in every corner of the house, basement, back garage, and yard. It's a ridiculous double-standard that I remind them of every so often when they particularly piss me off. Mom isn't innocent either but her snipes usually involve the laundry room. We get yelled at if our laundry sits on the dryer for more than 10 minutes, but she has crap piled chest-high on the sewing machine table and has stuff sitting on the dryer from months ago. Every time they leave, I move her pile from the dryer to the top of the pile on the sewing machine so I have room to fold clothes. And she always flips out over it when she gets home. Neither one of them see the correlation between my actions and theirs. And lord help you if you're caught sitting at the "family computer". Dad swears up, down, and sideways, that Sean and I are getting viruses on the desktop. Uh huh, sure. Neither one of us have touched that computer in years (we each have our own). Oh, and dad gets on youtube, ebay, craigslist, ICHC, and other sites every night and almost never checks emails before he opens them. So, sure Dad, Sean and I are the ones screwing up "your" computer. Just like we HAD TO HAVE learned to curse from our friends at school because you NEVER talk like that at home.
*rolls eyes*
Ok, rant over ... until they do something else. I'm sure I'll get set off within an hour of getting home tonight, but it'll be one of the several fights we seem to just keep recycling. It never ends at our house. And should be even more fun now that Sean's going to be home full-time. lol
I really wish I were on my way down to Ft Loramie right now. Country Concert starts tonight and goes through Sunday. We go almost every year as our "family vacation", but Dad didn't like the line-up this year so he refused to buy tickets. And it's just too dang expensive for me to buy a ticket for even one day's shows on my own. I could have really used the long weekend too, preferably drinking with friends on the other side of the venue from my family.
I wish I could say the 5 lbs I've lost in the past 3 weeks was due to good diet and exercise, but I really can't. I've managed to get in a couple great trail runs, but My eating is way off from the stress of dealing with all of Sean's crap and the reality of my masters work timeline sinking in. Where the hell has the summer gone? I wanted to have my paper written and to my advisor by my birthday ... and that's 2 weeks away! And that's another thing. I normally start getting excited about my birthday a month ahead of time and I didn't even think about it until last night when I looked at the calender and realized what the date was!
I need to be myself back in line: a healthy diet, daily exercise (and increasing my CV fitness and run distances), and getting my research paper back on track.
My plan for the rest of the day? Lunch. Another hour or so of organizing this stupid database. Run (location and distance TBD still). Home to shower. Load of laundry. Work on cleaning off my desk and dresser top so I actually have a place to work at home where I don't have the family staring over my shoulder. I would love to find the fitted sheet for my summer sheet set too. I still have the flannel sheets on my bed (even though I only sleep with my throw blanket most nights anyway ... I like sticking my feet out. lol).
