My aunt is making some progress. She’s still not fully recovered, and at this point she’s been told she should look into finally filing for disability (she has had major back trouble for years prior to her recent illness). That’s a big blow for her. She honestly enjoys her work as ER Director. I’m sure it’s hard to accept, especially since she’s already lost so much of her independence, but we all (with the exception of a couple of people) think this could be the best thing for her. I do and I don’t, and I say I don’t simply because I know she doesn’t enjoy not being able to do much – being holed up all day.

I’m still playing catch up on my work. I’ve made a huge dent, thankfully.

There’s been a lot of progress on the renovation of my new house. I can’t remember if I ever gave any details about the house. It’s a brick house with 4 bedrooms (one will be the office, one master, one guest room and a bedroom for my nephews when they visit) and 2 baths. It has a separate dining room off of the small kitchen (and when I say small, I mean itsy bitsy). It also has a beautiful living room with a wood burning fire place. With the exception of the kitchen, bathrooms and east side hallway, the floors are the original hardwood. They recently put down laminate wood floors in the kitchen and down the east side hallway. I would love to eventually do this through the entire house, with the exception of the bathrooms which I’d love to re-tile.

The only room that is currently lacking is the pink bathroom, which I’ve now dubbed the pepto powder room. I really love the character of older homes, and things like the older style tiles but the pink is nauseating. So many different shades on the wall and the floor. Without gutting the entire thing, I have no ideas to tone that room down. Aside from using a white shower curtain. Any suggestions? You can see it if you scroll down through the photos below – you can’t miss it! They’re still working on it, and since the photo was taken they’ve put in a new toilet. There is still painting to do (I asked for them to paint the walls above the tile white). The only thing I can think of is checking to see if I can paint over the tile.

They’re also working on the exterior this week. They’ve power washed it, put up the new shutters and primed the front door. All that’s left is to put new screens on the windows, touch up the trim work, finish painting the front door and touch up the iron rail around the front porch. I’m going to do my own landscaping. I already have some ideas and Tam’s nephew Nathan is going to help – suppose to help I should say.

I’m planning on painting the kitchen some shade of blue or green, or blue-green/teal/aqua. The office will be teal, and the master bedroom will be a light blue since it will be all shabby-chicish. These changes will be made before I move in so I’ll share updated photos when I have them.

So, here are a few photos I took about a week ago. Excuse any and all messes you’ll see in some of the photos. I took this while they were still doing a lot of the renovations. Also want to say that I love the chandelier my mom bought for me!

The pepto makes me sad.

PS.. I’m not checking for typos. Too tired and still have work to do tonight. Sorry!

My aunt had a relapse. Nearly two weeks ago I was phoned by my youngest sister, who sounded like she’d been crying. It must have been around 11:30pm. I knew something had to be going on for her to phone so late. She said they rushed my aunt back to the ER after an apparent seizure which caused a major change in her mental status. I won’t go into details about what happened because it’s a personal, private matter but I will say that we are now all on alert and having to visually check in on my aunt throughout the day. She spent time in the Neuro ICU at ST Joe’s in Savannah. They have now diagnosed her with a Partial Complex Seizure Disorder. Her seizures are not at all like the convulsing ones. Her seizures, so we’re told, do not last long but the state she’s in after (where many would be groggy or sleepy after having a convulsing type seizure) lasts several hours. We could see she was having multiple seizures while we were in her room in the ICU visiting with her.. she was hooked up to an EEG. Anyway. They have increased her medication by 250mgs to see how she does. The medication is causing some jitters for her and I notice that she fidgets/moves a lot more than previously. This, unfortunately, will be something she will deal with for the rest of her life. With any luck though, they’ll be able to get it under control – hopefully.

I feel like I’ve been run ragged. Dramatic I know, but with all of the back and forth checking up on my aunt, helping the family and driving hours at the time.. I am so exhausted. I’m trying desperately to finish up design work and while my request form is still up, I’m not going to take on any new work for about a week so that I can make a big dent in current projects.

I’m also doing this while dealing with my dad, who is going to be having knee replacement surgery soon… AND moving into a new place. Thankfully the new place won’t be ready for a couple of weeks, so that gives me time, hopefully, to do everything I need to do before taking THAT on.

I know I’ve been bad with this updating thing and catching up, I hope you understand why..