Home Improvements

Please note that this will most likely be an extremely boring post:

There is nothing like the impending visit of tons of friends and family to inspire one to get to work on needed projects. Well with everyone coming to the house after the baptism of Zane, I have gotten to many of my projects. I started last weekend with sealing up the attic, see the previous post on the squirrels. I used some of the expanding foam, which is the greatest invention ever, thanks chemists. I then put some aluminum over this to seal it up for sure. I used the last of the bottle of foam to fill the gap in the back door that was letting water into the garage. This is a temporary fix until I can get up the moxie and cash to replace whatever needs to on the door.

I painted my grill and stained the boards. This is in preparation for the epic smoking event of this coming weekend. Able and I will be smoking a 16.8 lb pork butt for the main dish meat for the baptism. To date, this will be my biggest smoking undertaking of my career and I am looking forward to it. I have stocked up on charcoal, bought a chimney and even cut up and brought home some hickory wood from my dad's.

After painting the grill and sealing the attic, I began painting some other things on the outside of the house. I started with the fences on the side, since they were looking pretty rough. I then took a break from painting on Sunday and replaced the bottoms of the columns in front. This was really necessary and I had been wanting to do this since I moved in. They were rotting and falling apart, but now are new and painted and looking great. I finished up my painting with the front door, also looking nice. There are some imperfections in the door that you can still see, but overall it is looking much better.

Tomorrow night will be cleaning up the garage and mowing the lawn. We have gotten an unbelievable amount of rain the last few days (the seal is working on the door by the way), and the grass is long and ready for a mow. The little trees have finally stopped growing after a nice dose of roundup. This was applied to each tree individually by a soaked jersey glove on my left hand. I had a rubber kitchen glove under that for safety. Very tedious since there are about five hundred, but worth it (they were driving me crazy). My worst nightmare would be going into my attic and seeing a family of squirrels made out of hundreds of tiny baby trees.

First Month as a Father

So Zane will be a month old on Monday the 19th. I can't believe it has already been a whole month. Zane's condition aside, fatherhood definitely has its ups and downs. When little Zane came home, I had a week of vacation and with Audra's family in town, things were pretty easy. Audra and I had to get up at night to tend to Zane's eating requirements, but since we had so much help, napping during the day was no problem. I even go some projects done around the house. During this time I got to spend plenty of time getting to know my son and get more comfortable dealing with a baby.
After this first week, I had to go back to work. This was not fun. Firstly, I missed spending all day at home with my little family, but that is life. Secondly, I could no longer catch up on sleep lost during the night. Everyone knows of my boarder-line unhealthy love of sleeping, and even up to now, I am struggling with less sleep.
I really do love being a dad; having little moments with Zane (usually at 3:30 a.m.), seeing him smile and making him giggle.

Some things I have learned:

1. Put a fresh diaper under the diaper you are getting ready to change, especially if a poop seems eminent.
2. Sometimes it just takes the other person to come in and make Zane go to sleep.
3. Time really does go by quickly now.
4. The bottom pat is key to success.
5. The pee is coming, move quickly.
6. Man has yet to invent a bottle that does not leak on a consistent basis. I cannot believe this, but guess it is true. Come on other types of engineers, how have you not perfected this yet? Just make something that seals well, how hard can this be? All the anti-colic, mouth form fitting nipple technology is no good if it pours out five teaspoons every time you turn the bottle upside down. How about talking to the people who make 20 oz. bottles of soda, those bottles don't leak. Just because yours is of different parts and has to be able to be taken apart, doesn't mean that the feat is not possible. Use your brain and do it. I will pay extra, just make it work.

Zane teaches us new lessons on a daily basis and Audra and I are learning quickly.

On Zane looking like me

Though I could not love my family any more, being adopted is part of my identity. Part of this identity, and kind of a running joke is that I look absolutely nothing like my parents or family. In fact, some say I look more like Audra than any one else.

I always though how weird it was that Trina's kids look like her, since she is in the same boat I am. When Audra and I found out that we were pregnant with Zane, I had a not so secret panic attack that he would resemble me. I know that it is irrational, but I have never met anyone who looked like me, and thought it would be odd.

Well it turns out that he actually looks exactly like me, with the addition of Audra's adorable chin. He has my eyes, nose, mouth and cheeks. He even has my feet with the big gap between my big and second toes. I had thought that this would be strange and creepy, I could not have been any more wrong. I really do love that he looks like me.

