if pumpkin products cure tetanus, matt is going to be just fine

Well, I blinked and it is October.

We've been working on the kitchen almost every night.  

So far we've gotten electrical work done, removed all of the old paneling and woodwork, ripped down old drywall and put up new walls and insulation, spackled the walls, spent HOURS repairing the ceiling, removed some cabinets, an old oven, a built-in desk, and installed a new AC unit.  I know this prep work is important but it's also tedious and I am excited to see the new things going in.  There are 24 boxes of flooring in my living room and the cabinets are coming on Wednesday morning, so let's hope we can get to that quickly.

Every night I ask Matt what's on the docket for the next day because I like to be prepared in life.  Always have.  Growing up, and let's be honest, even when I lived at home at the ripe old age of 23, I would ask my mom at dinner what we were having the next night for dinner.  She always answered patiently even though someone, especially a 23 year old someone, asking me that every night would drive me nuts.  But I enjoy knowing what's to come.

Anyway, usually Matt gives me the basic rundown.  But tonight he said, "Tomorrow?  Tomorrow, you are going to see your wonderful husband create his own, unique, spackle masterpiece."  So, that should be interesting.

The worst part so far has been sanding the ceiling to remove the adhesive the old owners applied QUITE LIBERALLY to the styrofoam beams they attached to the 11 foot ceilings.  I am a girl who sometimes struggles to lift a full gallon of milk onto the top shelf of the fridge, so holding a sander over my head all day made my shoulders feel like they were a raging inferno.  I could barely life my arms to shampoo my hair on Monday morning.

This weekend we had our first actual injury, when Matt was trying to break down a piece of wood paneling.  He held one end up and stepped on the middle to break it in half, but a nail went right into his calf.  

After he pulled it out he said, "Well, that was dumb.  I knew that was going to happen."

Cue all the googling about puncture wounds and just how quickly tetanus sets in (3 to 21 days).

A trip to urgent care, a tetanus shot, and an antibiotic later he is back in business.  He is supposed to ice it and when I suggested he do that he said, "I can't.  It will make my leg cold."

You can lead a horse to water.  Or a man to the freezer for a bag of frozen corn.

Last week I spent a few days at my brother and sister-in-law's to watch my baby nephew.  He is the cutest thing in all the land.

I checked in with my boss the afternoon before I left and she asked if I had anything fun planned for my days off.  I told her I was babysitting, and that I had such high hopes to get lots of reading done that I stopped at the library to pick up three books I'd reserved.

She laughed and said, "You know what mothers who stay home with newborns always say?  You won't BELIEVE how many books I've read."

I am here to report she was right and I read exactly half of one chapter.  I didn't even have to worry about normal day to day activities like laundry and food shopping and cleaning the toilets but a baby has a lot of requirements and who wants to read when you can spend hours upon hours trying to make a baby smile?

I came home on Thursday night and pulled up to see my father-in-law standing on our front steps with a beer and Matt's pick-up truck on the middle of the front lawn.

Things sure get crazy when I'm away.

Turns out they'd gone to pick up the floors, and Matt backed the truck right on up to the front door for maximum unloading ease.

I thought the idea was brilliant so I did the same thing on Friday afternoon when I made a big Trader Joe's trip.

Just kidding.

But I did buy so many pumpkin products that it probably would have been easier to unload that way.  I'll have to remember that next week when I go to replenish my stock of pumpkin waffles, pumpkin ravioli, pumpkin coffee creamer, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin cookies, and pumpkin biscuits.

I might even need to bring the pick-up.