We are are as settled as we can be under the circumstances. My parents have headed home and Steve is back to work.
A couple summer projects were on our agenda.
First and foremost, our daughter Gabriella and I attended her orientation at the University of North Carolina school she will be at this fall. The drive, about 4 hours, was a great time to relax and reconnect amid all the chaos of the move. The campus was gorgeous. We were inundated with information about all the school has to offer students and families. Gabi got her schedule approved (she had registered online before hand) and got her major changed from psychology to nursing (I am so proud.). The Orientation was soon over and we headed back home. It’s a long drive. I hope she will be okay with being so far apart.
Our house project for the summer was to completely gut the second floor. Steve had started some demo in the front bedroom before we moved down. He wanted to see what was between the ceiling and the roof, as well as, what was behind the knee walls. Nothing! The walls, ceiling and floors are all the original tongue and groove pine. It was in great shape but they used
so many nails when installing it, it will be impossible to save and reuse.
Our son, Zach and I were a two “man” wrecking crew. We would tear down the wood boards, stack them in the back bedroom and take turns throwing them out the window to the deck below, so we could burn them in our bon fire pit. Gabi liked the drill, so she got the task of hardware removal and salvage of anything reusable.
It was tough and dirty work. Imagine 75 years of
dust, dirt, cob webs, bee hives, bugs… We had to
wear goggles and masks with all the dust we were
disturbing and thankfully neither of us had
an asthma flare.
It was also very “hot” work. We took advantage of the cool mornings by starting as soon as it was light enough, but would have to stop late morning when the indoor temps reached the mid-90’s because the outside temps were still near or above 100.
Only one minor incident occurred during the demo. I was having difficulty prying off a door frame and Zach wasn’t having any luck with it either (mind you Steve is at work), so I took a sledge hammer and went at it. I got the door frame off. What I did not anticipate was the board bouncing off the adjacent wall and heading to me. It happened so fast. The board was stuck in my left forearm. I dropped the sledge hammer, pulled the board off my arm and blood was actually squirting out of the hole the nail left. It bled everywhere. Zach did not panic. He asked what I needed. I couldn’t respond. I was exhausted at that point, we had been working for a couple hours. I was dripping with sweat and covered with dirt. I was likely dehydrated. I ran downstairs in search of a towel to stop the bleeding. My autonomic nervous system, which does not work normally on a good day, was in overdrive. My head was swimming, vision tunneled, hearing faded and I knew I was going to pass out. Luckily I got to the floor and put my legs up on the kitchen chair before I did. I held pressure on my arm while Zach held my water so I could drink. After about 20 minutes I felt much better. The bleeding stopped. Zach helped me clean up the bloody mess upstairs. The nail that embedded in my arm was 4 inches long, thankfully only 2 inches of it was exposed to puncture my arm.
The following day I went to the local Health Department for a tetanus shot. I got to meet the friendly nursing staff. I am covered now for at least 5 years. My arm ended up bruised from my wrist up to the elbow and it was painful to grip anything, so the demo was put on hold for a little bit.