Squirrels Permanently Blocked

A few months ago, I started hearing strange noises in the evening and morning. It started with just some general moving around above the master bedroom. My initial thought was that it was a mouse. I proceeded to put some traps out above the garage. After a few days of continued noise and no luck with the traps, the noises began to get more and more aggressive. There began to be some gnawing, then some running and bounding. It became clear that there were squirrels in the attic. I proceeded to buy some strong pepper spray from Lowe's. I intelligently picked a random 90 degree day to spray this throughout the attic. No problems to start with, but as I got deeper and deeper into the portion above the garage, I began to get worried for my health. The pepper spray was unbelievably strong. I had on a safety glasses and gloves for safety. I got to the deepest part where there is a small opening between the two parts of the house. Just as I sprayed into this area there was a puff of wind that put the spray right back into my face. It literally put me on my knees (there is a hole above the garage door to prove it). I instantly began crying and snotting like never before, and had to belly crawl back out to freedom and fresh air. I then sprayed the main attic. This pepper spray did absolutely no good, as the squirrels just got more and more bold in their living above my bedroom. I finally found where they were coming in and promptly blocked it with a spare piece of fire wood. By the time I got home from work, they had chewed a hole in it. I then blocked it with some bricks and boards, and it has been this way ever since. Though this repair is in a place that I rarely if ever see, I know it was amazingly White Trash looking.
While at Ace Hardware today, I stumbled across the gutter guard section. I have been wanting to put some of this up ever since we moved in and jumped on it today. I went with the cheaper plastic model, $6 for 20'. While making my decision, I stumbled on a three foot section of metal guard for $3. This was perfect for replacing the bricks. I installed it this afternoon along with about 15' of the plastic gutter guard. The metal piece worked perfectly; it fit in and I bolted it to the house. It is completely covered by the other, plastic guard. This may seem very minor, but having the ridiculous looking bricks on the roof was really bothering me.

Update on Zane

Cardiologist appointment today:

"Zanes 'x' is getting worse.' is a phrase I am going to have to get used to. Today's 'x' is his pulmonary stenosis, the narrowing of the artery that carries blood to the lungs. The more I go to these appointments and see his heart on the echo, the more I understand what is going on. I took some time to do a drawing:

One of the biggest revelations of today is that he defect is already there and is not really getting worse, so much as showing itself more and more. The doctor explained that as babies there is quite a bit of resistance to blood flow in the lungs, this is represented by pressure three in the diagram. This pressure kept the valve more open and as his lungs fill out, the pressure will decrease and the valve will begin to open less and less. Since there is a connection between the two chambers, and a pressure differential, there will be flow between the two. Right now, the pressure in the right chamber, Pressure One, is less than that in the left, Pressure Two. This gives way to flow from the left ventricle to the right, such that the oxygen rich blood flows into the right chamber and to the lungs. As the defective valve opens less and less, Pressure One will increase and eventually equal and become greater that Pressure Two, this gives way to flow from the right to left. Oxygen poor blood mixing with the rich and sent out to the body. Once this begins to happen, we will see Zane's color become ashen or blueish.

We may not quite get to this point as they may elect to do the surgery before the cold and flu season hits the hospital. Audra and I do appreciate the thoughts and prayers that are coming our way, please keep them up.

Also, I hate Lebron James.

The Beginning of Blogging

So this is blogging eh? Seems easy enough. I am thinking this blog will be a bit of an outlet. I have always kind of enjoyed writing, so I hope to be able to do this on a fairly regular basis. I am a bit confused on the format. If I have different issues that I am thinking and wanting to share my opinions on, do I post separately or itemize one post. I think to start, I will go with the latter.

Events: Currently we are all excited that the young girl was found. Interestingly enough, she was found only a couple of miles from where I work. I literally drive by the place where she was found on a weekly basis, pretty crazy stuff. Just saw on the news that a 'Person of Interest' was approached by police at which time he shot himself.

Sports: Looking forward to Garcia's start, I read on SI that he is leading the ROY in their internal voting, he is BA. Looks like it is raining there so there may be a delay. If so, I think I may go run.

Zane: Cardiologist appointment tomorrow. I think he has to have an echo, which he hated last time. Audra and I have a ton of questions that we need to remember to ask him. I hope the answers are close to what I am expecting.