Monday, September 10, 2012

Stressed to the Max

I apologize for my absence....Life has taken over!

As I sit at my desk on this brisk Monday morning, with an ice pack on my back, a bottle of pain killers next to me and black bags under my eyes, I realized that maybe it's time for me to slow down.  I've been go, go, go for about 3 weeks now and my body is finally telling me it needs some rest.

It all started like this.....

There was a huge landscaping project that I knew I wanted finished before winter, so I decided to take the week before Labor Day off from work and get it accomplished.  And since I was already going to be off work, what a perfect time to have a garage sale (yes, that is how my twisted mind thinks)!

On Tuesday morning there were 15 yards of stone dumped on the side of my house.  It took 2 loads to bring it, as the truck could only hold 10 yards at a time.


Load #1
My little brother and I worked for 2 days spreading stone and laying edgers.  It was way harder than I had anticipated.

I was so excited that I forgot to take any "before" pictures.  I just happened to come across this old picture this morning though, so it will have to do.  Please disregard the numbers hanging from our dog run...I was spray painting our table numbers for our wedding.



"BEFORE"

 
"AFTER"

I know that our lawn is not the best looking.....that is next years project!
 
 

"Before" shot of the opposite side of the yard (we only added stone to the back corner and all the way up the side to the left.  You will also notice in the "after" picture our new fence)




"AFTER"

We worked on the rocks Tuesday and Wednesday, then Thursday we started pulling everything out for the garage sale the next day.  I had no idea how much stuff we had!!!  My original thought when I planned the garage sale, was to hopefully make enough money to pay for the rocks.  My new thought quickly became.... PRICE LOW AND GET RID OF EVERYTHING! And that's exactly what we did.  I can happily say that we started out Friday morning with ten 8' folding tables, a rolling closet with hanging clothes, a 15' long rack of hanging clothes, and tons of stuff just laying out in our yard.  By the time we shut down on Saturday I was able to pack all of the remaining items into 4 plastic storage totes!  AHHHH-MAZING!!  And the extra bonus is that we made enough money to pay for over 80% of the cost of the rocks.
 
By Saturday evening I was exhausted, but it was the opener for Michigan football so we decided to go over to my parents house to watch the game.  While we were there I noticed that Lainey wasn't acting herself.  Kind of low-key, not wanting to play with the other dogs and really keeping to herself.  As the evening went on I noticed that she had started limping (again) and she couldn't even get herself in standing position by herself if she was laying down.
 
Long story short....by Tuesday she could no longer walk on her own, so after talking to the vet for about 45 minutes on the phone, we decided to put her under anesthesia and do some testing.  She has been having problems with this same leg since May and we have tried bed rest, chiropractor, acupuncture, supplements...obviously, nothing has been successful.
 
The end result is that she has a torn ACL in her left knee and will undergo surgery next Wednesday.  In the meantime, we have to keep her "contained" as to not further damage the ligaments.
 
Here is her new "hospital room" as we call it


She has been confined to this space about 99% of the time since Wednesday and she is handling it very well.  I think it is harder on me to see her like this, than it is for her actually being stuck in there.

You can tell she doesn't feel well

Our jack russel, Stewie, sits on the outside peering in through the holes in the gate at her.  He can't understand why she can't come out and play.  So, every once in a while, we let him in there with her for "visiting hours".



Please keep us in your thoughts and pray that surgery goes okay next week.  I will try to keep everyone posted.

It's time to apply the ice pack to my back again so I must go....Until next time!








1 comment:

Non Sequitur Chica said...

Wow that was an ambitious landscaping project!! It looks great!

So sorry to hear about Lainey- hopefully her surgery goes well and she is back to new soon!